Legal Action

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Egyptian Minister of Finance, Youssef Boutros-Ghali, to drop charges against Wael al-Abrashy, the editor-in-chief of the weekly Sawt al-Umma, and Samar al-Dawi, a reporter for the weekly. In January, al-Abrashy mounted an editorial campaign to oppose a new and controversial property tax law, which would require property owners to submit...

Sudanese authorities have charged an opposition journalist with terrorism and espionage and allegedly tortured him while in custody, according to local news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for the immediate release of Abu Zar al-Amin, deputy editor of the opposition daily Rai al-Shaab. Khartoum’s prosecutor-general charged al-Amin with “undermining the constitution,”...

Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit has filed a criminal defamation suit against independent journalist Hamdi Kandil, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). He faces up to six months in jail and a discretionary fine if convicted. A prosecutor summoned Kandil on Tuesday to inform him of defamation charges brought in connection with a May 3 article in the opposition...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has criticised a "highly surprising" court decision against Panamanian newspaper La Prensa that ordered payment of US$300,000 in damages to a former public prosecutor for libel after the newspaper published official reports on irregularities that took place under her watch. On April 30, Second Civil Circuit Court Judge Miriam Cheng de Aguilar ordered La...

A court in the western city of Ural ordered on April 21 a local newspaper, Uralskaya Nedela (Ural Week) and one of its reporters, Lukpan Akhmedyarov, to pay 20 million tenges (136,000 dollars) in damages to an oil industry company, especially as the size of the award could force the weekly to close, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). In an article headlined “Hidden invitations to tender...

Moscow’s Savyolovsky district court on April 21 ordered French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) to pay 250,000 rubles (6,000 euros) in damages to the pro-Putin youth movement Nashi for a September 2009 article about Nashi’s activities, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Nashi has also sued the French daily Le Monde, the British daily The Independent, and other media. The youth...

An Ecuadoran appellate court should overturn the libel conviction of editor Enrique Palacio, and the country’s legislators should reform archaic defamation laws that do not meet international standards for freedom of expression, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Palacio was sentenced Friday to three years in prison in connection with a commentary about a senior government...

A Bishkek court has ordered the temporary closure of two newspapers, Achyk Sayasat and Nazar, and fined them 5 million som (82,000 euros) for publishing an opinion piece by a government opponent in exile accusing President Kurmanbek Bakiev, who became president after a coup d’état, of lacking legitimacy, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). In a ruling issued on March 18, the court found...

A Turkish appellate court should overturn the unjust convictions of publisher and editor Haci Bogatekin, who faces several years in prison on various “insult” charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Bogatekin, owner of the biweekly Gerger Firat and editor of the news website Gergerfirat, was convicted March 2 on charges of “insulting” state prosecutors and “offending the...

The Ethiopian Supreme Court reinstated fines on Monday against four newspaper publishing companies over their coverage of the disputed 2005 national election, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Judge Dagne Melaku, presiding over a panel of three-judge panel, upheld fines initially imposed in July 2007 against the Fasil, Serkalem, Sisay, and Zekarias publishing houses for...