Censored

Plainclothes police surrounded the offices of a newly launched satellite radio station in Tunisia and detained one of its journalists on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Police continued their siege of the station Wednesday. The journalist, Dhafer Otay of Radio Kalima, said he was held for four hours and then released without charge...

The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) has expressed concern at the efforts by the Orthodox Church in the Republic of Macedonia / Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to prevent certain media from properly carrying out their work. According SEEMO, TV Alfa, TV Sitel and the newspaper Vecer have received a notification stating that, as of January 2009, they will need the approval of the...

Two east Jerusalem employees of a production company servicing various media outlets worldwide, including one based in Iran, were indicted in Israel Tuesday for breaking Israeli military censorship, the Ynet news site reported. Kadir Shahin, a reporter with Iranian Arabic-speaking Alalam television station, and producer Muhammad Sarhan are accused of reporting that Israeli ground troops had...

Albanian authorities on Friday blocked the offices of the daily Tema, which recently published stories alleging official corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Police in capital Tirana surrounded the premises, barring journalists from entering the building, the daily's publisher, Mero Baze, said in a statement posted on Tema's website. Baze said he called Tirana's...

The editors of two leading Vietnamese newspapers were fired on January 2, the latest in a series of measures by the Vietnamese government to stifle criticism and dissent, Human Rights Watch has reported. In December, the government announced strict new regulations banning internet blogs that disseminate politically sensitive content deemed subversive by the government. During the last three months...

Iranian authorities are using security laws, press laws, and other legislation to arrest and prosecute Iranian Kurds solely for trying to exercise their right to freedom of expression and association. The use of these laws to suppress basic rights, while not new, has greatly intensified since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in August 2005. The findings have been documented in a 42-page

Thai authorities have blocked 2,300 websites for allegedly insulting the country's monarchy, with 400 more awaiting a court order to restrict them, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) has reported. The Economic Times Online quoted Information and Communication (ICT) Minister Ranongruk Suwanchawee as saying on January 6 that "The blocking of websites that disseminate content and pictures...

Mfomfo Nkambule, a columnist with the Times of Swaziland newspaper was censored by state police who interrogated him on January 5 over his weekly articles which are often critical of the king and his leadership, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. Nkambule, an ex-cabinet minister and member of parliament but now chairperson of a political party known as Inhlava, was...

A group of unidentified individuals bought off copies of the Perú 21 newspaper from newsstands in the district of Chosica, east of Lima, on January 3 ostensibly to stop the public from learning about allegations of fuel trafficking involving authorities and 27 police officers in the district, the Lima-based Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) has reported. According to journalist Elizabeth Salinas...

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has condemned officials from Al-Ahram Press for their refusal to print the latest edition of the opposition weekly Sout al-Ummah, until its editor, Abdel Halim Kandil, had removed his article criticising Egypt President Hosni Mubarak and the country's stance on the crisis in Gaza. Sout al-Ummmah was finally published on January 5 after the...