Follow-up

Four years after Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot and killed by an unknown assailant in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow her killers have yet to be brought to justice. Repeatedly criticised by rights groups over its handling of the case, the Russian government recently announced it was reinvigorating the investigation, and those involving 18 other...

Detectives with the federal Investigative Committee, the Russian agency responsible for investigating serious crimes, say they are probing a widening circle of suspects in the 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Agency officials made the disclosure during a September 28 meeting in Moscow with a delegation from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the authorities to immediately free cartoonist Kamal Sharaf, who is still being held despite a ruling by a special state security court on September 22 ordering his release. The press freedom organisation also calls for the release of reporter Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae although the same state security court ruled that he should...

An enquiry ordered by Cameroon's president into a journalist’s death in prison last April has come to exactly the same conclusions as to the cause of death as the explanation originally offered by the authorities, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The findings of the investigation into the death of Cameroun Express editor Ngota Ngota Germain (aka Bibi...

Imprisoned Cuban journalist Miguel Galván Gutierrez was released from jail and flown to Madrid on Saturday as part of a July agreement between the Havana government and the Catholic Church. Sixteen journalists jailed in the 2003 Black Spring crackdown have now been freed and exiled as part of the agreement. "Although I am currently fighting with some health issues resulting from a seven year-...

Three journalists detained in Afghanistan have been released over the past week, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) released Rahmatullah Nekzad, a freelance contributor to Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press detained Monday in Ghazni province, and Mohammed Nader, an Al-Jazeera cameraman taken Wednesday...

Three journalistswho had been arrested in the past few days by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan police have been released. Their release was requested by President Hamid Karzai, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported. “We are extremely relieved that these three arrests, which we had described as a serious mistake, have...

A Baghdad court gave two alleged Sunni militants life sentences Wednesday after convicting them of the 2004 abduction of French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot and their Syrian guide, who were held hostage for 124 days, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “We hail this conviction and we hope that the impunity so long enjoyed by the...

Chinese investigative journalist Xie Chaoping was released on bail in Weinan (in Shaanxi province) on September 17 for lack of evidence. After being held for 29 days for writing a book about the Sanmenxia Dam titled The Great Migration, he has been able to return to Beijing. “Xie’s release is excellent news but now he must he now be quickly cleared of the charges of illegal commercial activity...

The largest newspaper in Mexico’s most violent city has decided to restrict its coverage of the ongoing drugs war after one of its photographers was shot dead. In an editorial printed on the front page of Sunday’s edition, El Diario newspaper, in Ciudad Juárez, asked “What do you want of us?” Directed at the drug cartels, the editorial said: “We ask you to explain what you want from us, what we...