Legal Action

An appeal court has upheld the decision of a Tashkent court to fine Uzbekistan’s few remaining independent reporters, Abdulmalik Boboyev 10,000 dollars. The fine is 400 times what he earns every month as Voice of America correspondent, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Boboyev is entirely innocent of the charges on which he was convicted – defaming and...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and Journalist in Danger (JED) have written to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) justice and human rights minister Luzolo Bambi Lessa about two separate cases on November 2 in which journalists were given jail sentences in absentia on defamation charges. The two organizations said they did not oppose the fact that defamation actions...

A court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki on Wednesday convicted Mikhail Beketov, the editor of the independent newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda, of criminally slandering Khimki's mayor, Vladimir Strelchenko, in a 2007 television interview. Beketov, who is in a wheelchair and unable to speak two years after a near-lethal attack, was wheeled into the courtroom for the verdict. Judge Arkady Khalatov...

A Panamanian court of appeals has convicted two TV journalists of criminal defamation and banned them from professional work for one year, news reports said. While President Ricardo Martinelli said he would pardon the journalists, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that lawmakers should repeal all criminal penalties for defamation. The case stems from a 2005 story...

Turkish reporter Ismail Saymaz faces 79 years in prison due to the publication of critical articles for the Turkish daily newspaper Radikal, IPI's National Committee in Turkey has reported. Saymaz, accused of "violating the secrecy of an investigation" in relation to the Ergenekon trials and events in the city of Erzincan, has previously been charged with no less than eight other criminal cases...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on authorities in Dubai to allow for due process in the criminal defamation trial of Mark Townsend, a freelance journalist and regular contributor to The Washington Times. The trial is set to begin on Wednesday. Townsend, 49, a former business editor of Khaleej Times, a 30 percent government-owned daily, was detained for several hours in August...

Voice of America correspondent Abdulmalik Boboyev, one of Uzbekistan’s few independent journalists, is facing between five and eight years in prison on four charges that Tashkent prosecutors brought against him on September 13, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Three of the charges relate to his work as a journalist: “defamation” (article 130 of the...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned businessman Stavros Vitalis’ libel action against journalist Takis Michas, which an Athens court is to begin hearing on the September 17. Vitalis is suing him over an article he wrote for the daily Eleftherotypi on July 25, 2009 in which he quoted from an article in the Serb weekly Global about the presence of Greek...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern at an Indonesian Supreme Court ruling against Erwin Arnada, editor of the now-dormant Playboy Indonesia. Arnada faces up to two years in jail after prosecutors said recently that they would enforce a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that found the magazine's editor guilty of public indecency, according to news reports. Defence attorneys...

A prominent opposition journalist is to go on trial for allegedly libelling Egypt's foreign minister in a newspaper, a judicial source said on Sunday. Hamdi Qandeel could face prison or a fine if found guilty of the charge of "insulting and libelling a public servant or citizen performing their work," the source said. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit filed a complaint against Qandeel alleging...