Censored

Burmese exiled media groups are calling for international support in ending cyber attacks that have crippled two news websites over the past week. The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy magazine, which provide independent coverage of current affairs in Burma, have been the target of intense attacks which it is believed originate from the Burmese government. The two websites are...

As a police rebellion threw Ecuador into chaos on Thursday, the government of President Rafael Correa ordered local radio and TV stations to interrupt programming and carry state news broadcasts. A dozen reporters were injured covering the police revolt. On Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the government's censorship of broadcast media and called on local authorities to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned by cyber-attacks against three exile-run Burma news outlets, Irrawaddy, Mizzima News, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks have shut Irrawaddy's main website while temporarily blocking access to Mizzima's site. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the Internet-based...

Madagascar has released on conditions ten Radio Fahazavana employees who have been in pre-trial detention since May 27. Broadcasts of another radio station, Radio Mahafaly, have however been suspended until further notice. The 10 Radio Fahazavana employees who were released on September 8 are editor-in-chief Josiane Ranaivo, five of the station's other journalists (Lolo Ratsimba, Jaona Raôly...

Kurdish publications have again been suspended or seized under the Anti-Terrorism Law (Law 3713), which allows the Turkish courts to impose harsh penalties on journalists and media when they allude to Kurdish armed separatists and fosters a repressive climate for the Kurdish media. Although the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly condemned Turkey because of the Anti-Terrorism Law, the...

Bahrainian prosecutors have banned journalists from reporting on the detentions of dozens of opposition activists. Authorities detained Shiite opposition activists in a series of arrests that began on August 13, according to Bloomberg and other news reports. The New York Times reported Thursday that as many as 159 people had been detained, and that later detainees included people not known as...

Twenty-five journalists were held by the Yemeni army as they tried to attend a peace conference in the north of Yemen over the last weekend. According to the Yemen Post, the journalists, from local, national and foreign press had been invited by tribal elders in the region to cover and attend the National Peace Conference. Since 2004, permits have been required for travel to the northern region of...

A criminal court judge in Togo Wednesday last imposed an indefinite ban on the distribution of a Benin newspaper that had raised questions about the alleged involvement of a half-brother of President Faure Gnassingbé in drug trafficking. The ban on Tribune d'Afrique, a private bimonthly based in Benin that has a bureau in the Togolese capital of Lomé, was based on charges of publishing false news...

The Iranian state committee that monitors the press has banned the well-known economic newspaper Asia, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. The Deputy Head of Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad Ali Ramin, said the reasons for closing down "Asia" include "publishing pictures against public chastity,” “promoting wastefulness and extravagance," and "persistence in carrying out the...

Carlos Flores Borja, the manager of Amazonian radio station La Voz de Bagua, travelled all the way to Lima last week because he had been given an appointment with transport and communications minister Enrique Cornejo on August 11 to discuss the reopening of the station, which the government closed 14 months ago. But in the end, Flores was received by deputy minister Jorge Cuba Hidalgo, who told...