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(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders calls on the secretary of the Maldives parliament, the People's Majlis, to rescind a ban on reporter Lushan Saeed of the daily "Miadhu" from entering the parliament building until the end of the year. Saeed, who specialises in parliamentary affairs, was notified of the ban in a letter from the parliament's secretariat on 17 September 2007. He is being...

(RSF/IFEX) - The authorities announced the suspension of a finance ministry official on 14 September 2007 for criticising the military government in blog posts. The announcement came eight days after the military proclaimed a state of emergency to prevent the return from exile of former Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, who is accused of inciting the military government's overthrow. Charges were...

(MISA/IFEX) - The chief executive officer of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH), Henry Muradzikwa, has admitted that political interference and censorship of news reports is the order of the day at the state-controlled national broadcaster. Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications, Muradzikwa said interference with ZBH's editorial policy and...

(AJI/IFEX) - AJI condemns the actions of the Indonesian police and the telecommunications company P.T. Telkom in tapping the cellular telephone account of "TEMPO" journalist Metta Dharmasaputra, and circulating print-out copies of text messages and conversations recorded without the journalist's consent. P.T. Telkom acknowledges that it released the documents at the request of the police. This...

Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of Moussa Kaka, director of privately-owned Radio Saraouniya and Niger correspondent of Radio France Internationale and Reporters Without Borders, who was arrested yesterday evening and who is being held at police headquarters in Niamey. “Our correspondent’s arrest indicates that, under pressure from the Tuareg rebellion, the Niger...

The former head of a district in Chechnya has been charged as an accomplice in organizing the execution-style murder of a Russian investigative journalist, his lawyer said Friday. Shamil Burayev, who was detained by police last week in Moscow, was charged with "complicity in murder as an accomplice" in the death of Anna Politkovskaya, defense lawyer Pyotr Kozakov told The Associated Press. He gave...

The Iranian justice system has just made public charges against journalists Ako Kurdnasab and Soheil Assefi, in two unconnected cases, more than one month after the two were arrested. They are among a total of ten journalists currently behind bars in Iran, one of them, Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand, who was arrested on 1st July 2007, still does not know what charges he faces. “Iran is one of the Middle...

Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about Amaury Ribeiro Junior, a crime reporter with the Correio Braziliense national daily, who was hospitalised yesterday after being shot in the stomach on a street in the Brasilia suburb of Cidade Occidental, where he had gone to cover organised crime. “We do not yet know if Ribeiro was personally targeted or if he was the victim of random criminal...

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by an assault on journalist Tomás Eliaschev on 13 September in Buenos Aires in connection with a labour dispute. Eliaschev is the editor of perfil.com, a news website that is part of the Perfil press group. The attack is indicative of the terrible climate currently afflicting the Argentine news media. The press freedom organisation also condemns the arrest and...

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 15 September 2007, during an address broadcast on radio, President Rafael Correa asked the new Constituent Assembly, which will begin its deliberations on 30 September, to further regulate the media so as to "stop them from being able to manipulate information". The president made this request after declaring that the state should have more regulatory powers over media outlets...