Threatened

A Slovenian journalist was allegedly threatened with death on October 10 by a prominent Ljubljana-based businessman after investigating his company, the journalist told the International Press Institute on Thursday. Jaka Elikan, a reporter for Slovene business daily Finance, had been conducting investigations into Electa, a company owned by Jure Jankovic, son of Ljubljana mayor Zoran Jankovic...

The South and East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) has expressed concern about and condemned the recent telephone and email threats to the Croatian weekly Novosti. On October 6, the weekly Novosti, which is published by the Serbian national minority in Croatia, received numerous phone calls and emails in which anonymous persons went as far as posing death threats to the Novosti staff members...

Molly Norris, a political cartoonist for Seattle Weekly, went into hiding in September because of threats made after her tongue-in-cheek call for an "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day," according to Seattle Weekly. The call was included in a cartoon Norris drew to protest a decision by the cable television network Comedy Central not to broadcast an episode of "South Park" that tested the Islamic taboo...

Barely 30 hours after an attack by armed assailants on the Noroeste newspaper building in Mazatlán, the newspaper has received a new threat from an unidentified caller demanding that it pay approximately US$15,000 in exchange for not "blowing up" its offices, the Centre for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) has reported. Directors at Noroeste said that at around 10:40 a.m. on September 2, a...

Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika last week threatened to shut down newspapers that “tarnish” his government’s image. The president, who was speaking at an agriculture show in the capital city of Liongwe, seemed to be referring to a story in the privately-owned Malawi News Daily, reports said. The story quoted a report from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), an economic...

A Zimbabwean minister who threatened to jail journalists who used information he said had been leaked from cabinet meetings, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Information Minister Webster Shamu made the threat on August 4. Shamu said that journalists and ministers could face jail sentences of up to 20 years under the 1970 Official Secrets Act...

France condemned the behaviour of one of its own military officers on Thursday, after a video appeared online showing him threatening a Togolese press photographer in Lome, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. The officer, a serving French colonel employed by the foreign ministry as an advisor to the Togolese military, is seen ordering the journalist to erase pictures from his camera and...

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, has been waging a hate campaign for the past week against Lvin magazine, accusing it of besmirching the memory of Barzani’s father, the late Kurdish nationalist leader Mullah Mostafa Barzani. The offending article in Lvin magazine, published on August 1, consisted of an interview...

A member of Swaziland’s royal family has made death threats and outrageous claims against local journalists over their critical coverage of the country's leadership. During a July 21 public forum called the Smart Partnership National Dialogue in the central commercial city of Manzini, Prince Mahlaba, brother of Swaziland’s absolute ruler King Mswati III, was quoted by local media as saying: “I...

Newspapers in Manipur failed to hit the stands on Friday as publishing houses and journalists decided against bringing out the issues in protest against threat to a scribe by hill-based militants. The All-Manipur Working Journalists' Union (AMWJU) had launched a sit-in protest against the threat and decided to cease work on Thursday. AMWJU took the decision after Singlianmang Guite, a reporter of...