(IPYS/IFEX) - On 14 September 2007, National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) personnel working at the jail in Chimbote, a port in northern Peru, fired upon several journalists with breech-loading guns in order to prevent them from photographing the hunger strike started by prison inmates. The journalists targeted were Shirley Oliva Cuevas of "La Industria de Chimbote", Alex Martínez Pajuelo of...
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders calls on the foreign ministries of the leading democracies to mark the sixth anniversary of the start of a wave of arrests in Asmara by summoning Eritrea's ambassadors to express disapproval for a crackdown that led to the suppression of all freedoms and the imprisonment of more than 10 journalists in unknown locations. Governments that believe in press...
(MFWA/IFEX) - Nasser Diallo, a reporter with Nolstagie FM, was on 6 September 2007 assaulted by officials of the "Coordination des Associations de Jeunesse de Guinée" (CAJEG), a coordinated youth group in Guinea. The leader of the group, Alassane Sylla, detained Diallo for several hours and confiscated the journalist's microphone and tape recorder. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)...
Reporters Without Borders today protested at the brutal closure of Radio Orión in Pisco, southwestern Peru, using a bogus administrative reason to mask an act of censorship after the government made serious accusations against its proprietor. It also condemned pressure and threats made the same week against the community radio Cutivalú in Piura, in the northwest of the country, for refusing to...
Manama: Bahrain's information ministry yesterday denied reports that it had granted Al Vefagh, the daily Arabic newspaper of the official Iranian news agency, the rights to publish in Bahrain. "The claims about issuing a circulation licence to the Iranian newspaper are untrue and lack credibility. We have never received a request from Al Vefagh," said Abdullah Yateem, the information...
Reporters Without Borders condemns a violent assault on Tope Abiola, the deputy editor of the privately-owned Nigeria Tribune daily newspaper, who was beaten unconscious by prison guards and police at Agadi prison in Ibadan (in the southwestern state of Oyo) on 11 September while trying to cover the aftermath of a riot by inmates. “Nigerian journalists are often subjected to violence on the least...
Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities to investigate armed attacks on Radio Nuevo Mundo installations on 4 September in Salamá, in Baja Verapaz department, and on 11 September in Guatemala City. The ongoing elections have been marred by an alarming level of violent crime and the press freedom organisation urges the president who is elected in the 4 November run-off to immediately take...
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- -- Colombian authorities on Thursday arrested two local politicians in connection with the April 2003 killing of Jose Emeterio Rivas, a radio reporter who had denounced links between local government and paramilitary groups. The arrests in the northern city of Barrancabermeja were welcomed by rights groups that have long complained of official impunity in Colombia. Last March...
(MFWA/IFEX) - On 11 September 2007, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ivorian police summoned five journalists of two pro-opposition daily newspapers for allegedly publishing stories they claimed cast a slur on the reputation of President Laurent Gbagbo. Two of the journalists, Coulibaly Seydou and Alexis Noume, are editors of "Le Jour Plus". The other three, Assouan N' Gueeta...
(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the recent interrogations, threats and harassment of journalists reporting on government spending in Côte d'Ivoire. Three journalists have been interrogated for the last three days by criminal police and threatened with death by a Member of Parliament, in relation to articles said to be defamatory towards the President...
