News by Reporters Sans Frontières
Honduras - No let-up for radio stations that opposed coup
There has a new surge in cases of harassment and censorship of journalists working for radio stations that have been outspoken in their criticism of the government since the June 2009 coup d'état. Radio Uno, an educational station in the northern city of San Pedro Sula that has repeatedly criticised the regime, was forced off the air by an act of sabotage on the night of 30 August. It has since been able to resume broadcasting amid much tension. Its staff has often been the target of (...)
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United States - Mumia Abu-Jamal : “I am an outlaw journalist”
On August 29th, 2010, Reporters Without Borders Washington DC representative, Clothilde Le Coz, visited Mumia Abu-Jamal, prisoner on death row for nearly three decades. Ms. Le Coz was accompanied by Abu-Jamal's lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, and his legal assistant, Nicole Bryan. The meeting took place in room 17 of the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Waynesburg, Greene county, Pennsylvania. Reporters Without Borders: As a journalist who continues to work in prison, what are your (...)
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Russia - Police raid Moscow weekly in bid to identify sources
Reporters Without Borders condemns yesterday's three-hour raid on The New Times, an independent Moscow-based weekly, by armed and masked police officers led by Col. Stanislav Pashkovsky, the head of the General Directorate of Internal Affairs (GUVD) for the Moscow region, who wanted to identify the sources for a February exposé on riot police corruption and abuses. Col. Pashkovsky was after the recordings of interviews that members of the OMON riot police gave anonymously to reporter Ilya (...)
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Yemen - Two journalists held incommunicado for more than two weeks
More than two weeks have gone by without any news of reporter Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae and cartoonist Kamal Sharaf since their arrests in Sanaa on 16 and 17 August, which have been followed by an increase in cases of violence against journalists. “It is unacceptable that the authorities have said nothing about the fate of these two journalists, who were arrested by the security forces,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge President Ali Abdallah Saleh to have them released. International (...)
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China - Two-year jail sentences for two student magazine editors
Reporters Without Borders condemns the two-year jail sentences that have been imposed on Sonam Rinchen and Yargay, two students who helped to edit the Tibetan student magazine Namchak. Two other editors of the magazine, who were arrested at the same time as them in March, are still awaiting trial. Their conviction has coincided with other cases of repression. For example, the Tibetan writer Kalsang Tsultrim, also known by the pen-name of Gyitsang Takmig, was arrested on 7 July in Dzoge, (...)
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China - Microblogging websites to recruit censors to step up pressure on netizens
The ranks of China's censors are visibly growing along with measures aimed at monitoring the public's communications and personal data. The authorities have just announced that China's microblogging websites – sites offering Twitter-style services – will be told to appoint “self-discipline commissioners” to be responsible for censorship. In a parallel development, the authorities have announced that, to combat curb mobile phone spam and fraud, anyone wanting to buy a mobile phone that uses (...)
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India - Tamil Nadu magazine publisher freed on bail
Reporters Without Borders hails journalist A.S. Mani's release on bail today on an order that his lawyer managed to obtain from a Tamil Nadu appeal court yesterday. The publisher and editor of the Chennai-based magazine Naveena Netrikkan, Mani will nonetheless have to remain for the next month in Chidambaram, which is 250 km from Chennai. 17 august 2010 Chennai magazine editor still held after one month, tortured Reporters Without Borders appeals to M. Karunanidhi, the chief minister of (...)
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Pakistan - Supporting media and journalists hit by flooding
As millions of Pakistanis continue to suffer from the flooding that has hit a fifth of the country, journalists' organisations and media support groups are stepping up their efforts to help news media and journalists in the affected areas. Reporters Without Borders has provided financial support to three independent newspapers – Shamal, Salam and Chand – in one of the worst-hit areas, the Swat valley, where the electricity supply was cut off 29 July, including in Mingora, the base of the (...)
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Somalia - Journalist is stabbed to death in Puntland
Reporters Without Borders today voiced its deep distress at the murder yesterday of Abdullahi Omar Gedi, aged 25, a journalist on Radio Daljir in Galkayo, capital of the semi-autonomous Puntland region of Somalia. Gedi was set on as he was on his way home from work and stabbed six times in the body and legs and died while he was being taken to hospital. His assailants fled with his mobile phone. “We condemn this attack and the death of this young journalist”, the worldwide press freedom (...)
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Turkey - Two Kurdish newspapers banned for a month, cultural magazine seized
Reporters Without Borders regrets that Kurdish publications have again been suspended or seized under the Anti-Terrorism Law (Law 3713), which allows the Turkish courts to impose harsh penalties on journalists and media when they allude to Kurdish armed separatists and fosters a repressive climate for the Kurdish media. Although the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly condemned Turkey because of the Anti-Terrorism Law, the country's constitutional court has refused to consider (...)
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Jordan - Government yields to protests and modifies cyber crimes law
Reporters Without Borders hails the withdrawal of some of the most repressive provisions in the temporary law on cyber crimes in an amendment approved by the government on 29 August but continues to call for its repeal as it still grants the authorities arbitrary restrictive powers, above all because of its vague wording. The most welcome changes were to provisions concerning defamation and to provisions granting too much discretionary power to the attorney-general's office. Adopted on 3 (...)
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Pakistan - Murder attempt on journalist over TV report of lynching
Dunya TV reporter Hafiz Muhammad Imran Shehzad has just been the target of an apparent murder attempt in Sialkot, in the northeastern province of Punjab, because his coverage of the lynching of two brothers in the presence of police officers in Sialkot, which shocked Pakistani public opinion. Aged 27, Imran has been hospitalised with the injuries he received when he was attacked and badly beaten outside his Sialkot home on 29 August by two men who arrived on a motorcycle. “I did an (...)
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Salvador - A year later, many arrests in Poveda murder but facts still unclear
A year has gone by since Christian Poveda, a French photojournalist, documentary filmmaker and politically-committed observer, was shot dead in a San Salvador suburb on 2 September 2009, probably by members of a local gang. His death has deprived his profession of one of its best-informed specialists in Central America, a region often ignored by the international press. After covering the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1970s and 80s, Poveda returned to El Salvador during (...)
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Democratic Republic of Congo - Open letter to President Kabila about steadily worsening climate for journalists
Reporters Without Borders and Journalist in Danger (JED), its local partner organisation, wrote to President Joseph Kabila today to condemn the steady decline in the climate for journalists and the reduction in the space for free expression in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The two organisations, which are particularly worried about Jullson Eninga, a journalist who is facing a possible 20-year jail sentence or even the death penalty on a charge of treason, urged President Kabila to (...)
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Iraq - Policemen attack journalist's home in Baghdad
Policemen fired on the Baghdad home of the head of the Iraqi Press Agency, Haydar Hassoun Al-Fizaa, on 27 August, injuring his wife and other relatives, before searching the premises and damaging furniture. The attack on Al-Fazaa's home in the east Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Shaab was carried by police officers travelling in seven interior ministry vehicles. With the help of neighbours, Al-Fizaa was able to take his badly-injured wife to hospital. Other members of the family were also (...)
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China - Two-year jail sentences for two student magazine editors
Reporters Without Borders condemns the two-year jail sentences that have been imposed on Sonam Rinchen and Sonam Dhondup, two students who helped to edit the Tibetan student magazine Namchak. Two other editors of the magazine, who were arrested at the same time as them in March, are still awaiting trial. Their conviction has coincided with other cases of repression. For example, the Tibetan writer Kalsang Tsultrim, also known by the pen-name of Gyitsang Takmig, was arrested on 7 July in (...)
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Philippines - A lawyer and a journalist interviewed as Maguindanao massacre trial resumes
The trial of those charged with the Maguindanao massacre, in which 32 media professionals were killed, is due to resume in Quezon City, near Manila, on 1 September, after a preliminary round of hearings ended on 17 August. At least 700 people, including 196 defendants, 200 prosecution witnesses and 300 defence witnesses will testify. Given the scale of the case, prosecutors think the trial will last several years. The leading defendant is the former mayor of Datu Unsay, Andal Ampatuan Jr., (...)
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Cameroon - Newspaper editor held since March hospitalised after being attacked in his cell
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the condition of the former editor of the weekly Le Devoir, Robert Mintya, who was taken from Yaoundé's Kondengui prison to a hospital on 25 August, more than two weeks after being seriously injured in an attack by a fellow inmate in his cell. The press freedom organisation has rushed emergency funds to Mintya, who was incarcerated in Kondengui prison on 10 March along with two other journalists, one of whom, Ngota Ngota Germain, also (...)
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Russia - Muslim news agency journalists missing for past week in Dagestan
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the disappearance of the head of a Muslim news agency and his deputy a week ago in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a republic in the Russian Caucasus. Khuda-Media director Abubark Rizvanov and his deputy, Timur Kurbanmagomedov, went missing after leaving their office at 4 p.m. on 20 August to buy a printer cartridge. After they failed to return, their colleagues tried to call them on their mobile phones without success. The authorities have (...)
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Senegal - Newspaper editor gets six months in prison for defaming president's chief of staff
Reporters Without Borders is very disappointed by the six-month jail sentence which a Dakar court has imposed on Abdourahmane Diallo, the editor of the Express News daily, for defaming President Abdoulaye Wade's chief of staff, Pape Samba Mboup. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Diallo, who was tried in absentia, but he has not yet been detained. “There are two distinct aspects to this matter,” Reporters Without Borders said. “One is whether the newspaper was in the wrong. The other (...)
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Vietnam - Government urged to pardon detained journalists and netizens
Reporters Without Borders reiterates its appeal to the government to ensure that the human rights activists, journalists and netizens who are in prison in Vietnam just for expressing their views are included in the amnesty for detainees that has been announced for Vietnam's National Holiday on 2 September. Vietnam needs to respect its undertakings to guarantee freedom of expression. The release of these human rights activists, journalists and bloggers would be seen a major conciliatory (...)
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Bahrain - Attempted murder of newspaper editor
The editor of the daily Al-Watan, Mahnad Abu Zeiytoun, was attacked and stabbed by two masked men as he left the newspaper's offices near the capital, Manama, at around 3 a.m. yesterday. After asking him if he worked for Al-Watan, they tried to stab him in the face and heart but missed their targets. They set fire to his car with Molotov cocktails before fleeing. Zeiytoun was rushed to hospital with injuries to the right arm and various parts of the body. “Squeezed between the security (...)
