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(MISA/IFEX) - On 18 May 2006, the Supreme Court of Swaziland reversed a July 2005 decision by the High Court of Swaziland that obliged the "Times of Swaziland" newspaper to pay Swaziland's deputy prime minister, Albert Shabangu, a staggering E750 000 (approx. US$116,000) for alleged defamation. Shabangu lost the case with costs and has to pay more than E60 000 (approx. US$10,000) in legal fees...

(New York, May 19, 2006) - The former parliamentarian and activist Térence Nahimana should be released at once, Human Rights Watch said today, adding that his imprisonment raises questions about freedom of expression in Burundi. Nahimana was jailed after he questioned why the Burundian government had not opened peace negotiations with the National Liberation Forces (FNL), a rebel movement that...

(FLIP/IFEX) - FLIP is concerned about several acts of aggression against journalists in the Cauca and Huila departments during indigenous marches against the Free Trade Deal (FTA) and other public policies of concern to these communities in the country's south. In Cauca department: At least four media personnel from Cauca have been illegally held since 17 May 2006 at the police station in Piendamó...

MIAMI, Florida (May 19, 2006) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed concern at what it called a ridiculous action aimed at silencing the press - the decision of the Bolívar State Legislature in Venezuela to begin administrative proceedings for the eviction and demolition of the plant of the Correo del Caroní newspaper. The action was taken after a special commission of the...

New York, May 19, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an arson attack on the Brazilian newspaper Tribuna Livre in São Sebastião, which had covered nearly a week of fighting between criminal gangs and police in the nearby city of São Paulo, according to national and international press reports. Three masked gunmen stormed into the offices of the daily early on Thursday. They beat...

(MISA/IFEX) - On 19 May 2006, South African photographer John Liebenberg was arrested for trying to take photographs of the Hollywood couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who are due to have their first baby soon. Liebenberg was arrested in the yard of a police station in the coastal town of Walvis Bay, some 400 kilometres west of the capital, Windhoek. The police station adjoins a private clinic...

(RSF/IFEX) - The abduction and severe beating on the night of 18 May 2006 of Bahaddin Khaziyev, the editor of the daily "Bizim Yol", was the second apparent murder attempt against an opposition journalist in the past three months, said Reporters Without Borders. "The same exceptionally violent methods were used," the press freedom organisation said. "Both journalists were kidnapped by an...

New York, May 17, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that Colombian journalist Pedro Antonio Cárdenas Cáceres was forced to flee his hometown after getting death threats in the wake of his reports on government corruption in central Tolima province. Cárdenas, director of the biweekly La Verdad in the city of Honda, left for Bogotá with his family on Saturday after finding...

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan has tightened restrictions on foreign press traveling to Darfur and has not issued any travel permits to its violent western region since a peace deal was signed earlier this month. Experts who have watched Darfur since the conflict erupted in early 2003 say this is the most restrictive the government has been on access since the height of the conflict in 2004. U.N...

Manila - A Filipino correspondent for Time magazine was barred from leaving the Philippines on Thursday to compel her to shed light on the alleged plot to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in late February, a justice official said. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said Nelly Sindayen was placed under the immigration bureau watch list until she responded to the summons of the National Bureau of...