(MFWA/IFEX) - Lamin Fatty, a reporter for the Banjul-based bi-weekly "Independent" newspaper, who has been in police detention for the past seven weeks, was charged with publishing false information on 21 May 2006 by the Gambian Police Force's Crime Management Squad. While Fatty is yet to be arraigned before a court of law, Musa Saidykhan, the newspaper's editor, has gone into hiding for fear of...
(RSF/IFEX) - The German Parliament (Bundestag) has posted on its website ( http://www.bundestag.de/aktuell/pkg/index.html ) part of a report by a former judge revealing that the country's external intelligence service, the BND, has been spying on journalists. Some passages were censored and names replaced by initials at the request of the journalists. The report was posted on 26 May 2006. BND...
(RSF/IFEX) - Palestinian journalist Awad Rajoub, a reporter for the Arabic-language website of the satellite TV station Al Jazeera, was freed on 24 May 2006 after being held by the Israeli authorities for six months. He was arrested on 30 November 2005 at his home in Doura, 10 km outside the West Bank city of Hebron, and accused by the Israeli military of "threatening state security." The Al...
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has written to Polish justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro to alert him to serious threats being made against Polish journalists by Redwatch, an extreme right-wing group that advocates violence. Redwatch-Poland ( http://www.redwatch.info/sites/redwatch.htm ) has posted a list of 15 left-wing and far-left journalists and directly threatened them with reprisals for...
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the arrests of two bloggers, Mohammed Sharkawy and Karim El-Shaer, during a demonstration at the Press Syndicate in Cairo on 25 May 2006, and the behaviour of the police in using violence to disperse protestors, and attacking "Los Angeles Times" correspondent Hossam El-Hamalwy as he was trying to cover the event. "The eye-witness accounts we...
(IAPA/IFEX) - Miami (May 26, 2006) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today voiced its concern over the possible introduction of legislation in the US Congress that would punish the disclosure of classified information generally. At the same time, it endorsed views expressed by two national newspaper organizations whose arguments were prepared for a legislative public hearing to take...
(FXI/IFEX) - The FXI is deeply disturbed about recent reports regarding the SABC's decision not to [broadcast] a documentary on South African President Thabo Mbeki scheduled for Wednesday of last week. Apparently the documentary takes a critical look at the President's governance style, including what many commentators have referred to as a growing centralisation of government. Several newspaper...
(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 26, 2006 - Police in the Gambia on Monday summoned contributors and sources for the U.S.-based Web site Freedom Newspaper ( http://www.freedomnewspaper.com). Local sources told the Committee to Protect Journalists today that at least one local journalist was detained in connection with the summonses, and that others may have been picked up by security forces. Calls by...
New York, May 25, 2006–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by attacks on the Egyptian press related to coverage of alleged election fraud and protests over judicial independence. The Egyptian state security prosecutor brought criminal charges on Wednesday against three journalists who alleged fraud in last year’s parliamentary elections. Security and police officers assaulted...
(CIHRS/IFEX) - Today, on the first anniversary of the attacks made on referendum day, 24 Egyptian NGOs announced that the African Commission for Human and Peoples' Rights, of the African Union, has decided to take on the lawsuit that organizations have raised against the Egyptian government over the physical and sexual harassment a number of female journalists and political activists were...