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Somalia - Journalist killed in Mogadishu fighting, Al-Shabaab takes control of radio station
Reporters Without Borders alerts the international community to the collapse of the security situation in Somalia and the living hell its journalists are having to endure as a result of a major offensive launched on 23 August by the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab against government troops and the soldiers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). In addition to the many casualties in the fighting, the offensive has also had a serious impact on the media and information. “We voice our (...)
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China - Fujian authorities urged to grant full release to ailing blogger
Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities in the southeastern province of Fujian to grant a definitive release to Fan Yanqiong, a blogger who is serving a two-year jail sentence on a charge of defaming the police. Fan was taken to hospital in a serious condition on 25 August but it seems she had been accorded only a provisional release on health grounds. Fan was one of three bloggers who were convicted for publicising the case of Yan Xiaoling, a young woman who died after allegedly (...)
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Azerbaijan - Security guards who attacked journalists go unpunished
Reporters Without Borders condemns the authorities' refusal to investigate an attack on two newspaper journalists, Yeni Musavat reporter Elmin Badalov and Milli Yol deputy editor Anar Gerayly, by a wealthy businessman's private security guards. The two journalists were photographing luxury homes in the Baku neighbourhood of Shuvlan on 28 July when they were attacked and beaten by security guards. The guards held them for more than three hours, interrogated them, threatened to put them under (...)
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Iraq - Journalist kidnapped and murdered in land of impunity
The body of Kamal Qassim Mohamed, the deputy editor of the magazine Al-Mustaqila, was found in Baghdad yesterday, six days after his abduction by gunmen. He had been shot. His killers have not been identified. “The authorities have a duty to shed light on Kamal Qassim Mohamed's murder,” Reporters Without Borders said. “A proper investigation must be carried out and those responsible must be identified and given a fair trial before a criminal court.” Mohamed's death has again highlighted the (...)
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Togo - Photographer beaten up by gendarmes, heavy damages award against newspaper
Reporters Without Borders condemns the use of violence by gendarmes to detain newspaper photographer Didier Ledoux today outside the main Lomé lawcourts, where defamation actions were being heard against two newspapers. The incident came just two weeks after a French military adviser, Lt. Col. Romuald Letondot, threatened Ledoux during a demonstration. “It is deplorable that Didier Ledoux has been the victim of violence by Togolese gendarmes just two weeks after being accosted and threatened (...)
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Russia - Journalist gunned down in capital of Dagestan
Reporters Without Borders condemns the murder of Magomedvagif Sultanmagomedov, a Muslim scholar who was the head of Makhachkala TV and the Nurul Irshad (Light of Truth) publishing house, in Dagestan, in the Russian Caucasus, on 11 August. Sultanmagomedov was fatally injured when unidentified gunmen fired on him as he was driving his car in the centre of Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital, and died a few hours later in a hospital. Colleagues believe that his murder was the result of his (...)
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China - Private-sector companies in battle with journalists over information
Chinese journalists and media are increasingly finding themselves the targets of threats and censorship by private-sector companies (and some state companies as well). Several cases with serious implications for press freedom in China have illustrated this privatisation of censorship and violence against journalists in the past few weeks. The phenomenon is not new, but it is tending to grow in an alarming manner. In one case, two journalists had a run-in with the police for writing a story (...)
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Argentina - Arson attack forces Salta province radio station off the air, one injured
Radio FM Cerrillos, a local station based in San José de los Cerrillos, in the northern province of Salta, has been off the air since 2 a.m. on 24 August, when unidentified attackers stole its 300-watt transmitter and set fire to its studios, located beside the home of its director, Carlos Villanueva. The fire destroyed Villanueva's garage and part of his house, as well as the radio station. Villanueva's son Enzo had to be hospitalised with burns and smoke inhalation after trying to put out (...)
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Turkey - US journalist deported, banned from returning
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the Turkish interior ministry's decision to deport US journalist Jake Hess and ban him from re-entering the country. Arrested by anti-terrorist police in the mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Diyarbakir on 11 August, Hess was deported on 20 August after being held for nine days. In its release in response to Hess' arrest, Reporters Without Borders had demanded his immediate release and warned that his expulsion would not be an appropriate (...)
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Yemen - Arbitrary detention of two journalists amid upsurge in violence
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the illegal detention of journalists Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae and Kamal Sharaf for the past week. They were arrested in Sanaa on 16 and 17 August at a time when government forces are stepping up a military offensive in the south of the country against militants linked with Al-Qaeda. “The fight against terrorism does not justify the force disappearance of journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The arbitrary and brutal manner in which Shae (...)
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Latvia - Judicial authorities urged to end harassment of netizen and TV journalist
Reporters Without Borders calls on the Latvian authorities to abandon a criminal investigation into netizen Ilmārs Poikāns and journalist Ilze Nagla of the state TV station LTV1 for exposing a serious security flaw in the national tax office's data storage system. Using the pseudonym of Neo and portraying himself a member of a fictitious hacker group called 4ATA, Poikāns revealed through his Twitter account (twitter.com/neo4ATA) and files uploaded via Mediafire server on 14 February that (...)
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Honduras - Another journalist killed, ninth this year, motive not yet known
The body of Israel Zelaya Díaz, a radio journalist based in the northwestern city of San Pedro Sula, was found at a roadside yesterday. He had been shot. His death brings the number of Honduran journalists murdered since the start of the year to nine. A member of the Association of Journalists of Honduras, Zelaya presented a programme on Radio Internacional. “The fact that the motive, as in most of the other cases, has yet to be determined, should not be used as pretext of ruling out the (...)
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Bahrain - Unacceptable arrests of human rights activists
Abdeljalil Al-Singace, a blogger and academic who heads a mainly Shiite opposition group called Haq (or Movement for Liberties and Democracy), was arrested on 13 August on returning from London, where he took part in a seminar on the worsening human rights situation in Bahrain. He has been accused of defaming the government and judicial authorities, and “publishing false information about the country's internal affairs” with the aim of sullying its image. His arrest was followed by the (...)
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Indonesia - Cameraman killed covering clash between villagers in Maluku Islands
Reporters Without Borders is horrified to learn that Ridwan Salamun, a cameraman working for SUN TV, was hacked to death in Tual, in the eastern province of Maluku, on 21 August by a group of villagers who did not welcome his attempt to cover a clash with residents of a neighbouring village. “A thorough investigation is urgently needed so that those responsible for this murder can be arrested,” Reporters Without Borders said. “To ensure the investigation is carried out properly, the (...)
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Ukraine - Support for strike by journalists tomorrow in Kiev
Reporters Without Borders supports the strike which, according to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website (http://www.rferl.org/content/Disapp...), journalists plan to stage in Kiev tomorrow to protest against the government's attempt to strip several TV stations of their broadcast licences. Contrary to what Reporters Without Borders reported in an earlier release, it was not the “Stop the censorship” movement that initiated the strike Reporters Without Borders plans to attend the 26 (...)
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Azerbaijan - Supreme court refuses to hear petition by jailed bloggers
Azerbaijan's supreme court has refused to consider a petition by jailed bloggers Adnan Hadjizade and Emin Milli for their release and for the prosecution of the arresting police officers and the prosecutor who fabricated the case on which they were convicted. The decision to reject the request and to keep the two bloggers in prison was issued by supreme court president Ali Seyfaliyev. Their lawyers have said they will now take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. 26 July 2010 (...)
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Ukraine - Authorities urged to do everything possible to find missing newspaper editor
Reporters Without Borders calls for a thorough and transparent investigation into the disappearance of Vasyl Klymentyev, the editor of a regional investigative weekly based in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Klymentyev was last seen on the morning of 11 August getting into an unknown person's metallic-grey car outside his home. His mobile phone was found a few days later in a boat adrift on Pechenizke reservoir, near Kharkiv. Police used dogs to search the area without success. (...)
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Chad - Parliament adopts new media law that is still too repressive
Reporters Without Borders regrets that Chad's national assembly yesterday passed a media bill that the government resubmitted at the start of the month and urges President Idriss Déby not to sign it into law because it would still allow journalists to be imprisoned. “The Chadian authorities claim to have taken a big step forward by decriminalising press offences but no one is fooled,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Prison sentences for journalists have not disappeared. They have been (...)
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Bahrain - Unacceptable arrests of human rights activists
Abdeljalil Al-Singace, a blogger and academic who heads a mainly Shiite opposition group called Haq (or Movement for Liberties and Democracy), was arrested on 13 August on returning from London, where he took part in a seminar on the worsening human rights situation in Bahrain. He has been accused of defaming the government and judicial authorities, and “publishing false information about the country's internal affairs” with the aim of sullying its image. His arrest was followed by the (...)
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Iran - Regime continues to close newspapers, impose jail sentences on journalists
Reporters Without Borders condemns the closure of three newspapers in the past few days and the imposition of a jail sentence on another journalist in the government's continuing crackdown on the media. The Commission for Press Authorisation and Surveillance, the censorship arm of the ministry of culture and Islamic orientation, has suspended the business daily Asia and withdrawn the licences of the weeklies Sepidar and Parastoo, while Badrolsadat Mofidi, the secretary-general of the (...)
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Bangladesh - Court passes jail sentences on newspaper editor and reporter
Reporters Without Borders deplores yesterday's decision by the supreme court to impose a six-month jail sentence on Mahmudur Rahman, the acting editor of the opposition daily Amar Desh, and a one-month jail sentence on Oliullah Noman, one of his reporters, for contempt of court. “The authorities are trying to relieve prison overcrowding by freeing lots of detainees, yet the supreme court has passed jail terms on these two journalists,” Reporters Without Borders. “This is absurd. The government (...)
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Venezuela - Court bans ‘‘violent'' content after daily publishes controversial morgue photo
A special court for the protection of children and adolescents yesterday banned the Caracas-based daily El Nacional from publishing any “violent, bloody or grotesque” images that could affect young people after it printed a photo of bodies piled up in a Caracas morgue in its 13 August issue to illustrate the heavy toll from violent crime. The same photo was also used by Tal Cual, a daily which, like El Nacional, is very critical of the government. The court also issued an order to El (...)
