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Reporters Without Borders learned today that the General Directorate for Security sent a report to the court trying newspaper editor Hrant Dink’s alleged murderers which says they were not members of a terrorist organisation but were just a group of friends acting on their own initiative under the leadership of Yasin Hayal, one of the defendants. When Hayal was released from prison after serving...

An editorial critical of Gabon President Omar Bongo, Africa's longest-serving head of state, has led authorities in capital Libreville to arrest a publisher and suspend his newspaper. Africa Union Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare (left) talks with Gabon's President Omar Bongo at the 9th African Union Summit in Accra July 1, 2007. (Reuters/Luc Gnago) Guy-Christian Mavioga, director of the

JERUSALEM - The leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip literally dined out Wednesday on the release of British Broadasting Corp. reporter Alan Johnston, sharing breakfast with him in front of television cameras shortly after he was freed following nearly four months as a hostage. Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed Palestinian prime minister from Hamas, draped Johnston with a sash bearing the Palestinian...

CARACAS, Venezuela: A Venezuelan journalist said his car mysteriously burst into flames after repeated threats led him to resign as editor of a Web site critical of President Hugo Chavez. Roger Santodomingo told reporters that his car was parked on a street in Caracas early Wednesday when he heard a small blast and found the vehicle burning. "We heard the ruckus outside and the explosion,"...

ISLAMABAD, July 4: Journalists on Wednesday held a demonstration in front of the Press Information Department (PID) to protest the government’s inability to provide protection to mediapersons during the coverage of the Lal Masjid stand-off in which two journalists have been killed and another critically injured. The journalists started the protests after observing Fateha Khwani for the souls of...

New York, July 3, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the criminal prosecution and unreasonable bail conditions facing Sierra Leonean journalist Philip Neville, the editor of The Standard Times who is being held at the Central Prison in Freetown on libel charges. Defense lawyer J.B. Jenkins Johnston told CPJ that a Freetown court set bail on Monday at 200 million leones (US$68,135)...

JEDDAH, 3 July 2007 — The Ministry of Culture and Information has banned government departments and agencies from publishing advertisements in newspapers in reply to any reports in the local press. The ban is applied on all government departments without exception. Aidha Al-Zahrani, acting assistant deputy minister for internal information at the ministry, said newspapers and journalists would...

(IPYS/IFEX) - Instituto Prensa y Sociedad deplores the support of President Alan García to the censorship of an exhibition of journalistic illustrations by painter Piero Quijano, sponsored initially by the National Institute for Culture (INC). This display of support, inappropriate from someone in his position, aggravates an overbearing act committed by the INC that we have already criticized, and...

Iran's Supreme Court has concluded a hearing to determine whether a fresh investigation into the prison death of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist in 2003 should be held. Lawyer Shirin Ebadi, a former Nobel peace prize winner, represented the family of Zahra Kazemi, arguing there were irregularities in the initial investigation and the death was a homicide and not an accident as originally ruled

ISLAMABAD, July 3: Reporters and photographers were the worst victims of the crossfire between the personnel of law enforcement agencies and the students of Lal Masjid as one of them died and four others injured while covering the event on Tuesday. The most unfortunate was Javed Khan of Daily Markaz who lost his life after he was hit by a bullet thought to have been fired by the Rangers who had...