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Parliament's press gallery is meeting in an attempt to get politicians to think again before they change the rules over coverage of the debating chamber. Proposed new rules would see a contempt of Parliament if what happens in the debating chamber is satirised, or if MPs are ridiculed of denigrated. Press gallery chairman Vernon Small says the contempt aspect is a worrying trend. He says in the...

(RSF/IFEX) - On 27 June 2007, the 30th anniversary of Djibouti's independence, Reporters Without Borders condemns the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of President Ismael Omar Guelleh's government, in particular, a campaign of harassment that led to "Le Renouveau Djiboutien", the country's sole opposition newspaper, being silenced. "The national holiday is a time of anxiety this year," the...

(CJES/IFEX) -On 21 June 2007, the Moscow Golovinsky Court ruled as legal the January 2007 seizure of documents in the office of Educated Media Foundation (formerly known as Internews Russia), which is headed by Manana Aslamazyan. Thus, the court took the side of the prosecutor's office, which linked Aslamazyan's alleged violation of legislation governing currency import into Russia with the work...

(CJES/IFEX) - On 16 June 2007, the Moscow Koptevsky Court ruled in favour of the plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit filed by the Moscow region's governor, Boris Gromov, against Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the Federal Service for Supervising Natural Resources, and the newspaper "Moskovskaya Pravda". The suit was filed over an article entitled "How Can Gromov Answer for Everything?", which was based...

China's National People's Congress [official website] on Sunday revised a proposed law regulating media during national emergencies [JURIST report] after delegates and local people's congresses criticized the law as improper. The proposal, first introduced last June, would have imposed fines up to $13,000 on media outlets that report on public emergencies such as floods or disease outbreaks...

TWO journalists from the Melbourne-based Herald Sun newspaper have avoided jail for contempt of court. Reporters Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus had pleaded guilty to contempt of court for refusing to disclose the source of a leaked story about a federal government proposal to slash war veterans' benefits. Victorian County Court chief judge Michael Rozenes today recorded convictions against the...

The conflict in Iraq is the most deadly war on record for journalists. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 108 reporters have been killed on duty while covering the conflict during the past four years, and Iraqi journalists are bearing the brunt of these fatalities with a total of 86, according to the committee. And yesterday, a 35-year-old woman was shot to death on her way...

SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt - Middle East leaders looking to contain and weaken Hamas forces now controlling the Gaza Strip converged at this Red Sea resort Monday. But Hamas upstaged them by releasing the first recording of an Israeli soldier they captured a year ago, which had touched off a major Israeli intervention in Gaza. The audiotape showing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, combined with the...

(IMI/IFEX) - On 23 May 2007, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence delivered by Luhansk regional court of law against the murderers of journalist Ihor Aleksandrov. The General Prosecutor's Office had asked the sentence to be reconsidered as they held that the prison terms, ranging from three to 15 years, were too soft a punishment for the killers, Oleksandre and Dmytro Rybak, Oleksandr Onyshko...

(CJES/IFEX) - On 21 June 2007, Mikhail Afanasyev, editor of the website Novy Fokus, was found guilty of slander and insulting a police officer under Articles 129 and 319 of the Russian Criminal Code and sentenced by an Abakan court (Republic of Khakassiya) to a fine of 50,000 rubles (approx. US$2,000). The charges stem from a lawsuit filed in September 2006 by Natalya Sunchugasheva, former senior...