Censored

Two years after a court imposed a news blackout on a terrorism case that includes charges of a plot to storm Canada's parliament, several media organisations have asked an appeals court to lift ban. Lawyers for the Associated Press (AP), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CTV television, and the Toronto Star appealed the blackout before Ontario's Court of Appeal earlier this week. They argued...

Sudan has reimposed daily censorship of newspapers after they published reports accusing the government of backing Chadian rebels, Reuters reported Thursday. Journalists and local human rights activists criticised the move, which they said had begun nearly three weeks ago after rebels stormed the Chadian capital N'Djamena in a failed attempt to topple President Idriss Deby. Journalists said...

The state of emergency which Armenian President Robert Kocharyan proclaimed in capital Yerevan on Saturday last is having a serious impact on the activity of the news media, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. The emergency was declared after clashes between security forces and opposition protesters who say last month’s presidential election was rigged. “This authoritarian decision to liable...

Press freedom violations marred Russia’s presidential election on March 2, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The incidents that occurred during the election are indicative of the nervousness that the authorities feel towards independent journalists,” Paris-based RSF said in a statement. In South Sakhalin, reporter Pavel Abakumov of the weekly Yuzhno Sakhalinsk Tvoya Gazeta was...

As riots tore through Armenian capital Yerevan, the country's journalists remained preocupied with the presidential elections in neighbouring Russia. The people of the city had to fall back on outside news sources to know what was happenning in their own backyard. And now, with Armenian President Robert Kocharian declaring an emergency to control the violence, among the first to face its brunt has

Soldiers raided three radio stations in Somalia on Sunday and detained the director of one of the stations, according to journalists who witnessed the events. The raids occurred after heavy fighting and looting over the weekend in the central area of the capital, Mogadishu. Journalists from Horn Afrik, Radio Shabelle, and Radio Simba told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has voiced strong concern over the detention of a foreign journalist and his translator by authorities last month. Mark Magnier, Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, accompanied by a translator and a lawyer visited citizens of a so-called “grievance village” in Beijing on February 27 2008. A number of officials approached Magnier and his...

The last fortnight has been a mix of good and bad news for journalists in Iran. Maybe, more of the latter. Abolfazl Abedini Nasr of the weekly Bahar Khozestan was released on February 18, followed by that of Said Matinpour, a contributor to the weekly Yarpagh, eight days later. That's where the good streak ended. Prison sentences were passed two days ago on journalists Bahaman Ahamadi Amoee and...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern at a crackdown against the media which criticised the Cameroon government following an outbreak of rioting in Douala in the southwest part of the country. As the communications minister called on newspapers to be “responsible”, the unrest has left the privately-owned press in crisis after security forces raided the studios of Magic FM radio...

Chad is now one of the few African countries without an effective independent press since a state of emergency was declared on February 15. Journalists are fleeing abroad to escape arrest or falling silent in protest against censorship and "very serious" official threats. And now, with the adoption of a new press law by decree instead of abolishing prison sentences for press offences, it makes