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(CMFR/IFEX) - After three long years, the wheels of justice may finally catch up with the killers of an Ilocano broadcast journalist, one of the 33 journalists killed in the line of duty during the Arroyo Administration. Currently being tried in Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 54, the Roger Mariano case is moving towards a resolution. Two witnesses have positively identified Senior Police...

MOSCOW -- Once, Andrei Kalitin was part of a new breed of young, hot-shot Russian journalists, riding the wave of openness that washed over the country when the former Soviet Union collapsed. As a reporter for the independent, investigative television program Sovershenno Sekretno (Top Secret), Mr. Kalitin covered war, organized crime and political scandal with equal gusto - and collected a slew of...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the detention of Abdirahman Mohammed Habane of Jamhuuriya, a daily newspaper based in Hargeisa, the capital of the breakaway state of Somaliland. He has been held since 12 July. “The hostility of the Somaliland authorities towards journalists must stop,” the press freedom organisation said. “Habane is the second journalist to be arrested in three weeks...

Reporters Without Borders today voiced its support for the demands of the family, friends and colleagues of Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor of Armenian descent who was gunned down in Istanbul exactly six months ago on 19 January 2007. “We call on the authorities to pursue their investigation and to shed light on all aspects of this case,” the press freedom organisation said. “The trial of Dink’s...

(FMM/IFEX) - The Supreme Court of Sri-Lanka declared the detention of journalist Sivanathan Sivaramya by the police on 1 May 2006 illegal and ordered the two officers responsible to pay 50,000 Sri Lankan rupees (approx. US$446) in compensation to the journalist. The Supreme Court decision was announced on 16 July 2007 by a three-member bench comprising the Chief Justice and two other judges. At...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned police and judicial harassment of independent journalist Claudia Acuña, which began on 11 July after she revealed the existence of a Buenos Aires prostitution ring controlled by certain authorities by means of threats. The founder of the online news agency La Vaca and the affiliated MU newspaper, Acuña has already been fined 3,000 pesos (700 euros). “It is...

Paraguayan journalist Enrique Galeano has resurfaced 17 months after he went missing on February 4, 2006 in the central department of Concepción, where he lived and worked. The Paraguayan press reported on Monday that Galeano resurfaced in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, where he went into hiding after being threatened by gangsters. He is now in Uruguay, where he has requested political asylum

(BIANET/IFEX) - After an article on pre-election opinions in Batman, a south-eastern province, was published in the "Gündem" newspaper on 12 July 2007, an Istanbul penal court has closed the newspaper for 15 days. Cause for the closure was an article published on 12 July (issue no. 132), entitled: "The Batman Message: Stand By the Guerrillas". The newspaper has been closed for periods of 30 and 15...

A Russian manager of German media group Bertelsmann has been found murdered at her country house, local prosecutors said on Monday. Bertelsmann said there is no connection between its business and the murder. The deputy manager of German publisher, Bertelsmann's Russia office was found dead in her country house outside of Moscow, Russian prosecutors said in a statement on Monday. "The body of 47...

Reporters Without Borders condemns the prosecution of the owner of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, Serkis Seropyan, his editor Arat Dink, and one his reporters, Aydin Engin, who are due to appear before a criminal court in Sisli, Istanbul, on 18 July. Seropyan and Dink are charged with “insulting Turkish identity” under article 301 of the criminal code. Engin is accused of insulting the court...