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New York, July 17, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists has confirmed that Solomon Aregawi, owner of the defunct Amharic-language newspaper Hadar, has been charged with antistate crimes in connection with his journalistic work. This raises the number of journalists jailed for their work in Ethiopia to 18 from 17, according to CPJ research. Three are serving lengthy sentences under Ethiopia’s...

Twenty-eight months after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak promised to initiate legislations to decriminalise press offences comes a new law which does not do enough to protect journalists from prosecution for reporting stories critical of the government. The law, in fact, sharply increases fines for defamation. A BAD CUFF: An Egyptian journalist cuffs his hands in a symbolic gesture during a

Gambian authorities have flattered to deceive. After a token respite while playing host to the African Union summit, the Gambian government has once again started targeting the press. One journalist has not been seen since July 7, five days after the summit ended. He is believed to have been arrested, while another has gone into hiding fearing arrest, according to the Committee to Protect

The editor of the Diario de Noticias is to post ?4.000 bail within the next five days. He is accused of collaborating with an armed group helping extort money. Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón Friday ordered the provisional release on bail of the editor of a Basque newspaper arrested early this week on suspicion of collaborating with an armed group after he allegedly acted as intermediary between ETA...

Ukraine has barred Russia’s top TV presenter Mikhail Leontiev from entering the country in what is seen as a response to his derogatory remarks about the Ukrainian nation and the president. Leontiev hosts a political analysis program on Russian’s pro-Kremlin TV network. Ukrane’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that Russian journalist Mikhail Leontiev had been barred from Ukraine. “Indeed, the...

Twenty-five Islamic publications in the Arab world have established a new cooperative network, Al-Jazeera reported. The newly-launched Association of the Islamic Press includes periodicals and newspapers in 12 Middle Eastern and North African countries. Its stated aims are to develop more professional journalism among Islamic publications, and to share expertise among its members. According to an...

New York, July 14, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists expresses its grave concern about a lawsuit filed by the Cambodian government against Dam Sithek, publisher of the Khmer-language Moneakseka newspaper, for allegedly publishing false information. Deputy Prime Minister Sok An filed the charges through a government lawyer earlier this week over a June 13 article that accused the government...

Reporters Without Borders expressed shock and dismay after Vladimir Lutiev, editor of the weekly Evpatoriskaya Nedelia, was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Sebastopol appeal court in the autonomous republic of Crimea, according to a press-release, forwarded to UNIAN by the Reporters Without Borders. He had been held in custody since 30 June 2005 on the basis of a charge of attempted...

(RSF/IFEX) - A year after "Le Matin" journalist Jacques Roche was kidnapped in Port-au-Prince on 10 July 2005 and was found dead four days later, Reporters Without Borders has voiced anger and bitterness that the investigation has ground to a halt and the suspects who were arrested have not been brought to trial. "Roche's death showed to what degree the militias in the pay of the former regime of...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - Burma's new monthly magazine, "New Spectator", has been forced to cancel its July 2006 issue after heavy censorship stripped it of four lead articles. "New Spectator" publisher Ko Aung told Mizzima.com, a Delhi-based Burmese online news organization, that the four articles rejected by the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division included a cover story titled "Prospects for our...