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Pakistan - Despite difficulties, media have crucial role to play in helping victims
Reporters Without Borders urges the Pakistani media to step up their positive role in helping the victims of the terrible flooding that has been devastating the country. A manual on the media's role in humanitarian crises, written by UNESCO and Reporters Without Borders, stresses the importance of providing information to help both victims and aid workers. The two organisations call on the authorities to do as much as possible to facilitate the work of the press. They also urge the (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Call for humane treatment for jailed journalists and respect for press charter
Reporters Without Borders is shocked by the way the authorities are treating Ulugbek Abdusalomov, a newspaper editor based in the southern city of Jalal-Abad who has been held since June's inter-ethnic violence and who is currently hospitalised with serious cardiac problems. He is being kept handcuffed and under constant police surveillance in the hospital. The editor of the independent Uzbek-language newspaper Diydor, Abdusalomov was arrested on 14 June and was charged on 10 August under (...)
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United States - "Criticism of Wikileaks is not a call for censorship or support for the war"
There has been a great deal of controversy about the Wikileaks website's decision to post thousands of leaked reports that include the names of Afghan civilians who have collaborated with the international military coalition in Afghanistan. The controversy has grown even more since Reporters Without Borders and other NGOs criticised a lack of responsibility on the part of Wikileaks. As hate messages and unfair accusations proliferate in the online newspapers that reported this criticism, (...)
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Romania - Open letter to Mrs. Lia Olguța Vasilescu
The Romanian Senate Mrs. Lia Olguța Vasilescu Subject: Draft law regulating Internet forums Dear Mrs. Vasilescu, Reporters Without Borders and its Romanian partner organisation ActiveWatch are concerned about your intention to promote a bill that would ban any kind of insulting comment from websites, especially media websites, and restrict access to certain websites and forums for those who use abusive language. We believe such a bill would endanger freedom of speech and the freedom of (...)
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Peru - Deputy minister humiliates head of radio station closed for 14 months
Carlos Flores Borja, the manager of Amazonian radio station La Voz de Bagua, travelled all the way to Lima last week because he had been given an appointment with transport and communications minister Enrique Cornejo on 11 August to discuss the reopening of the station, which the government closed 14 months ago. But in the end, Flores was received by deputy minister Jorge Cuba Hidalgo, who told him that the station will remain closed despite the promise that President Alan García gave last (...)
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Russia - Official website's inaccessibility raises questions about information transparency
The website of the Russian Centre for the Protection of Forests, also known as Roslesozashchita (www.rcfh.ru), has been inaccessible since 13 August, shortly after it contradicted the government by reporting that forest fires had reached areas that were contaminated by radiation during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Roslesozashchita, an agriculture ministry offshoot, reported last week that there were fires on around 4,000 hectares of land that were contaminated, including 300 (...)
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Portugal - Judicial harassment results in record 1.5 million euro fine for Lisbon weekly
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns a decision to fine the Lisbon-based weekly Sol 1.5 million euros for defying a court injunction obtained by Rui Pedro Soares, the Portuguese government's former representative on the board of the national telecommunications company Portugal Telecom, not to publish details from phone conversations recorded in a police surveillance operation. Soares obtained the injunction on 11 February in response to a report published six days before in Sol (...)
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Belarus - Harassment of media grows in run-up to presidential election
Reporters Without Borders deplores increasing harassment of the Belarusian press in the run-up to the presidential election that has been scheduled for next spring. What with the information ministry's repeated warnings, police raids, tax inspections and the country's new media law, press freedom is now severely compromised in Belarus. Warnings to opposition papers After receiving a series of information ministry warnings, two leading opposition newspapers, Narodnaya Volya and Nasha (...)
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Pakistan - Broadcasting of two TV stations suspended, copies of national dailies burned
Transmission of two privately-owned TV stations, Geo News and Ary, was suspended in several major cities on 8 August after they reported that a man threw a shoe at President Asif Ali Zardari during Zardari's visit to Birmingham, England, the previous day. Gunmen also attacked newsstands and a distribution truck on 8 August, burning copies of the national dailies The News and Jang. Transmission of other TV stations that carried reports of the shoe-throwing incident, such as Samaa, Aaj, (...)
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Somalia - Puntland court jails journalist for six years for interviewing Islamist rebel
Abdifatah Jama Mire, the deputy director of a radio station based in Bosaso, in the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland, was sentenced to six years in prison in a summary trial in Bosaso today for interviewing a local rebel chief linked to Al-Qaeda. Mire and seven other journalists employed by radio Horseed Media FM were arrested when heavily-armed police raided the station and suspended its transmissions at 5:20 p.m. yesterday, shortly after it broadcast an interview with (...)
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Burundi - Editor released provisionally after being held for two days on libel charge
Reporters Without Borders welcomes yesterday's provisional release of Thierry Ndayishimiye, the editor of the weekly Arc-en-ciel, after two days in pre-trial detention in Bujumbura on a charge of libelling the head of the national water and power company, REGIDESO. REGIDESO's director-general filed a complaint against Ndayishimiye on 30 July over an article accusing him of covering up irregularities in the management of a construction project that led to the loss of around 280 million francs (...)
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Turkey - US journalist detained in southeast over coverage of Kurdish issue
Jake Hess, an American freelance journalist who writes for Inter Press Service (IPS), was arrested on 11 August in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey, and is currently being held at the headquarters of the city's anti-terrorist unit. Accused of links with the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KSK), a new organisation that is alleged to be an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Hess could be deported or placed in pre-trial detention today. (...)
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India - India gives Research In Motion deadline of 31 August
The Indian authorities yesterday told Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry smartphone, that it has until 31 August to provide India's intelligence agencies with access to BlackBerry's encrypted email and messaging services or else those services will be shut down in India. Although the demand is being made in the name of national security, it reflects a desire to monitor and even filter communications. But India is taking advantage of the pressure being (...)
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Iraq - Security forces deliberately fire on TV cameraman in the Iraqi Kurdistan
Security forces, police officers and members of the Asayesh intelligence service harassed a group of journalists on 11 August in Chamchamal, a town located between Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, and even opened fire on one of them. The journalists were covering a protest against a water shortage in the town. “What happened in Chamchamal is absolutely outrageous,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Journalists are often the targets of verbal threats or physical violence from the (...)
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Russia - Journalists interrogated, photos seized after protesters attack official building in Khimki
Reporters Without Borders is shocked by the raids on news media and journalists that the interior ministry has carried out as part of its investigation into an attack on an administrative building in Khimki, a satellite town on Moscow's northern outskirts, by hundreds of protesters on the night of 28 July. Representatives of the interior ministry's Moscow region investigating committee raided the offices of the daily Kommersant on 2 August and confiscated photos of the Khimki protest, (...)
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United States - Open letter to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange: ‘‘A bad precedent for the Internet's future''
Julian Assange Founder Wikileaks Dear Mr. Assange, Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom organisation, regrets the incredible irresponsibility you showed when posting your article “Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010” on the Wikileaks website on 25 July together with 92,000 leaked documents disclosing the names of Afghans who have provided information to the international military coalition that has been in Afghanistan since 2001. Wikileaks has in the past played a useful (...)
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Croatia - Stones thrown at TV crew covering ultranationalist celebration
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by a physical attack on reporter Ivonu Ramadzu and cameraman Kresimira Morica of national radio and TV station HRT on 5 August while they were covering celebrations marking the 15th anniversary of Operation Oluja, a major military victory for Croatia in the Yugoslav Wars. The TV crew went to the village of Čavoglave, the birthplace of controversial singer Marko “Thompson” Perković, where his ultranationalist admirers had gathered to celebrate the ideology (...)
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Jordan - New law allows government to regulate online content
Reporters Without Borders is worried by a provisional cyber crimes law that the government decreed on 3 August and calls for its repeal. By establishing a legal framework for news and information websites and specifying sanctions for violators, it has created a legislative arsenal that can be used to regulate the Internet and punish those whose posts upset the authorities. The penalties, which range from fines to forced labour, depend on the content posted. The authorities have invoked the (...)
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Lebanon - Al-Akhbar reporter held and interrogated illegally by defence ministry
The detention and interrogation of Hassan Allek, a reporter for the daily Al-Akhbar, by the defence ministry on 11 August were flagrant violations of media law, Reporters Without Borders said. They were prompted by a story by Allek that certain Lebanese government and military officials were cooperating with the Israeli intelligence services. Summoned to the defence ministry headquarters in mid-morning, Allek was taken into custody, interrogated by intelligence officers for several hours (...)
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Colombia - Caracol Radio car-bomb bodes ill five days after new president's installation
A car bomb exploded at around 5:30 this morning outside the Bogotá building that houses Caracol Radio, one of Colombia's leading radio stations, and the bureau of the Spanish news agency EFE, causing the roof to collapse and inflicting minor injuries on nine people. The radio station had been broadcasting a news programme for 30 minutes when the bomb went off. Caracol Radio manager Darío Arizmendi covered the aftermath of the bombing live on the air until evacuated by police. He called it an (...)
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Sudan - Government announces lifting of prior censorship but journalists and media still seriously threatened
Reporters Without Borders notes the announcement by the director-general of National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) on 7 August that prior censorship of Sudan's newspapers has been lifted. The government's media department notified the national media of the decision, which most newspapers reported in their 8 August issues. In a news conference on 7 August, the head of the NISS press office said prior censorship had been needed to combat the publication of false reports. Quoting (...)
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Indonesia - Government orders ISPs to start anti-porn filtering
Reporters Without Borders calls on communication and information minister Tifatul Sembiring to rescind his announced plans for Internet filtering. According to the minister, Indonesia's more than 200 Internet service providers have agreed to begin blocking access to porn sites today, the start of the holy month of Ramadan. “This measure is absolutely pointless, it is complicated to implement and it could set a dangerous precedent for freedom of expression,” Reporters Without Borders said. (...)
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Surinam - Bouterse's installation as president must not mean impunity for past murders of journalists
Desi Bouterse will be sworn in today as president, the post to which parliament elected him on 19 July. We respect the will of the Surinamese people but we cannot forget that Bouterse continues to be charged with the murders of five journalists in 1982, while he was dictator. Even if legal proceedings are suspended for the duration of his presidency, it would be unacceptable it these murders were to go unpunished indefinitely. A soldier by profession, Bouterse has been returned to power by (...)
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Brazil - Journalist's convicted murderer openly dealing in drugs in Rio
Eliseu Felício de Souza, also known as “O Zeu,” a gang member who has been on the run for the past three years after being convicted for his role in the 2002 murder of TV Globo reporter Tim Lopes, is openly operating as drug dealer in a northern district of Rio de Janeiro, according to a new TV Globo report. He took advantage of a “semi-release” programme to escape. The report broadcast by TV Globo, a national station, shows “O Zeu” armed and selling crack in broad daylight in a slum called Morro (...)
