Censored

Singapore plans to impose restrictions on a liberal, popular news website ahead of general elections Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong may call this year, according to Reuters. The Prime Minister's Office plans to designate "The Online Citizen" ( www.onlinecitizen.com) as a "political association," which means the website is banned from accepting donations from abroad. The office said the website was...

Tunisian journalist Nissar Ben Hassen of Radio Kalima was arrested Tuesday after posting video footage of events in Chebba, 65 km north of the city of Sfax, online. He was editing another video on the violence in Mahdia at the time of his arrest, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Members of a special presidential unit arrested him shortly after midday at...

Britain's ITV News was on Wednesday banned from a police press conference after running a report criticising the police's handling of an investigation into the murder of Joanna Yeates, a landscape architect whose body was found on the outskirts of Bristol last month, the Guardian newspaper reported. Avon & Somerset police have complained to Britain's broadcast media regulator, Ofcom, about what...

The Korean government has come under fire for its recent selection of new TV channel operators. Critics say it will cause excessive competition in a saturated market and aggravate large conservative newspapers' dominance of public opinion. Experts are also voicing doubt about the selection committee's fairness and correctness in assessing applicants, according to the Korea Herald. The Korea...

Online censorship has ben reinforced amid a wave of protests and rioting in Tunisia that began two weeks when a young man set himself on fire outside a police station in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid. “Online social networks have played a key role in transmitting news and information about the situation in Sidi Bouzid and other regions while the government-controlled traditional media have...

Since the beginning of the Sidi Bouzid riots on December 17, which followed the burning of a new and unemployed graduate, the police have banned any access to the city. Most journalists who tried to cover the incidents have faced police violence, according to Observatoire pour la liberté de presse, d'édition et de création (OLPEC). On the afternoon of December 17, Zouhayr Makhlouf, a correspondent...

La Première, the leading TV channel of Côte d’Ivoire’s state-owned broadcaster Radio-Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI), has since December 24 not been available in France or in neighbouring African countries, where it is normally carried by the Canal + Horizon satellite service, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). It would seem this is because its signal has...

Kuwaiti authorities shut down the local offices of the Al-Jazeera TV network and withdrew its accreditation Monday after it covered a violent police crackdown on a meeting of Opposition lawmakers in the oil-rich Gulf country, the Associated Press has reported. Al-Jazeera denied the charge of meddling in Kuwaiti affairs, saying it was just doing its job. "Al-Jazeera, which has adhered in its...

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has denounced the Yemeni political security organisation (intelligence) for preventing the distribution of elThowry newspaper, a publication of the Yemeni opposition socialist party in Aden, southern Yemen. The newspaper had reported on recent arrests in Aden. A number of citizens were detained as they were celebrating Independence Day which...

Libya Press news agency has decided to shut down its Tripoli office and leave Libya because security officials have said they "do not want any presence of the agency inside Libya," the agency said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday. Libya Press announced that it will resume work from several foreign capitals. The agency added that it informed its reporters that it "cannot offer...