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(AMARC/IFEX) - AMARC condemns the closure of various radio stations belonging to the Paraguayan Association of Community Communication (Asociación Paraguaya de Comunicación Comunitaria, COMUNICA), due to the strong pressure brought to bear upon the courts by commercial radio companies. On 10 July 2007, the radio station Chokokue FM, located in the city of Minga Guazú and run by the Paraguayan...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF is concerned about the health and safety of Cuba's imprisoned journalists, especially Normando Hernández González, the editor of the Colegio de Periodistas Independientes de Camagüey, an independent news agency, who is still waiting for the special medical release his wife requested for him a year ago because of his poor health. This concern is heightened by the news of the death...

(FMM/IFEX) - The FMM has been informed by the Polonnaruwa Provincial Journalists Association that B. A. Wijerathna Podibanda, the Aralaganvila correspondent for the broadcasting station MTV/SIRASA, was threatened and assaulted by officials from the Mahaweli Authority. The incident occurred on Saturday, 14 July 2007. Wijerathna was assaulted when he went to the Araganvila Children's Park to capture...

(MFWA/IFEX) - Seedy Bojang, a journalist working for the Banjul-based, pro-government "Daily Observer" newspaper, was on July 9, 2007 dismissed by the newspaper's management. The reasons for his dismissal are not clear. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources attributed it to some changes he allegedly made to the caption of a recent editorial in the paper. The sources quoted the newspaper...

(Adil Soz/IFEX) - Journalist Gennady Benditskiy and the newspaper he works for, "Vremya", have to pay a total of 1.7 million tenge (approx.US$14,000) to Justice Ministry officer Raikhan Useyev and lawyer Valeriy Alefirenko, following the courts' affirmation of their lawsuits. On 29 June 2007, the Zhetesu district court in Almaty ordered "Vremya" and Benditskiy to pay 200,000 tenge (approx. US$1...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today welcomed the launch in Morocco of an observatory on press and media freedom to monitor the state of press freedom and document the social and professional conditions of journalists throughout the Arab world. The observatory was opened yesterday in Rabat by the Federation of Arab Journalists' (FAJ), with a keynote address by IFJ...

(RSF/IFEX) - On 12 July 2007 Reporters Without Borders wrote to Prime Minister Driss Jettou voicing concern that a proposed overhaul of the press law currently being discussed by the government does not decriminalize press offences. The organisation called for significant changes in the current draft, which appears not to be the final version that will be submitted to parliament. "Your government...

(BIANET/IFEX) - A software company in Turkey recently blocked the BIANET website, http://www.bianet.com , acting not on a court order but instead from a list of "forbidden websites" allegedly based on a police list. The discovery was made following readers' complaints of not being able to access the BIANET website. BIANET is concerned that a software application designed to protect children from...

Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about threats and advertising boycotts against journalists and media during the past few days in the states of Puebla, Guanajuato and Yucatán, which were reported by the Centre for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET). These press freedom violations by local politicians and criminal gangs are typical of the kind of pressure to which the Mexican media...

Baku appeal court judge Rasul Safarov issued a ruling on 11 July confirming the Sabail district court’s decision to keep newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev in the national security ministry’s detention centre. Fatullayev is serving a 30-month sentence for libel but new terrorism charges were recently brought against him. Four employees of Gundelik Azerbaijan (one of the two newspapers he edits) -...