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Sri Lanka - Where is Prageeth?
Two hundred days have passed since Sri Lankan journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda disappeared. Prageeth, who regularly contributed to LankaeNews web site, went missing 24th January 2010. Prageeth is a political analyst and a cartoonist known for his outspoken views critical of the government of Sri Lanka. Since Prageeth's disappearance his wife, along with media rights and human rights groups, has continuously urged the government of Sri Lanka to reveal his whereabouts. The Cartoonists Rights (...)
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Iraq - Ruling party threat to press freedom in Iraqi Kurdistan
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which is 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 KDP's supporters are on the warpath and are threatening all sorts of terrible things if they do not get a public apology. The KDP has also brought a libel action against (...)
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Tibet - Search for total online control
Reporters Without Borders condemns the latest escalation in the Chinese government's Internet censorship and control system in the Tibet Autonomous Region. In order to monitor and restrict the volume of information available to Tibetans, the authorities are insisting that all Internet cafés and companies that make computers available to the public in Tibet install the sophisticated filtering and surveillance software that was recently imposed in Beijing and other parts of China. The Chinese (...)
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Saudi Arabia - Research In Motion under pressure to give access to BlackBerry user data
Reporters Without Borders condemns the suspension of BlackBerry instant messaging services announced by Saudi Arabia, where it was due to begin today, and by the United Arab Emirates, where it is due to begin in October. Indonesia, India, Egypt and Kuwait have also voiced concern about BlackBerry's encrypted services and have asked its Canadian manufacturer, Research in Motion (RIM), to give them access to users' confidential data. The Indonesian authorities yesterday denied that they were (...)
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United States - FCC asked to start over the discussion between the US internet providers
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned by future of the Internet access in the United States. According to a front-page New York Times story published on August 4th, 2010, a deal between Google and Verizon would allow “Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege." This will only apply for wired connexions. Both firms however denied the agreement. The day after, the Federal Communications Commission (...)
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Palestinian territories - Political tension continues to take its toll on journalists in Gaza and West Bank
There has been a new wave of harassment and violence against journalists in the occupied Palestinian Territories as the political tension between Hamas and Fatah continues to take its toll on the media. In one of the latest cases, Ahmed Fayadh of the Aljazeeranet news website was beaten by police yesterday in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. “The climate is becoming more and more unbearable for the media,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Not a week goes by without flagrant press (...)
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Saudi Arabia - Research In Motion under pressure to give access to BlackBerry user data
Reporters Without Borders condemns the suspension of BlackBerry instant messaging services announced by Saudi Arabia, where it was due to begin today, and by the United Arab Emirates, where it is due to begin in October. Indonesia, India, Egypt and Kuwait have also voiced concern about BlackBerry's encrypted services and have asked its Canadian manufacturer, Research in Motion (RIM), to give them access to users' confidential data. The Indonesian authorities yesterday denied that they were (...)
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Indonesia - How was investigative reporter pushed to kill himself?
Reporters Without Borders is saddened to learn of the death of investigative journalist Ardiansyah Matra'is, whose body was found in a river in the eastern province of Papua two days after he was reported missing. The cause of death has not yet been official determined, but his mental state suggests it was suicide. Employed by Merauke TV, a local station in the south of the province, Matra'is had been seriously depressed for months after being threatened by soldiers because of his coverage (...)
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Lebanon - Lebanese journalist killed when Israeli tank opens fire
Assaf Abu Rahal, a journalist working for the daily Al-Akhbar, was killed and Al-Manar TV reporter Ali Chouayb was wounded when an Israeli tank opened fire at around midday today in the village of Adaisseh in southern Lebanon (about 30 km east of the coastal town of Tyre). According to the information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, the Israel Defence Forces and the Lebanese army exchanged shots after an Israeli unit crossed the border into Lebanon in order to tear down a tree and (...)
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Côte d’Ivoire - Reporter gets one year in jail on defamation and extortion charges
Reporters Without Borders condemns the one-year jail sentence and fine of 5 million CFA francs that an Abidjan criminal court has imposed on Traoré Médandjé, a leading reporter for the daily L'Intelligent d'Abidjan, on charges of defaming and trying to blackmail a former health ministry official. The case was prompted by an article headlined “Vavoua's illegal boutique clinics,” published on 4 September 2009, in which Médjandé accused then departmental director of health André Tia of getting rich by (...)
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Turkey - Another trial against Kurdish minority publication
Reporters Without Borders condemns the department of public prosecution's decision to bring a new prosecution against writer Mehmet Güler and publisher Ragip Zarakolu. This time they are to be prosecuted for a book about the political system that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) would like to introduce. In a trial due to begin on 30 September before an Istanbul assizes court, Güler and Zarakolu are facing at least eight months in prison if convicted on charges of “publishing PKK (...)
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United Arab Emirates - BlackBerry services suspended
Reporters Without Borders deplores yesterday's announcement by the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority that certain BlackBerry services such as email, messaging and web browsing will be suspended from 11 October because it has failed to reach a compromise with Research in Motion, the Canadian company that manufactures BlackBerry smartphones. The Emirati authorities accuse Research in Motion of refusing to comply with the EAU's laws and say they fear that the country's security could be (...)
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Sri Lanka - Who ordered armed attack on Voice of Asia media group in Colombo?
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by an attack by about 12 armed men on the premises of media that are part of the Voice of Asia group – including Siyatha TV, Siyatha FM, Real Radio and Vettri FM – in Colombo in the early hours of 30 July. Two employees were injured and firebombs caused extensive damage. Watch an exclusive Reporters Without Borders video of this attack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm4r...) “How is such an attack possible in the centre of the capital in a country that (...)
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Yemen - New threats to press freedom in Yemen
Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by a new wave of threats and acts of intimidation against journalists in Yemen. The political class seems to have no qualms about using violence against journalists who write about corruption or embezzlement. Utterly illegal and arbitrary arrests are becoming commonplace. “The situation is becoming more and more worrying again after the encouraging signs in May when the authorities dropped proceedings against 33 journalists on the 20th anniversary of (...)
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Mexico - After four releases, tragic July ends with another abduction and a flight into exile
The relief at the release of the four journalists who were kidnapped on 26 July in Gómez Palacio, in the northwestern state of Durango, was short-lived. As the last two of the four journalists were freed, it was being reported that Ulises González García, the editor of the local weekly La Opinión, had been kidnapped in the early hours of 29 July from his home in Jérez, in the neighbouring state of Zacatecas. González joins the list of 11 journalists reported missing since 2003. His abduction (...)
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Azerbaijan - Police prevent staff of opposition newspaper from working
Reporters Without Borders is surprised to learn that police prevented the staff of the opposition newspaper Azadlig from entering its premises yesterday at the behest of Agbey Askerov, the head of the state-owned publishing house Azerbaijan, which prints the newspaper. Askerov is demanding immediate repayment of a debt of 15,000 manats (15,000 euros), which he says dates back to 2003. Reporters Without Borders condemns the move, and sees it as a pretext for forcing the country's main (...)
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China - Business reporter taken off “most wanted” list
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the Zhejiang provincial government's order to the Suichang police to withdraw its warrant for the arrest of Economic Observer reporter Qiu Ziming and calls for the incomprehensible 15-year jail sentence imposed on online journalist and blogger Gheyret Niyaz in Xinjiang on 23 July to be overturned on appeal. (More information about the trial: http://en.rsf.org/china-uyghur-jour...) “We welcome the apology that the Suichang police have given to Qiu Ziming and (...)
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Rwanda - Around 30 news media closed a few days ahead of presidential election
With just a week to go to a presidential election on 9 August, the Rwandan authorities are openly flouting the rules of the democratic game. Press freedom violations, including the jailing of journalists, the closure of news media and the murder of a newspaper editor a month ago, have intensified in the run-up to the election. The government's latest repressive measure has been the suspension of some 30 news media by the Media High Council, the media regulatory body. Media High Council (...)
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Mexico - Kidnappers free two journalists, but Mexico still one of world's deadliest countries
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the news that two of the four journalists who were kidnapped by a criminal gang in the northern state of Durango on 26 July were released yesterday. One of the other journalists was freed three days ago. A fourth is still being held. The four journalists were kidnapped after covering a demonstration outside a prison that was prompted by allegations that the prison's governor was cooperating with organised crime. “We are very relieved to learn to learn that (...)
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Germany - Lawsuit against two journalists in the “Saxony Corruption Quagmire” – ROG demands an acquittal
Reporter ohne Grenzen (ROG) demands a clear acquittal in the criminal proceedings in Dresden against two Leipzig journalists. “Anything else would be scandalous,” said ROG board spokesperson Michael Rediske in Berlin. “A conviction would hinder any future reporting of corruption affairs and thereby infringe upon freedom of the press.” Even the opening of criminal proceedings against the freelance journalists Arndt Ginzel and Thomas Datt, who investigated the so-called “Saxony Corruption (...)
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Afghanistan - Government violates media law by closing TV station
Reporters Without Borders condemns the Afghan government's latest interference in the media. The cabinet decided on 27 July to close down the privately-owned TV station Emroz for allegedly endangering national unity and to ban two programmes on two other TV stations on the ground that they were contrary to Islamic values. “The government must not under any circumstances violate the media law, which gives the media commission sole decision-making authority when a media commits an offence,” (...)
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Tunisia - Journalists harassed
The Tunisian authorities have in the past few days stepped up their harassment of journalists who dare to criticise the government and defend freedom of expression. “We are very worried by the measures taken to intimidate journalists and restrict their fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression and assembly,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The authorities are also trying to rein in criticism of journalist Fahem Boukadous' imprisonment. We reiterate our call for his immediate (...)
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Thailand - Does state of emergency justify censorship of Red Shirt media?
Control of media that are affiliated to or support the Red Shirt movement has been reinforced considerably since a state of emergency was imposed in Bangkok and many other provinces. A TV station, radio stations, websites and newspapers have been censored, banned, forcibly closed or prosecuted. Most of these media supported the Red Shirt demonstrations, sometimes issuing forceful calls for insurrection. But they also served as ordinary relays of legitimate demands coming from a part of (...)
