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The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for greater protection of journalists following eight media workers being injured in a bomb blast in Karachi. "News making can be a dangerous profession," said IFJ president Christopher Warren. "Which is why it is essential that media employers and the government ensure the protection of journalists while covering the news," said Warren...

(Adil Soz/IFEX) - On 11 April 2006 in Almaty, unknown individuals broke into the apartment of Ramazan Yesergepov, a journalist for "Alma-ata info" newspaper, in his absence. The intruders forced Yesergepov's entrance door open and stole some gold items from his house. The police arrived 45 minutes later, saying they did not have enough gasoline to get to Yesergepov's home faster. Yesergepov...

Press freedom and human rights in Burundi suffered a severe blow yesterday, when around thirty journalists and human rights monitors were held -- and some severely assaulted -- by police officers after a press conference in Kinindo, Bujumbura. The press conference had been called by the CNDD-FDD parliamentarian Mathias Basabose. The journalists faced no difficulties in gaining access to the...

Writers in Bangladesh have been threatened, imprisoned, attacked and killed for using their pens. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is the latest link in that episode. On November 29 of 2003, he was arrested at the Zia International Airport in Dhaka on his way to address a symposium of the Hebrew Writers Association in Tel Aviv on the role of media in establishing peace. The intelligence sources claim...

New York, April 14, 2006 - Prosecutors in the western city of Kaliningrad have filed criminal libel charges against Arseny Makhlov, publisher of the weekly Dvornik, the Moscow-based news agency Regnum reported today. The charges relate to three articles in Dvornik during 2004 and 2005 which criticized a local prosecutor for accepting money to close a fraud case against a government official. "This...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep concern about a wave of harassment and arrests of journalists working for the opposition newspaper "Minivan". Mohamed Yushau, its correspondent in the south of the country, was arrested on 9 April 2006 for allegedly refusing to respond to a police summons and was put in Dhoonidhoo prison near Male. Musa Ismael, a correspondent in the southwest...

(FLIP/IFEX) - Journalist Hollman Morris, director of the television programme "Contravía", has complained to FLIP about the circulation of a video from an organization calling itself the "Social Front for Peace" ("Frente Social por la Paz", FSP), accusing him of being an international spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC), the...

(New York, April 17, 2006) - Instead of attacking the news media for reporting allegations of criminal activity in a Colombian intelligence agency, President Álvaro Uribe should ensure a full investigation of the charges, Human Rights Watch said today. Over the last two weeks, major news media have extensively reported on allegations of paramilitary infiltration of the Colombian executive branch's...

(MRA/IFEX) - Alfred Egbegi, publisher of the weekly newspaper "Izon Link", who was arrested by the police in Yenogoa, the Bayelsa state capital in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria on 12 April 2006, has been released from custody, but is now facing criminal charges in court. Egbegi was released on bail in the evening of 12 April, hours after his arrest and detention, but was charged by the police...

Reporters Without Borders has learned from the deputy prime minister of human rights, Abderamane Djasnabaille, that FM Liberté journalist and special envoy for the city of Mongo, Eliakim Vanambyl, for whom there was no news since 11 April 2006, has been found safe and sound. Arrested by a unit of United Front for Change (FUC) rebels when they entered the city, Vanambyl was found on 15 April at the...