Follow-up

The family of journalist Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho are being harassed a year and a half after he was murdered in Porto Ferreira, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. There are concerns that this is linked to their participation in the investigation of the crime perpetrated on him. After Barbon was murdered on May 5, their house was attacked and his widow, Kátia Rosa Camargo, received several silent...

The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) has called for justice in the killing of Vancouver journalist Tara Singh Hayer, who was murdered 10 years ago. On November 18, 1998, the then 62-year-old publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times was shot to death at his Surrey, British Columbia home. His murder remains unsolved. CJFE's Executive Director Annie Game said in a statement, "The murder of...

Radio Galkayo, a privately-owned station in the northeastern somalian city of Galkayo, has started functioning again and its director, Hassan Mohamed Jama, has been released after three days in detention. Jama has nonetheless been ordered to report to a Galkayo court at 9 a.m. on Thursday, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The police of the autonomous northeastern territory of...

A federal appeals court in the US on Monday threw out a contempt order requiring fines of up to $5,000 a day against a former USA Today reporter who refused to identify sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Toni Locy had been ordered by a judge to personally pay the fines unless she identified officials who discussed Steven J Hatfill, who was...

Four men went on trial Monday in connection with the murder of Russian journalist and outspoken Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, despite the failure of the authorities to catch the masterminds. The four have been charged with helping organise the October 2006 shooting of Politovskaya at her apartment block in central Moscow. In a victory for Politkovskaya's lawyers who had feared the process...

China has agreed to relax controls on financial news providers in an out-of-court settlement of a dispute with the United States, the European Union and Canada. The deal ends Chinese state news agency Xinhua's role as a regulator and the requirement for foreign suppliers of financial information to act through an agent, and provides protection for confidential business information. Calling it a...

A court in Iraqi Kurdistan Thursday rejected a one-month prison sentence and fine against journalist Shwan Dawdi. On November 4, a criminal court in Sulaymania found Dawdi, editor-in-chief of the Kirkuk-based Hawal newspaper, guilty of three defamation charges filed by retired judge Kemal Mustafa, the former director of the Sulaymania courthouse. Dawdi was jailed the same day and fined 300,000...

Judicial authorities in Argentina have ordered the release of Gregorios Ríos, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting the murder of José Luiz Cabezas, a photographer killed in January 1997, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has reported. "We shall never forget Cabezas," said Celso Schroeder, president of the Federation of Latin America and Caribbean Journalists (FEPALC)...

Zakari Alzouma, the editor the independent weekly Opinions, was released Tuesday, but given a three-month suspended prison sentence for supposedly libelling interior minister Albadé Abouba, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Alzouma was arrested on October 30 in response to a complaint by the interior minister about an article reporting that he “took advantage” of Prime Minister Seini...

A magazine editor in Colombia is facing a prison term after a judge reviewing a complaint against the magazine deemed two published corrections as insufficient, according to the Bogotá-based Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP). In spite of the fact that "Semana" magazine has issued two corrections concerning information it published on allegations about the influence a particular...