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Colombia - Protest by gagged journalists to demand respect for free expression
Journalists employed by two radio stations in Yopal, the capital of the northeastern department of Casanare, stopped work today and demonstrated silently, with their mouths gagged, in the city's main square to protest against a lawsuit targeting eight of their colleagues and to demand respect for freedom of information. Eight journalists who work for Violeta Stéreo or La Voz de Yopal are being sued by Casanare governor Raúl Flórez, who insists that they made false and defamatory comments from (...)
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Pakistan - Murder attempts against three journalists, a fourth beaten unconscious
Reporters Without Borders condemns an escalation in violence against journalists in the past few weeks including three murder attempts (two in Bajaur, in the Tribal Areas, and one in Hyderabad) and a severe beating in Hyderabad. “Aside from the duty of the security forces to protect journalists, it is vital that armed groups, especially the Taliban insurgents, put an immediate stop to their threats and attacks on the media. The influence of Pakistan's TV stations is such that their (...)
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China - Journalist put on “most wanted” list for accusing company of improprieties
Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the action of the police in Suichang, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, in putting reporter Qiu Ziming of The Economic Observer weekly on the list of the country's most wanted criminals because of allegations he made about a Suichang-based battery manufacturer, Kan Specialties Material Corporation. Voicing strong support for Qiu and hailing his determination to stand by what he wrote and produce evidence to back his claims, Reporters Without (...)
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Spain Iraq - Investigation into Spanish cameraman's death revived
Reporters Without Borders hails yesterday's decision by Spain's national court to reissue international warrants for the arrest of three US soldiers who are blamed for the 2003 death of Telecinco cameraman José Couso in Baghdad. Couso, a Spanish national, and Reuters reporter Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian, were killed when Baghdad's Palestine Hotel was shelled by a US tank on 8 April 2003. The court issued the new warrants in response to a supreme court ruling at the start of July ordering it (...)
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Russia - Court orders YouTube and four other sites blocked over “extremist” content
Reporters Without Borders condemns the draconian and disproportionate ruling issued by judge Anna Eisenberg in the Russian far-east city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur on 16 July ordering local Internet Service Provider RA-RTS Rosnet to block access to video-sharing website YouTube and four other websites from 3 August onwards. YouTube is to be blocked because of a nationalist video called “Russia for the Russians,” which is on a list of extremist content banned by the justice ministry. The other (...)
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Malaysia - Campaign for Internal Security Act's repeal
Demonstrations are to be held in several Malaysian cities on 1 August, the 50 anniversary of the Internal Security Act (ISA), to press the authorities to repeal this draconian law. The protest organisers include the human rights group Suaram (http://www.suaram.net/) and Gerakan Mansuhkan ISA (http://himpunanmansuhisa.wordpress.com/), a movement specially created to campaign for its repeal. Reporters Without Borders hails this initiative and reiterates its call to the government to scrap (...)
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Turkey - Kurdish journalist serving 166-year jail term wins press freedom prize
Reporters Without Borders reiterates its condemnation of the way the Turkish authorities persecute journalists who try to cover Kurdish issues objectively. Several journalists with Kurdish media are currently serving long jail terms because their reporting. One of them, Vedat Kursun, was awarded a Journalists Association of Turkey press freedom prize on 24 July. He is a former editor of the Kurdish-language daily Azadiya Welat who has been held since 30 January 2009 and who has been (...)
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Egypt - Two policemen go on trial for young activist's death
The trial of Mahmoud Salah Amin and Awad Aismail Souleiman, two police officers who allegedly beat a youth to death outside an Internet café, opened yesterday in Alexandria and was then adjourned until 25 September. The policemen, who will remain in detention until the next hearing, are accused of illegal arrest, torture and use of excessive force. Lawyers representing the family of the victim, Mohammed Khaled Said (...)
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Tunisia - Journalists harassed
The Tunisian authorities have in the past few days stepped up their harassment of journalists who dare to criticise the government and defend freedom of expression. “We are very worried by the measures taken to intimidate journalists and restrict their fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression and assembly,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The authorities are also trying to rein in criticism of journalist Fahem Boukadous' imprisonment. We reiterate our call for his immediate (...)
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Russia - Two journalists arbitrarily arrested while covering attack on Khimki forest protesters
Reporters Without Borders is shocked to learn that Elena Kostyuchenko, a reporter for the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and Yury Timofeyev, a reporter for Prague-based Radio Liberty, were arrested while covering the violent dispersal of environmentalists who had camped out at Khimki forest, north of Moscow, in an attempt to prevent part of it being torn down. The press freedom organisation also condemns the physical mistreatment of Kostyuchenko at the time of her arrest and regrets (...)
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United Arab Emirates - Wave of arrests of BlackBerry Messenger users
The Emirati authorities have been harassing and arresting users of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) who allegedly tried to organise a protest against an increase in the price of gasoline (one of the highest in the Arab world). The protest was eventually called off. BBM user Badr Ali Saiwad Al Dhohori, an 18-year-old resident of Ras Al Khaimah, has reportedly been held in Abu Dhabi since 15 July. The authorities were able to trace the organiser, known as “Saud,” because he included his BlackBerry (...)
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Iran - Sexual assault in prison
Call for investigation into sexual attack on detained journalist Abdolreza Tajik, a journalist and member of the member of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, has been the victim of mistreatment since his arrest on 12 June. Relatives say that when they visited him for the first time in Evin prison on 14 July, he told them he had been victim of violence in the presence of the Tehran deputy prosecutor general during his first night in prison. In the course of the conversation in the visiting (...)
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Côte d’Ivoire - Nouveau Courrier journalists acquitted on criminal charges, due to be released
Reporters Without Borders welcomes yesterday's decision by an Abidjan criminal court to acquit the editor, managing editor and publisher of the Nouveau Courrier d'Abidjan newspaper, who had been originally been charged with theft of an official document, publishing information about a judicial case that has not yet been tried and revealing a confidential document. See the previous release. The three journalists, editor Saint Claver Oula, publisher Stéphane Guédé and managing editor Théophile (...)
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Paraguay - Three attempts to murder provincial reporter
Reporters Without Borders is worried about a series of threats and attacks on Gabriel Bustamante, a journalist based in the small southern town of Ayolas on the Argentine border, who works for radio FM Ayolas and who is a correspondent for the newspapers La Nación and Crónica. Last week, Bustamante was the target of repeated murder attempts by Francisco and Valentín Vera, the brothers of Isidro Vera, a senior executive with the Yacyretá binational power company. Francisco Vera went to (...)
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Tunisia - Journalist in desert prison could die from untreated asthma attacks
Tunisian journalist Fahem Boukadous has been in extremely poor health since police arrested him on 15 July to begin serving a four-year jail sentence for covering protests in the Gafsa mining region in the spring of 2008 for the international satellite TV station El Hiwar Ettounsi. Boukadous, who suffers from acute asthma attacks and was undergoing medical tests when police arrested him, is being held in a cell in Gafsa prison, in the middle of the desert, where the temperature can rise to (...)
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Iraq - Deadly car-bomb attack on Al-Arabiya's Baghdad bureau
A car-bomb explosion seriously damaged satellite TV news station Al-Arabiya's bureau in the central Baghdad district of Harithya today, with an initial toll of three dead, 16 injured and one person missing. The explosion followed a series of threats of attacks on Al-Arabiya by terrorist networks. “It is unacceptable that journalists are the target of acts of such barbarity,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge to the authorities to do what is necessary to guarantee the safety of (...)
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United Arab Emirates - Threatening comments about BlackBerry smartphones from telephone regulator
The UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority warned yesterday that the use of BlackBerry smartphones posed a potential threat to national security. Accusing the company that operates the phones of operating “beyond the jurisdiction of national legislation,” the TRA said it would try to protect both consumers and the law. “This threat by the authorities constitutes a new offensive against BlackBerry phones and their potential for disseminating news and information,” Reporters Without (...)
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Iran - A year in prison and five-year political ban for dissident journalist
Leading Iranian journalist and human rights activist Emaddedin Baghi has been sentenced to a year in prison and a five-year ban on political activity at the end of a two-year trial for forming an organisation that defends prisoners' rights. “We deplore this latest human rights violation by Iran,” Reporters Without Borders said. “With about 29 journalists in prison, Iran continues to be one of the world's biggest predators of free expression.” Arrested during anti-government demonstrations on 28 (...)
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Indonesia - Journalist who covered environmental issues found dead
Journalist who covered environmental issues found dead Reporters Without Borders urges national police chief Gen. Babang Hendarso Danury to ensure that the police conduct an exhaustive and impartial investigation into the death of Muhammad Syaifullah, the Borneo bureau chief of the leading national daily Kompas, and do not prematurely rule out the possibility that he was murdered in connection with his work. Syaifullah was found dead today in his home in Balikpapan, on the island of (...)
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Turkey - Journalist facing possible jail sentence for criticising judge in Hrant Dink trial
Reporters Without Borders is outraged that a leading journalist, columnist Cengiz Çandar of the daily Referans, is facing a possible sentence of one to three years in prison for criticising the handling of the trial of the alleged killers of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. He has been charged with “insulting a public servant in the performance of his duties.” The charge was brought in response to 9 February column about the previous day's hearing, entitled “They are making a mockery of (...)
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Serbia - Columnist beaten over the head with a metal bar
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by a brutal attack on well-known Serbian journalist Teofil Pančić, a columnist for the weekly Vreme (Time). A frequent critic of nationalistic excesses, corruption and hooliganism in sport, Pančić, was beaten with a metal bar by unidentified assailants in Belgrade on the night of 24 July.He was hospitalised with contusions to the head and an arm but has since been released. Teofil Pančić “We are shocked by the violence and barbarity of this attack on one (...)
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United States - Three months of oil spill but one version of events
Between 2.9 and 4.9 million barrels of oil have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since the explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig on 20 April. It is a major environmental disaster that is rapidly turning into a national disaster. Yet the media have often found it impossible to obtain verifiable, independent information and have had to settle for what they are told by BP. And it took until 12 July for the restrictions BP imposed on journalists covering the spill to be lifted... Meagre (...)
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Venezuela - Hugo Chávez's government tightens its grip on the media
President Hugo Chávez announced on 20 July that his government is about to acquire a majority stake in Globovisión, a privately-owned TV station that is very critical of his administration. By acquiring the shares of some of the station's directors, the government says it will be able to control 48.5 per cent of its capital. Federal Bank chairman Nelson Mezerhane stepped in last month at the government's request and bought 20 per cent of Globovisión's shares, plus another 5.8 per cent acquired (...)
