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The publication director of the Kinshasa-based weekly "AfricaNews" has been arrested and jailed on the orders of the Prosecutor's Office of the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court. Three judicial police officers arrested Michel Mukebayi Nkosso at his home early in the morning on November 24. He was immediately transferred to a jail cell at the prosecutor's office, according to the Kinshasa-based press

The press in Bangladesh is fast being forced into a corner with all arms of the establishment ganging up to clamp down on journalists. The last move comes in the form of an annoucement of the chairman of the country's press council that all relevant political figures have agreed to amend a crucial provision of the Press Council Act. Riot police beat a group of opposition activists during a rally

Mediapersons and media houses in South Asia have suffered acute harassment during the first three quarters of 2005. They were killed, threatened with death, tortured physically and mentally, arrested, and detained both by state and non-state actors, according to a report. The report by Media Monitor South Asia has specifically referred to the pathetic condition of journalists in Nepal and Pakistan

KAMPALA, Nov. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- The Ugandan government has slapped a ban on all media houses against debating or holding talk-shows on cases pending before court, including that of opposition leaderKiiza Besigye currently facing treason charges. Minister of State for Information Nsaba Buturo told Xinhua by telephone on Thursday that the ban took immediate effect and threatened to close down any...

Poland’s two leading newspapers have blacked out large sections of their front pages Wednesday in an eye-catching protest against media repression in neighboring Belarus, Associated Press reported. The main pages of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita looked as if a censor had taken a black marker to them, with most text and photographs crossed out. Amnesty International, which led the protest...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged Commonwealth heads of government to see that people killing journalists because of their work were duly punished, so the Commonwealth could become "a true home of democracy and freedom." The RSF said on Thursday that 15 journalists had been killed in member-states Bangladesh, Gambia, India, Pakistan, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka since the last summit in

Two Chechen men charged in the July 2004 murder of Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov in Moscow will be tried in secret at the direction of the Russian prosecutor-general. The prosecutor's office said Monday that it was ready to proceed against the two defendants. Paul Klebnikov had written a number of books and articles that angered his subjects. In 2001 his bestseller "Godfather of the Kremlin"

While intimidation and wide-scale violence are making the headlines of Egypt's hottest ever parliamentary elections, the state-owned media coverage and performance in general reflected a deep state of chaos, "highly indicative" of the political atmosphere in the largest Arab country. "The state-owned largest three press corporations have revealed their true face in covering the elections. The...

Three police officers suspected of killing a journalist and his wife in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) earlier this month were presented by the police at a press conference in capital Kinshasa. "We were able to catch the suspects because they took away the journalist's phone," Katsuva Wa Katsuvira, inspector-general of police, said at the National Police Headquarters on Monday, the

NEWSPAPERS editors were threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act last night if they published details of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in which the President is alleged to have suggested bombing al-Jazeera, the Arab news network. Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, informed newspapers editors including that of The Times that "publication of a document that...