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The Órbita TV station, which operates in the northern region of the Venezuelan state of Anzoátegui, has ceased to operate. The station was in financial trouble due to the pressure exerted by the regional government on advertisers, the Lima-based Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) has reported. The station ceased operations on July 10. The station's Operations Manager, Marcos Figueroa, told IPYS...

Distributors blocked the July 4-10 edition of the Economist from entering Thailand over an article that covered the mounting threat of lese majeste complaints to the country's Internet freedom and freedom of expression, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This is the third time since December that distributors have opted not to distribute the British weekly newsmagazine...

The Palestinian Authority has suspended the operations of Al-Jazeera in the West Bank after the satellite channel aired a controversial interview on Tuesday. The suspension, according to a Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information statement, came on Wednesday and will remain in place until "the judiciary issues a ruling on the subject." The Ministry of Information's actions came a day after Al...

Iranian authorities have arrested six more journalists and sentenced another on Sunday to eight years in prison, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. A revolutionary court in Tehran convicted Saeed Matin-Pour‎ of having "relations with foreigners and propagating against the regime," according to local news reports, and sent him immediately to Evin Prison. Matin-Pour‎ was...

Detentions of journalists reporting on ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang region has been continuing, according to press freedom groups. The Beijing-based Uighur academic and blogger Ilham Tohti, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has been missing since July 8 when he told a friend he had received a notice of detention. On July 6, Beijing public security officials questioned...

A group of Venezuelan journalists with the regional television network Telesur and the state-owned station Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) left Honduras on Sunday after being detained and harassed in the capital, Tegucigalpa, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. "We are gravely concerned that the media environment in Honduras has become increasingly polarized while the interim...

The Sri Lankan government is continuing its offensive against the independent news media, blocking domestic access to a news website and smearing lawyers who are representing a leading newspaper. The government launched aggressive efforts to curb independent media in 2006—at the same time it began an all-out military effort to defeat the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). On May...

Authorities in northwest Chinese province of Xinjiang are said to be harassing journalists reporting on ethnic rioting in regional capital Urumqi, according to press freedom groups. One journalist was detained for two hours in Urumqi Tuesday for reporting independently of a government-organised media tour of the damaged city, according to National Public Radio. "I went independently of the group...

Twentyfour journalists remain jailed in Iran, according to the latest CPJ research, while the government has instituted a broad and intrusive censorship regime. The government prevented a total of five national newspapers from publishing on Wednesday, according to local news reports. At least three of the papers said that representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance had stopped...

Iranian authorities have released a number of employees of the reformist newspaper Kalemeh Sabz who had been held since June 23, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. In recent days, the Iranian government has launched a campaign designed to malign the foreign press, blaming demonstrations that followed the contested June 12 presidential elections on foreign news media...