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Nepal - Community radio chairman gunned down in western Nepal
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by yesterday's cold-blooded murder of Devi Prasad Dhital alias Hemraj, the chairman of community radio Tulsipur FM, in the western district of Dang. Shot in the chest, he died after being rushed to a hospital in Tulsipur. Police arrested a man suspected of being one of the killers. “We urge the local and national authorities to assign enough police officers so that the suspects can be arrested quickly and a thorough investigation carried out,” Reporters (...)
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China - Uyghur journalist and website editor sentenced to fifteen years in jail
Reporters Without Borders said it was outraged at the harshness of a 15-year prison sentence handed down today to journalist Gheyret Niyaz by a court in Urumqi, in Xinjiang province. He was arrested in October 2009 following ethnic unrest in Xinjiang in July 2009 and found guilty of “threatening national security” after criticising Chinese official policy towards the Uyghurs, sending news about the riots to foreign journalists and contributing to a website accused of inciting violence. “We (...)
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Iraq - Impunity condemned on second anniversary of Kurdish journalist's murder
More than 50 journalists gathered in Sulaymaniyah's Naly Park at 6 p.m. yesterday to pay tribute to journalist Soran Hama Mama on the second anniversary of his death. A Reporters Without Borders representative who is currently on a fact-finding visit to Iraqi Kurdistan took part in the demonstration. The journalists and Mama's relatives accused the local authorities of showing no interest in shedding any light on his murder. The gathering was addressed by Ahmed Mira, the editor of Lvin (the (...)
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India - Violence, arrests and censorship in all four corners of India
Reporters Without Borders condemns a wave of violence and censorship against the media in various parts of the country in the past few weeks, including beatings of journalists and media restrictions in Kashmir, a newspaper editor arrested in Tamil Nadu, TV stations attacked in New Delhi and Maharashtra, a journalist fatally injured in a bombing in Uttar Pradesh and a Japanese journalist denied a visa. Armed conflict between Maoist guerrillas and government security forces is also having (...)
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United States - « BP is orchestrating the entire operation »
Interview with Mac McClelland, reporting for Mother Jones magazine on the oil spill. - July 13, 2010. From July 12th, 2010, new procedures permit credentialed news media free travel within the boom safety zones. The official statement says "clear, unfettered access" has two exceptions: safety and security concerns. However, it won't change the major problem of the quality of the news, according to Mac McClelland, who has been working for 10 weeks on the oil spill for MotherJones. RSF – (...)
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United States - Three months of oil spill but one version of events
Between 2.9 and 4.9 million barrels of oil have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since the explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig on 20 April. It is a major environmental disaster that is rapidly turning into a national disaster. Yet the media have often found it impossible to obtain verifiable, independent information and have had to settle for what they are told by BP. And it took until 12 July for the restrictions BP imposed on journalists covering the spill to be lifted... Meagre (...)
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Malaysia - Censored cartoonist Zunar tells his story
On 24 June 2010, the Home Affairs Ministry banned my cartoon books and cartoon magazines, namely “1Funny Malaysia,” “Perak Darul Kartun (Perak the Land of Cartoon)” and “Isu Dalam Kartun (Issues in Cartoon).” 1Funny Malaysia is a collection of my work from 2005 until 2009 that was published in Cartoonkini on a popular web-based news portal, Malaysiakini. Perak Darul Kartun is a book published by my own company, Sepakat Efektif Sdn Bhd. Isu Dalam Kartun is a monthly magazine with a publishing (...)
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Burundi - Online newspaper editor arrested on treason charge
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, the editor of the online newspaper Net Press. Arrested while on his way to work on 17 July, he is being held on a charge of treason because of a 12 July article about the possibility of Burundi being the next target for a terrorist attack by the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab. Link to the article. “We condemn Kavumbagu's latest arrest, which reflects the way the authorities have always hounded this well-known government (...)
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Turkey - Three Kurdish reporters attacked in Istanbul and southeastern province of Mardin
Reporters Without Borders condemns the physical attacks on three Kurdish journalists that took place while they were covering demonstrations by members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Istanbul and in Midyat, in the southeastern province of Mardin, on 18 July. The protests were prompted by reports that the bodies of several members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish armed separatist group, were mutilated after they were killed during military operations (...)
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Saudi Arabia - Human rights defender held since mid-June on charge of “annoying others”
Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Sheikh Mekhlef bin Dahham al-Shammari, a writer, human rights activist and social reformer who was arrested on 15 June and who has yet to be taken before a judge. His arrest is believed to have been prompted by his criticism of political and religious leaders, especially in articles posted on the Saudiyoon (www.saudiyoon.com)and Rasid (www.rasid.com) news websites. The main charge listed in his case file is the (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Local authorities take over Osh TV after national security raid and director's dismissal
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the provisional government's takeover of nearly all of Kyrgyzstan's TV stations and the procedures being used to nationalise them. Osh TV, an Uzbek language station based in Osh, the capital of southern Kyrgyzstan, is a case in point. The government has acquired a controlling interest in its shares and has arbitrarily fired its director. All of the country's major broadcasters have been “temporarily” nationalised since May under a law that was passed (...)
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Côte d’Ivoire - Disturbing prosecution demand
Reporters Without Borders today expressed astonishment after three journalists on the Nouveau Courrier d'Abidjan, remanded in custody on 13 July 2010 accused of “theft of administrative documents” yesterday appeared before the Abidjan correctional court. See previous release. The prosecutor called for a one-year prison sentence against all three journalists along with a fine of 10 million CFA Francs (about 15,250 euros). He also called for the daily to be suspended and for the confiscation of (...)
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Greece - Murder of journalist in Athens
Reporters Without Borders today expressed its dismay after the murder yesterday of journalist and head of Radio Thema 98.9, Socratis Guiolias. He was gunned down in the early hours of the morning outside his home in the southeast of Athens. Guiolias, 37, also contributed regularly to a news blog Troktiko.gr Initial police reports said that his attackers used a pretext to get the journalist to leave his house and then shot him with an automatic weapon at point blank range before fleeing. (...)
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Ukraine - Authorities urged to defend media freedom with more energy
Reporters Without Borders completed a three-day fact-finding visit to Ukraine today in response to a marked increase in press freedom violations during the first half of 2010, which had ended the tendency of the past few years for the situation to improve. During the visit, Reporters Without Borders met with representatives of national and regional news media, press freedom organisations, ruling party and opposition parliamentarians and government officials. The press freedom (...)
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Cuba - Interview with Ricardo González Alfonso
Cafeteria of the Hotel Welcome, where the Spanish government is lodging the 11 Cubans who arrived in Spain on 14 July Seven of them are journalists and one of the seven is Ricardo González Alfonso, who has been the Reporters Without Borders Cuba correspondent since 1998. He was arrested along with 74 other Cuban dissidents during the notorious “Black Spring” of March 2003 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The Spanish section of Reporters Without Borders went to greet him on his (...)
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China - New regulations pose threat to liberal press
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the impact on press freedom of new regulations that the Propaganda Department has imposed on China's provincial and metropolitan news media. “China has no press law, but the accumulation of draconian regulations has gradually created a legislative straitjacket for the media,” Reporters Without Borders said. “These new rules add to the laws on state secrets and subversion that have been used by the authorities many times to punish journalists.” (...)
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Azerbaijan - Imprisoned journalist will not be freed regardless of outcome of Azerbaijan's appeal
Azerbaijan's representative to the European Court of Human Rights, Chingiz Askerov, has told the BBC that the reason his government appealed against the court's 22 April ruling, calling for the release of imprisoned journalist Eynulla Fatullayev, was that it was “contrary to international norms.” Even if the court's Grand Chamber upholds the original decision, Fatullayev will not be released without a favourable ruling from Azerbaijan's supreme court, Askerov added. As regards the European (...)
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Singapore - Call for the release of detained British journalist
Reporters Without Borders today called for the immediate release of British freelance journalist Alan Shadrake, author of a book about the death penalty in Singapore, who has been held by the police Criminal Investigation Department since early yesterday morning. Shadrake, author of Once a Jolly Hangman-Singapore Justice in the Dock, is investigated for "criminal defamation" and "contempt of court". “To hold the 75-year-old author of an investigative book who is in fragile health for (...)
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Panama - Retired journalist freed after being held for 19 days
Reporters Without Borders is pleased to learn that retired journalist Carlos Núñez was released on 14 July after 19 days in detention. Núñez was arrested on 26 June after being convicted in absentia as a result of a libel suit brought against him 10 years ago. At the time of his arrest, he was completely unaware he had been convicted over an article he wrote 12 years go for the now defunct pro-communist newspaper Crítica about environmental problems in the Bocas del Toro archipelago in the (...)
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Turkey - Hrant Dink murder trial – where are the state's records?
Following the 14th hearing in the trial of the men accused of the January 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, a journalist of Armenian origin, Reporters Without Borders reiterates its support for the Dink family and its lawyers in their continuing battle for a fair trial. During the latest hearing, held on 12 July, the Dink family's lawyers filed a request for the prosecution of several senior officials and leading nationalists, including: Ergun Güngör, former deputy governor of Istanbul Özer (...)
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Kosovo - Still not too late for press freedom …
As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) prepared to give an advisory opinion on the legality of the Kosovo's declaration of independence, Reporters Without Borders released a report on the state of press freedom in this fledgling country. The organisation met Pristina's journalists and first bloggers trying to work in an ethical framework while providing access to open news and information, untrammelled by the political and criminal influence plaguing the country until now. All this has (...)
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United Kingdom - Reporters Without Borders support Michael Dixon's family
Reporters Without Borders supports the family of missing British journalist Michael Dixon who has launched an awareness campaign to mark his first birthday since going missing abroad. Michael, who will turn 34 on 19 July 2010, vanished without trace after leaving his hotel while on holiday in Costa Rica last October. To mark his birthday the family has launched T-shirts featuring the logo "Help Find Michael Dixon" and some facts about his disappearance. This T-shirt can be purchased for (...)
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China - Authorities turn their sights on microblogging
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about a new crackdown on social-networking tools, especially microblogging services. Dozens of microblog accounts went down yesterday including those of blogger Yao Yuan and lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who was interviewed by the Associated Press. Four of the leading Chinese microblogging services, Netease, Sina, Tencent and Sohu, were yesterday displaying messages saying they were down for maintenance or had inexplicably reverted to an earlier “beta” testing (...)
