Legal Action

Six months after the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, 18 suspects went on trial Monday in a case widely seen as a test of whether the country's judiciary will be able to investigate allegations of official negligence in the slaying, news reports said. Dink was gunned down on January 19 and his killing led to international condemnation and debate within Turkey about free speech...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by criminal defamation prosecutions of three Yemeni editors. Independent weekly Al-Deyar Editor-in-Chief Abed al-Mahthari was charged with defaming Watani Bank for Trade and Investment; Al-Shoura.net Editor Abdelkarim al-Khaiwani was charged with publishing false information about the Defense Ministry and defaming Armed Forces Moral Guidance...

An Egyptian appeals court on Tuesday overturned a one-year jail term on newspaper editor Ibrahim Issa, convicted of defaming President Hosni Mubarak, and substituted a fine of 22,500 Egyptian pounds ($3,950), according to news reports. Ibrahim Issa, editor-in-chief of the independent Al Dustour weekly newspaper, speaks to the media after an Egyptian appeal court overturned a prison sentence...

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the government of Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to drop sedition charges against critical The Daily Tribune publisher and two columnists. In its February 14 case against publisher Ninez Cacho-Olivares and columnists Ramon Señeres and Herman Tiu-Laurel, the government said their writing could “lead or stir up the people against lawful...

A Swiss military court has indicted three Swiss journalists working for the weekly SonntagsBlick for publishing a leaked document last year “dealing with supposed places of detention and interrogation methods used by the US foreign intelligence service (CIA).” The SonntagsBlick scoop came just three days after European human rights watchdog, Council of Europe, launched an investigation into a...

Reporters Without Borders has voiced dismay at the sentences of three to five years in prison and bans on working as journalists that the state prosecutor requested on 8 January 2007 in Casablanca at the start of the trial of Driss Ksikes, editor of the Arabic-language weekly “Nichane”, and one of his journalists, Sanaa Elaji, on charges of “damaging Islam” and “publishing and distributing...

The publisher of the independent Moroccan weekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire and a former reporter have been ordered to pay the record damages awarded earlier this year in a controversial defamation suit. Publisher Aboubakr Jamaï said the award could jeopardize the magazine’s survival. Jamaï told CPJ that two court officials visited Le Journal’s Casablanca office on December 18 and gave him and former...

BRUSSELS, Belgium: A European Union high court on Wednesday denied a German journalist's request for damages after the EU anti-fraud office gave information to law enforcement authorities that led to his detention. The EU's Court of First Instance said that handing over the information about Hans-Martin Tillack, who was a correspondent for German news weekly Stern, to authorities in Belgium and...

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the continued imprisonment of New York Times researcher Zhao Yan, who has been re-indicted on charges of fraud and revealing state secrets. The Times reported the reinstated charges today. Zhao has been imprisoned for 21 months without once appearing before a judge. Charges against Zhao were dropped in March prior to the visit to the United States of...

Chinese prosecutors have filed a new indictment against a researcher for The New York Times, but it is unclear if they have introduced new charges or simply restated the case that was withdrawn in March, his lawyer said Monday. The new indictment against Zhao Yan was filed last Friday in a Beijing court. Mo Shaoping, the lawyer who has represented Mr. Zhao, said he had not yet been able to see the...