Harassed

Police arrests of two Jamaican journalists in one week were an abuse of power, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said, and called for a full investigation of the two cases. Those arrested by police in Kingston were: Julian Richardson, financial journalist for the daily Jamaica Observer and Ricardo Makyn, a photographer for the daily the Gleaner. Richardson was arrested and threatened with death...

The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) has condemned pressures exerted on the daily newspaper Borba after publication of an article about the decision made by the Government of Serbia to pay one million dollars to ensure that the trial of Miladin Kovacevic, accused of inflicting injuries on American student Brian Steinhauer, will be held in Serbia instead of in the US. The police...

The police in the breakaway autonomous region of Somaliland in northern Somalia has arrested Mohamed Abdi Guled, editor of privately-owned weekly Yool appearing in Hargeisa. The journalist is being held on the premises of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Several journalists in Hargeisa said that Mohamed Abdi Guled, better known as "Urad"...

A journalist who went to interview the minister of the Ministry of National Security (MNB) in Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic on February 20 was blindfolded and interrogated for hours, according to local news reports. The Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) has called for an immediate investigation into the incident by the central Azerbaijani government. Security service agents...

Agents of Administrative Department of Security (DAS), the national intelligence service of Colombia, had spied on critical reporters, Supreme Court judges, opposition politicians, and officials in President Alvaro Uribe's administration, leading newsweekly Semana has reported. Citing five unnamed DAS agents, the magazine said that rogue intelligence officials had monitored and intercepted...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the "unjustified" detention of journalists by the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security Services. The latest case of this media repression concerns Isam Al Remawi, a cameraman with the Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA), who was arrested January 26 and finally released on February 10. "We condemn these arbitrary...

An independent female journalist probing a child sexual abuse case was recently harassed and assaulted by youths in the Mexican city of Oaxaca, according to delayed reports. On January 29, a group of five or six youths harassed and assaulted independent journalist Verónica Villalvazo, who works under the pseudonym of "Frida Guerrera". At the time of the incident, Villalvazo was walking near the...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed satisfaction at a court ruling in Argentina requiring the government to place official advertising in the newspaper Perfil. At the same time it criticised Guatemala's federal government for suspending state advertising in all print media in the Central American country. In Argentina last week, the government, which has been accused of...

Press freedom groups in Paraguay have condemned the death threat and assault against Aldo Lezcano, a correspondent for the daily ABC Color in Ybycuí, as well as the assault suffered earlier by Richard Villasboa and Blas Salcedo, of the Canal 13 television station. The Sindicato de Periodistas del Paraguay (SPP) has called on authorities to investigate these incidents and punish those found to be...

The publisher and editor of the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Ayam were arrested and questioned for wanting to do a report about the king’s mother, a subject regarded as off-limits in Morocco, delayed reports said. “Police measures of this kind result in abuses that we find very disturbing,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “Political and judicial harassment of the Moroccan news media is...