Reporters Without Borders today expressed its deep concern at threats and attacks by elected officials against journalists in several parts of the country throughout November, including a murder attempt, and slammed government silence on the issue. The mayor of Huari in the west, his armed henchmen and several municipal officials came close to killing journalist José Ramírez Villacorta in an...
Reporters Without Borders condemns an arson attack early today on the printing press of the Sunday Leader media group, which is located in a high security area outside Colombo. The approximately 15 gunmen who staged the attack must have had support within the security forces, the press freedom organisation said. "Armed men have once again attacked a independent news media in a high security area...
Reporters Without Borders today called on the authorities to stop harassing journalists working for the Dubai-based satellite TV station Al-Arabiya. Two of the station’s journalists have been detained in the past three weeks after covering anti-government demonstrations. “This is not the first time that journalists trying to report on popular discontent have been prevented from working by the...
November 21, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- A representative for a respected Moscow-based rights group has linked the recent murder of a prominent Kyrgyz journalist to Uzbekistan's presidential election scheduled for next month. Alisher Saipov, an ethnic Uzbek whose reports frequently criticized the authorities in neighboring Uzbekistan, was gunned down in southern Kyrgyzstan on October 24. Vitalii Ponomarev of...
NEW YORK, Nov 21 (IPS) - Nearly 500 journalists have been murdered in the last 15 years, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and about 85 percent of those crimes have gone unpunished. On Tuesday, CPJ honoured five journalists who embody courage in the face of censorship with its 2007 International Press Freedom Awards. The situation in the countries from which...
LAHORE: Political pundit and talk show host Dr Shahid Masood appeared live from Dubai on Geo News last Saturday. This was no ordinary broadcast. Geo, which had been beaming worldwide from the Arab emirate since its inception in 2002, had been verbally informed that it was being shut down. “We are proud of this moment,” said Masood, visibly shaken as a clock counted down the minutes to the...
(RSF/IFEX) - RSF condemns the arrest of three activists of the pro-democracy party Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform Party), including Frenchwoman Nguyen Thi Thanh Van, a renowned freedom of expression activist. Nguyen Thi Thanh Van is a regular contributor to the Vietnamese community media in exile: the monthly "Viet Nam Dan Chu" ("Democracy in Vietnam") and Radio Chan Troi Moi (New Horizon - the voice of...
(BIANET/IFEX) - Gün TV, a local station in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, is the only channel to have broadcast Kurdish programmes for the past year and a half. However, the channel, which is legally allowed to broadcast four hours a week in Kurdish, has faced many difficulties, both over its news and music programmes. Gün Radio-TV representative Ahmet Birsin says that, because they are obliged...
(CEPET/IFEX) - Miguel Domínguez Gallegos, the "Reforma" newspaper correspondent in Reynosa, a city in Tamaulipas state, was verbally attacked by Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca, the acting mayor of the city, which is located in Mexico's northeast. The incident took place during an 11 November 2007 event at which local members of the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN)...
(FXI/IFEX) - The Freedom of Expression Institute is disturbed by the growing number of violations of the freedom of expression of workers. Four cases have been brought to the FXI's attention of workers who are either being disciplined for utterances they have made, or who have already been dismissed. These cases point to a growing trend where attempts are being made by employers to silence...
