Legal Action

The news editor of Zambia's largest newspaper went on trial Wednesday on charges of distributing pornographic images. Chansa Kabwela, 29, a news editor at the Post newspaper, distributed the photos of the woman giving birth in the car park outside Lusaka's University Teaching Hospital in June. The trial commenced with the state prosecutor complaining about comments by Reporters sans Frontières...

Two detained Iranian photographers are said to have confessed sending pictures to the "enemy" following the country's disputed June 12 presidential elections, according to the official Iranian News Agency (IRNA). IRNA Wednesday reported that photographers Majid Saeedi and Satyar Emami have confessed to having ties with a movement seeking to topple the Iranian government. IRNA's statement said that...

Two European journalists were fined on Friday by a court in Namibia for filming the annual seal hunt along the coast of the southern African nation, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported quoting their lawyer. From the AFP report: [ Link] British investigative journalist Jim Wilckens and South African cameraman Bart Smithers were found guilty of violating the Marine Resources Act by entering a...

Sudanese reporter Lubna Ahmed Al-Hussein is on trial for "dressing in a sensational manner." The "general discipline" police considered Al-Hussein's style of dress to be a threat to Sudanese societal values and virtues, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has reported. This crime is subject to only one punishment, 40 lashes in public, according to article 152 of the Sudanese...

A judge in the northern state of Pará ordered prominent Brazilian journalist Lúcio Flávio Pinto on Monday to pay US$15,000 in damages in a civil libel suit. The decision is part of a systematic pattern of legal harassment against Pinto, who faces more than 10 lawsuits from powerful plaintiffs, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. Judge Raimundo das Chagas Filho in the Amazonian city of...

The Debate newspaper, based in the town of Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, in São Paulo state, was ordered to pay R$593,000 (approx. US$306,000) as a result of a lawsuit for defamation filed against it in 1995 by Judge Antônio José Magdalena. According to a delayed report by the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, the order was passed on June 25. According to the newspaper's owner, Sérgio Fleury Moraes, the...

Lese majeste charges were filed Tuesday by a private citizen against board members of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT), according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Violations of lese majeste laws are a criminal offence in Thailand, punishable by three to 15 years in prison. The charges were filed by Laksana Kornsilpa, a translator and a sympathiser of the People's...

A Moroccan court has imposed fines and damages on three independent dailies for "publicly harming" Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, above, and "injuring his dignity." The Ain Essaba'a Misdemeanour Court in Casablanca ordered each of the three newspapers— Al-Massae, the country's leading daily, Al-Jarida Al-Oula and Al-Ahdath Al-Magrebia—to pay a fine of 100,000 dirhams (US$12,484) and damages of one...

Hang Chakra, editor-in-chief of the opposition Khmer-language daily Khmer Machas Srok, has been sentenced to one year in prison stemming from his reports on alleged government corruption. According to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), a Cambodian court ruled Saturday that Hang Chakra violated criminal disinformation laws by publishing a series of articles that accused officials working...

A Paris court has found Tahiti-Pacifique editor Alex du Prel guilty of defaming public prosecutor Jean Bianconi in an article criticising the judicial probe into the 1997 disappearance of Jean-Pascal “JPK” Couraud, a leading investigative journalist based in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The court on Tuesday fined Du Prel 1,000 euros and...