Reporters Without Borders today deplored a 7 November decision by the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to summon eight Croatian journalists for questioning on suspicion of violating its contempt of court rules by publishing classified appendices to indictments against three former Croatian generals for war crimes during the 1991-95 Serbo-Croatian war....
Reporters Without Borders today condemned death threats made against five journalists in the northwestern province of Tocache by Sergio Gonzales Apaza, the leader of the “Saúl Guevara Díaz” group of cocaleros (coca growers). The cocaleros have been on strike since 2 November in protest against the eradication of their crops by the government, which accuses them of cooperating with drug traffickers...
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders regrets that Iran continues to snub appeals from the international community on human rights, as one journalist was imprisoned and two publications suspended. "Less than a week after the European Parliament passed a resolution urging Iran to respect its "obligations in line with international norms and instruments on human rights", Yaghoub Salaki Nia was...
(IPYS/IFEX) - On 5 November 2007, twelve journalists from the town of Tocache, in San Martín region, northeastern Peru, asked the local government for protection and filed a complaint with the Provincial Prosecutor's Office after receiving threats. Sergio Gonzáles Zapata, head of the coca growers' association "Saúl Guevara Díaz", apparently threatened the journalists during an association meeting...
(CESO-IFJ/IFEX) - On 6 November 2007, at 10:30 a.m. (local time), after she finished her programme on Sensación Estéreo community radio station, journalist Olga Bru received two threatening phone calls warning her she would be sorry if she stayed in the Caribbean coastal town of Coveñas, located in the department of Sucre. This is not the first time Bru has been threatened. In October 2006, when...
(CMFR/IFEX) - A gunman riding pillion on a motorcycle shot at two "block time" radio broadcasters after they emerged from their radio station on 25 October 2007 in Digos, Davao del Sur, a province approximately 680 kilometres south of Manila. The Philippines had its baranggay (village) elections on 29 October. "Block timing" is a widespread practice in radio broadcasting in the Philippines, where...
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the outcome of the trial of Abdel Fattah Ould Abeidna, managing editor of the privately-owned paper "al-Aqsa", sentenced, on 7 November 2007, to one year in jail for "false accusation" of a businessman whom he accused him without proof of being a drug-trafficker. The editor, who is currently out of the country, has decided to appeal against his...
(CMFR/IFEX) - A radio journalist claimed that he was attacked in his broadcast booth by a local politician, his wife and their daughter on 24 October 2007 in Compostela Valley. The broadcaster was on air at the time. Compostela Valley is a province approximately 900 kilometres south of Manila. Roel Sembrano said he was in the middle of his radio show "Ang Haring Lungsod, Ikaw Nasayod" ("Nation...
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the death sentence for Kurdish-Iranian journalist Adnan Hassanpour for "spying." The ruling was issued on 22 October 2007, but was not revealed until this week. The court quashed the conviction of another journalist convicted in the same case, Abdolvahed "Hiva" Botimar, on the grounds of procedural...
(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is concerned by the demand from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague to question eight Croatian journalists over publication of confidential information related to the prosecution of Ante Gotovina for war crimes. "We are deeply disturbed at the prospect of the Tribunal questioning journalists for...
