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New York, August 30, 2007—Niger’s state-run High Council on Communications has banned the broadcast of live debates on an armed rebellion of nomadic Tuaregs in the north of the uranium-rich West African nation, according to local journalists. Attacks by Tuareg fighters have killed at least 45 soldiers since February, according to Reuters. The ruling on Tuesday was linked to the broadcast of a live...

A military court in DR Congo has imposed death sentences on two suspects and two witnesses for the murder of UN radio journalist Serge Maheshe at the end of a trial that was seen to be riddled with absurdities. Two of the four people sentenced to death Tuesday were close friends of Maheshe who were with him when he was gunned down on a Bukavu street on June 13. Serge Maheshe, a political

(SEAPA/IFEX) - A senior member of Thailand's interim National Legislative Assembly (NLA) says martial law may remain in place in 35 Thai provinces in the short term, possibly through to scheduled national elections in December 2007. On 29 August, Prasong Soonsiri, who chairs the NLA's special committee reviewing bills in preparation for the general elections, told Bangkok's English-language daily...

(CJES/IFEX) - The Saratov Volzhsky District Court has ruled in favour of the plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by the Saratov regional section of the United Russia party against the newspaper "Saratovsky Rasklad". The court found the information stated in the article run by the newspaper on 9 August 2007 to be untrue and defamatory to the reputation of the Saratov regional section of the United...

(MFWA/IFEX) - The Libyan President Colonel Mouammar Qadhafi has filed a suit against three Niamey-based independent weekly newspapers for allegedly publishing "false information" that could undermine his honour. The newspapers are "L'Evènement", le "Canard Déchaîné" and "L'Action." Under Nigerian press laws, the editors of the three newspapers, if convicted, could face prison sentences of up to...

Reporters Without Borders condemns yesterday’s seizure of the latest issue of the Arabic-language opposition weekly Al-Midan by the security services. No official explanation was given. “As well as violating the constitution and the law, the authorities have this time targeted a publication that is a symbol of the opposition press,” the organisation said. “Al-Midan is the Communist Party of Sudan...

Reporters Without Borders joins the families and lawyers of imprisoned Kurdish-Iranian journalists Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed “Hiva” Botimar in urging them to call off the hunger strike they began on 14 July. The two journalists are currently under sentence of death. “They are now on the 47th day of their hunger strike and their condition is very worrying,” the press freedom organisation said...

Radio Farda broadcaster Parnaz Azima, who has been trapped in Iran since January, is now facing a charge of acting against Iran's national security by working for the US-funded broadcaster. Azima is already facing charges of working with Radio Farda and spreading propaganda against the Iranian state. Azima and her lawyer, Mohammad Hossein Aqasi, have rejected the charges as baseless. Aqasi told

Saudi Arabia has indefinitely banned the distribution of a leading Arab newspaper, days after the paper carried a report about a Saudi extremist playing a key role in a violent Iraqi al-Qaida front group. It was unclear if the Iraqi article was the main impetus for the ban, or merely the culmination of several weeks of disputes, mostly on other issues, between the Al Hayat newspaper and the...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has freed one of three journalists accused of publishing "lies" about the ruling system in the Islamic Republic after his family paid bail of 500 million rials ($54,000), a news agency said on Wednesday. Farshad Gorbanpour, who worked for a pro-reform daily shut down in July, told the ISNA news agency he was released on Sunday from Tehran's Evin prison. The Paris-based...