MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's security bodies intend to repatriate a Russian reporter for allegedly taking part in mass anti-NATO protests in the Crimea, a Russian newspaper official said Friday. Alexander Kots, a special correspondent covering developments in hot spots for the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid, was ordered out of the former Soviet republic after a week on the Crimean...
Nouakchott - The military junta in Mauritania has adopted a new media law, scrapping previous requirements for newspapers to obtain government permits before publishing, according to reports on Thursday. Government spokesperson Cheik Ould Ebb, cited by the official Agence Mauritanienne d'Information (AMI) news agency, said the new law "puts to an end the censorship system". "The law aims at...
New York, June 8, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled that two journalists are to go on trial in Uganda, charged with “promoting sectarianism” in an article criticizing government persecution of opposition leader Kizza Besigye. Editor James Tumusiime and reporter Semujju Ibrahim Nganda of the independent Weekly Observer face up to five years in jail if convicted. Their...
(FMM/IFEX) - The Free Media Movement is extremely concerned about the arbitrary decision taken by the authorities to seal the private satellite broadcasting station CBN Sat on the night of Tuesday June 6 2006. This company has been broadcasting in Sri Lanka for over one year and has publicly advertised their services. Many Sri Lankans who wish to watch satellite broadcast programmes including...
(FLIP/IFEX) - The Prosecutor General's Office (Fiscalía General de la Nación) has pressed charges against two members of right-wing paramilitary groups for the 6 April 2003 murder of journalist José Emeterio Rivas Rivas in Barrancabermeja, the capital of Santander department, and against the city's former mayor, Julio César Ardila Torres, for facilitating paramilitary groups' actions in the region...
MOSCOW // When Russia's president hailed his country's record on press freedom this week, he omitted the newest, significant exception to the rights of the press: Journalistic freedom here apparently no longer extends to calling President Vladimir V. Putin unflattering names. The evidence includes prosecutors last month charging the editor of an online newspaper with the criminal offense of...
The head of the Russian Agency for Press and Mass Communications has said that the major state companies would dispose of their media assets in the near future. In his Thursday interview with the Echo Moskvy radio Mikhail Seslavinskiy said that “these organizations should not keep their media assets� and should part with them at a good price.” “We realize that the sale should go ahead soon, but it...
(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, June 7, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the prison sentence handed down to a Syrian online journalist by a military court for articles advocating rights for Syria's Kurdish minority, and criticizing the ruling Baath Party. Muhammad Ghanem, editor of the news Web site Surion, was found guilty Tuesday of insulting the president, undermining...
New York, June 7, 2006— The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the ongoing criminal prosecution of journalists in Turkey. Three journalists are before the courts in Istanbul this week for their work. Perihan Magden, a columnist for the weekly magazine Yeni Aktuel, went on trial today charged with discouraging Turks from performing military service by defending conscientious objectors...
Police yesterday raided the New Times office in Kampala looking for information pertaining the publication of the scanned copies of passports belonging to Ignace Murwanashyaka and other Rwandan dissidents. The two senior investigative officers, Moses Sakira and Moses Binoga from Criminal investigations department arrived at The New Times office seeking information on how the publication obtained...