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Sudan - Court imposes prison sentences on three Rai Al Shaab journalists
A Khartoum criminal court yesterday sentenced three senior members of the opposition daily Rai Al Shaab (People's Opinion) to jail terms ranging two to five years on charges of “publishing incorrect information” and “attacking the state with a view to undermining the constitutional system.” Deputy editor Abuzur Al Amin was given a five-year sentence while editor Ashraf Abdelaziz, and political editor Altahir Ibrahim received two-year sentences. The fourth journalist on trial, Ramadan Mahgoub, (...)
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Syria - Ten years after Bashar el-Assad's installation, the government still decides who can be a journalist
Reporters Without Borders has assessed the press freedom situation in Syria on the eve the 10th anniversary of Bashar el-Assad's succession to the presidency on his father's death, and the findings are depressing. All the talk of political and legislative reforms never produced any results. As in his foreign policy, Assad says one thing and does another. The number of news media has increased in the past decade but there is no room for media diversity. The Baath Party continues to maintain (...)
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Egypt - A blogger and two human rights activists to be tried this weekend
Two human rights activists – Gamal Eid of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Ahmed Seif El Islam Hamad of the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre (HMLC) – and a blogger, Amr Gharbeia, are to be tried before a criminal court in the Cairo district of Khalifeh on 17 July on charges of insult, defamation, blackmail and “abuse of the Internet service.” “This trial reflects the hostile climate and judicial harassment that human rights activists must endure in Egypt,” Reporters Without (...)
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Malaysia - Constant harassment of opposition press
Reporters Without Borders condemns the government's decision to suspend the distribution of three opposition newspapers – Suara Keadilan, Kabar Era Pakatan and Rocket – since 30 June and restrict the distribution of a fourth, Harakah, since yesterday. “This is the second time since Prime Minister Najib Razak's election in 2008 that the opposition press has been subjected to this kind of restriction by the interior ministry,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Press freedom must be guaranteed by (...)
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Kazakhstan - Concern over health of newspaper editor jailed for political reasons
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the health of Ramazan Esergepov, the editor of weekly Alma Ata Info, and condemns the fact that the authorities are continuing to keep him in prison although he has completed a third of his three-year jail sentence and therefore qualifies for parole. Jailed for publishing an article about alleged influence-trafficking involving a leading businessman and representatives of the National Security Committee (KNB), the KGB's successor, Esergepov is (...)
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Azerbaijan - Government appeals against European Court ruling ordering journalist's release
Azerbaijan's representative to the European Court of Human Rights has announced that his government appealed yesterday against a ruling issued by the court in April ordering Azerbaijan to free Eynulla Fatullayev, an opposition newspaper editor who has been held since 20 April 2007. Reporters Without Borders is concerned about what will happen to Fatullayev and regards this announcement as further confirmation of Azerbaijan's total disregard of the European Court and press freedom. In a (...)
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Italy - UN's special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression joins the OSCE in calling for withdrawal of “gag law”
Reporters Without Borders hailed an official request made today by the UN's special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression calling on the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi to drop a draft law restricting publication of transcripts of phone tapping. The UN official, Franck La Rue, also urged the Italian authorities to open a dialogue between all parties involved so as to “make sure their concerns were taken into consideration”. “The special rapporteur takes its responsibilities (...)
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Côte d’Ivoire - Three journalists arrested for publishing leaked report
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about yesterday's arrests of the editor, managing editor and publisher of the Nouveau Courrier d'Abidjan newspaper and the summary methods used in the case by Abidjan public prosecutor Raymond Tchimou Fehou. The three journalists – editor Saint Claver Oula, publisher Stéphane Guédé and managing editor Théophile Kouamouo – were arrested by plain-clothes police on Tchimou's orders for publishing the findings of his investigation into alleged corruption in the (...)
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Azerbaijan - Government to appeal against European Court ruling ordering journalist's release
Azerbaijan's representative to the European Court of Human Rights has announced that his government will appeal this week against a ruling issued by the court in April ordering Azerbaijan to free Eynulla Fatullayev, an opposition newspaper editor who has been held since 20 April 2007. Reporters Without Borders is concerned about what will happen to Fatullayev and regards this announcement as further confirmation of Azerbaijan's total disregard of the European Court and press freedom. In a (...)
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Turkmenistan - Two journalists finally allowed to travel
According to the Turkmen news website Khronika Turkmenistana, husband-and-wife journalists Annamamed Myatyiev and Elena Myatiyeva were allowed to depart on 10 July on a flight to Amsterdam, where Myatyiev is due to undergo an eye operation. The two journalists were told they were forbidden from travelling abroad when they tried to board a flight to the Netherlands at Ashgabat international airport on 28 June, but they were given no clear reason for the ban. 10 July 2010 Journalist and (...)
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Cuba - Reporters Without Borders correspondent Ricardo González Alfonso freed
Reporters Without Borders today reacted with delight to the release yesterday of its correspondent Ricardo González Alfonso, along with that of several other Cuban journalists and political opposition figures. The worldwide press freedom organisation's correspondent, aged 60, who is originally from Havana, was arrested during the “black spring” of March 2003, along with 27 of his colleagues. The married man, who is father of two children, was sentenced on 7 April to 20 years in prison for (...)
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Russia - One year after Natalia Estemirova's murder, impunity set to win out again
In the year since former journalist Natalia Estemirova's abduction and murder on 15 July 2009 in the Russian Caucasus, little progress has been made in the investigation. The impunity that prevails in cases of violence against journalists and human rights activists in Russia seems to have triumphed again. Reporters Without Borders joins Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights NGO for which Estemirova worked in the Chechen capital of Grozny, in calling on those in charge of the investigation (...)
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Sudan - Reporters Without Borders writes to President Omar al Bashir about the return of censorship
Reporters Without Borders wrote on 13 July to Sudanese president, Omar al Bashir, urging him to immediately lift prior censorship of the written press. Here is the text of the letter: Omar al Bashir, President of the Republic, Khartum, Sudan Dear Mr President, Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation that defends press freedom, forcefully condemns the return of censorship in Sudan. The organisation deplores recent steps taken by your government against several media and (...)
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Rwanda - Offensive against media continues with arrest of fortnightly's editor
Reporters Without Borders calls on the European Union and other international donors to suspend their assistance to the Rwandan government and to stop providing financial support for the 9 August presidential election following a series of grave press freedom violations, the latest of which was a newspaper editor's arrest last week. “How much longer will the international community continue to endorse this repressive regime?” Reporters Without Borders asked. “The international community is (...)
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Italy - UN joins the OSCE in calling for withdrawal of “gag law”
Reporters Without Borders hailed an official request made today by the UN's special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression calling on the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi to drop a draft law restricting publication of transcripts of phone tapping. The UN official, Franck La Rue, also urged the Italian authorities to open a dialogue between all parties involved so as to “make sure their concerns were taken into consideration”. “The UN takes its responsibilities very seriously (...)
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Cameroon - Death of Cameroonian journalist Pius Njawé
Reporters Without Borders has learned with deep sadness of the accidental death in the United States today of Cameroonian journalist Pius Njawé. “This man who has just died was a real icon, an icon for press freedom. I am extremely saddened by his death”, said Jean-François Julliard, secretary general of the worldwide press freedom organisation. “Pius Njawe was a friend of Reporters Without Borders, he was like family, with whom we had a warm and trusting relationship”. “He did a huge amount (...)
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Nigeria - Four journalists held hostage in Niger delta region
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the abduction of four journalists – Wahab Obba, the head of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Lagos state, Adolphus Okonkwo of Voice of Nigeria, Sylvester Okere of The Champion Newspapers, and Sola Oyeyipo, another Lagos-based journalist – on 11 June near Aba, in the southeastern state of Abia. They had been attending a Nigeria Union of Journalists conference in the neighbouring state of Akwa Ibom and were heading back to Lagos when (...)
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Kuwait - Court quashes Al-Jassem defamation conviction
Reporters Without Borders hails a Kuwait City appeal court's decision today to overturn Kuwaiti writer and journalist Mohamed Abdel Qader Al-Jassem's conviction on a charge of defaming Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah. “The ruling quashing Al-Jassem's conviction is an important step for free expression in Kuwait,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We now call for all other charges against him to be withdrawn and the lifting of the reporting ban on the other case currently pending against (...)
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Mexico - Two more journalists shot dead in continuing media bloodshed
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the murders of two journalists in the northern states of Nuevo Léon and Chihuahua on 10 July. Both murders bore the hallmarks of organised crime killings and come at time of mounting violence affecting both journalists and the general population. The body of radio journalist Marco Aurelio Martínez Tijerina, 45, was found in Montemorelos, in Nuevo León, on the evening of 10 July, 24 hours after he had been kidnapped on the street by gunmen aboard three (...)
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Venezuela - Twitter users facing 11-year jail terms for criticising banking system
Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of two Venezuelan users of the social-networking service Twitter, a 41-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman, who were arrested on 8 July for criticising the Venezuelan banking system. They are facing the possibility of 9 to 11 years in prison under a 2001 banking law on charges of “disseminating false rumours” to “destabilise the banking system.” The judicial authorities have said that charges could be brought against 15 other Internet (...)
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Panama - Government tries to expel Spanish journalist resident in Panama
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about Paco Gómez Nadal, a Spanish journalist who lives in Panama. Since 4 July, Gómez has been under threat of being stripped of his residency and deported because of his defence of Panama's indigenous peoples. In an interview for Reporters Without Borders, Gómez describes how he learned that he could be expelled and why he thinks the Panamanian authorities are hounding not only him but also the country's journalists in general. Since when have you (...)
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Iran - Impunity continues seven years after Zahra Kazemi's death in detention
Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi's death in detention. Those responsible for her death have enjoyed complete impunity for the past seven years, thanks in part to the silence and passivity of the international bodies that are supposed to protect human rights. Mistreatment, rape and torture are common in Iranian prisons. Those behind the murders of prisoners, such as former Tehran prosecutor general Sayeed Mortazavi, continue to hold (...)
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Philippines - Radio reporter seriously injured in shooting attack
Miguel Belen, a reporter for radio dwEB in Nabua (in the eastern province of Camarines Sur), was seriously wounded in a shooting as he was returning to his home in Iriga on the evening of 9 July. At least four shots were fired at him by two men on a motorcycle. Hospitalised and in a serious condition, he has been placed under police protection. “This latest case of post-electoral violence against a journalist highlights the failure of the authorities to guarantee the safety of media (...)
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Iran - Press freedom violations recounted in real time (from 1st July 2010)
2nd July 2010 - Two released and one freed on licence Narges Mohammadi, journalist and spokesperson for the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, was released today on bail of 50 million tomans (40,000 euros). Intelligence ministry agents arrested the journalist, who works with Nobel peace prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, at her home on the evening of 10 June 2010. Reporters Without Borders also learned of the release on bail on 26 June, of Mahbobeh Khanssari, who works for the agency Cultural (...)
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Azerbaijan - Judicial persecution of newspaper editor continues
Reporters Without Borders is stunned by the three-year jail sentence that public prosecutor Elchin Nagiyev requested for imprisoned newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev on 30 June on the trumped-up charge of illegal possession of a narcotic, namely the 220 mg of heroin supposedly found in his clothes and in his prison cell on 29 December. Arrested in 2007 for criticising the authorities, Fatullayev was sentenced the following year to a total of more than eight years in prison. The (...)
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United Arab Emirates - Authorities bend rules to block access to online magazine
Reporters Without Borders condemns the haste with which the authorities blocked access to the online magazine Hetta on 29 June, without waiting until its editor had been formally notified by an appeal court that his appeal against its suspension has been rejected. “The authorities are using illegal means to achieve their ends,” Reporters Without Borders said. “From the outset, the judicial proceedings seem to have been orchestrated with the aim of intimidating and silence independent (...)
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Somalia - Several journalists seriously hurt in press conference bombing in Mogadishu
Two journalists arrested in Mogadishu, a third wounded Agence France-Presse correspondent Mustafa Haji Abdinur and freelance cameraman Yusuf Jama Abdullahi were arrested and held for several hours by the Somali security forces in Mogadishu on 1 July, when they went to cover shooting between the Islamist Al-Shabaab militia and the forces of the Transitional Federal Government. The authorities, who accused them of colluding with Al-Shabaab, made them erase all their photos before releasing (...)
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Belarus - Authorities step up Internet restrictions, harassment of online journalists
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the latest measures adopted by the government with the aim of tightening its grip on the Internet. The police are using interrogation and seizure of equipment to harass and intimidate Internet users and online journalists, while new legislation is reinforcing control of Internet usage and restrictions on online free expression. “The authorities are trying to get a firm grip on the Internet as they already have on other media,” Reporters Without (...)
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United States - Pentagon tightens rules on military interaction with media
Defence secretary Robert Gates has decreed stricter rules for military contacts with the media. In a three-page memo sent to all senior military and civilian officials in the defence department on 2 July, Gates said they had “grown lax” in recent months and often contravened the established rules and procedures. “I have said many times that we must strive to be as open, accessible and transparent as possible,” Gates said in the memo. However, he added, “leaking of classified information is (...)
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Egypt - Two policemen who beat activist to death to be tried on torture charge
Reporters Without Borders notes that two police officers are to be prosecuted for their involvement in a young activist's death in Alexandria on 6 June but the charges being brought against them do not include murder. The activist, Khaled Mohammed Said, was beaten to death outside an Internet café after been arrested by two plain-clothes police officers. His family and local human rights organisations say he had just posted a video online showing police officers sharing the proceeds from a (...)
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Colombia - Former intelligence chief charged in connection Garzón murder 11 years ago
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the recent progress in the investigation into the 1999 murder of journalist and humorist Jaime Garzón. On 30 June, the prosecutor general charged former intelligence chief José Miguel Narváez with involvement in his death. Narváez use to run the Administrative Department of Security, better known by the initials DAS (see the chuzaDAS report). He has been detained since August 2009 for alleged illegal spying on many leading Colombians including judges, (...)
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Indonesia - Molotov cocktail attack on Jakarta-based magazine Tempo
Reporters Without Borders is very worried for the safety of the Jakarta-based magazine Tempo after a Molotov cocktail attack on its headquarters in the early hours of today. The press freedom organisation also urges the police chief not to file a lawsuit accusing the weekly of insulting the force in a cover drawing so that the Press Council can help to negotiate settlement as quickly as possible. “This well-known weekly is again at the centre of a storm, this time because of an (...)
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Azerbaijan - Journalist's additional 30-month jail sentence is unfair and politically-motivated
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the additional 30-month jail sentence that a court in the Baku district of Garadag imposed today on Eynulla Fatullayev, an opposition newspaper editor who has been detained since 20 April 2007. The court convicted him of illegal possession of a narcotic – 220 mg of heroin allegedly found in his clothes during a search of his cell in Prison No. 12 on 29 December. “We strongly condemn the imposition of an additional sentence on this journalist,” (...)
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Mexico - Journalist found shot dead in Michoacán state
Reporters Without Borders condemns the murder Hugo Alfredo Olivera Cartas, a journalist based in Apatzingán, in the central state of Michoacán, whose body was found yesterday morning. He had been shot three times. Olivera's death brings the number of journalists killed in Mexico since the start of the year to eight, or perhaps nine. Aged 27, Olivera was the editor of the Apatzingán-based El Día de Michoacán daily and ADN news agency was the local correspondent of the state-wide La Voz de (...)
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Italy - July 9th, the information blackout in Italy : "A foretaste of what could happen in Italy..."
In an interview posted online, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard has voiced support for all the Italian journalists and media workers who will be on strike on 9 July in protest against a proposed reform law of phone taps and video interceptions under which they could be jailed for two months and fined up to 464,700 euros for publishing extracts of phone taps after a judge has ordered their destruction. Under the proposed law, which has been approved by a (...)
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Azerbaijan - First anniversary of arrest of bloggers Adnan Hadjizade and Emin Milli
On the first anniversary of the arrest of bloggers Adnan Hadjizade and Emin Milli, Reporters Without Borders reiterates its call for their immediate release and voices deep exasperation with the Azerbaijani government's intransigence. “Arrested on trumped-up charges designed to make them look like criminals, these two bloggers are being persecuted for making fun of corrupt politicians in a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aaecvg7xCIk),” Reporters Without Borders said. “The international (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Kyrgyzstan. Where is it? What is it?
Official Name: Kyrgyz Republic President: post vacant (Kurmanbek BAKIYEV resigned on 15 April 2010) Prime Minister: Roza OTUNBAYEVA (interim president, provisional head of government) Interim foreign minister: Ruslan KAZAKBAYEV (member of the provisional government) Area: 199,900 sq km Population: 5.43 million (2009 estimate) Capital: Bishkek Other main cities: Osh, Jalal-Abad Official languages: Kyrgyz and Russian Other languages: Uzbek (spoken by 13.6% of the (...)
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United States - US soldier charged for leaking video showing US army war crime
Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old US army intelligence analyst, was charged yesterday with leaking a video of a US army helicopter attack in Baghdad in July 2007 in which two employees of the Reuters news agency were killed. Currently held in a US military detention centre in Kuwait, he is accused of divulging confidential information, a US army release said. Posted on the Wikileaks website on 5 April 2010, the video shows the helicopter crew killing 12 civilians including Reuters (...)
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Iraq - Kurdish journalist in danger after denouncing corruption
“We have guns rather pens for responding to you,” Shwan Ahmed, a freelance journalist and writer based in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah, says he was told on 5 July. The clearly-worded warning was prompted by two long articles he wrote for the Kurdish independent weekly Awene last month about alleged corruption within Serdam (http://www.serdam.org/), a publishing house founded in 1998 by supporters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), President Jalal Talabani's party. His articles (...)
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Turkey - Blocking of YouTube maintained for questionable motives
Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to put a complete stop to their blocking of YouTube and to review their Internet filtering policies after an Ankara court yesterday refused to rescind a court order blocking access to 44 IP addresses that offered alternative ways to access the Google-owned video-sharing website. The main YouTube site has itself been blocked on the same court's orders since 5 May 2008. The blocking of the 44 other IP addresses, ordered in mid-June, resulted in (...)
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Sri Lanka - Independent news website blocked for past year
Reporters Without Borders calls on the Sri Lankan authorities to stop blocking the Lanka News Web site at once. Sri Lanka Telecom, the country's main Internet service provider, has been blocking the online newspaper's access since 11 July 2009. In an interview for Reporters Without Borders, Lanka News Web editor Chandima Withanaarachchi talks about its editorial policies and the probable reasons for the government's persecution of the site. He also describes the press freedom situation and (...)
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Cuba - Sign of opening in announced imminent release of political prisoners?
Reporters Without Borders takes note of the announced release of political prisoners following Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos' visit to Cuba. The announcement was made by Cuban cardinal Jaime Ortega, who has been acting as mediator. He said that it was agreed during a meeting between Moratinos and Cuban President Raúl Castro that 52 political prisoners will be freed during the coming months, five of them at once. “The announcement is a sign of positive progress but it should (...)
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Turkmenistan - Journalist and wife prevented from travelling abroad for operation
Reporters Without Borders calls on the Turkmen authorities to allow husband-and-wife journalists Annamamed Myatiyev and Elena Myatiyeva to travel to the Netherlands, where Myatiyev needs to undergo an operation for a detached retina. They were prevented from flying on 28 June. “The freedom to travel abroad and return to one's country is a fundamental right,” Reporters Without Borders said. “When the purpose of the trip abroad is medical, the government's refusal to permit it seems to be an act (...)
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- Forty predators of press freedom
There are 40 names on this year's list of Predators of Press Freedom – 40 politicians, government officials, religious leaders, militias and criminal organisations that cannot stand the press, treat it as an enemy and directly attack journalists. They are powerful, dangerous, violent and above the law. Many of them were already on last year's list. In Latin America, there is no change in the four major sources of threats and violence against journalists: drug traffickers, the Cuban (...)
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- Reporters without Borders works on all fronts
World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, is an occasion for Reporters Without Borders to reaffirm the values it defends, the right to inform and the right to access information, without which democracy is impossible. It is also an occasion for us to reiterate our support for all those working for media freedom, both professional journalists and ordinary citizens who report news and expose the truth. Since the start of 2010, nine journalists have paid with their lives for being outspoken while (...)
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Bangladesh - Reporters Without Borders sent a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina Prime Minister Old Sangsad Bhaban Tejgaon, Dhaka-1215 Bangladesh Paris, 30 April 2010 Dear Prime Minister, Since you became Prime Minister in January 2009, the media have been able to work in a better climate than under the previous, army-backed interim government. Thanks to your administration, some journalists have been freed from jail and harassment by the military has declined. But we would like to express our concern about two serious matters that cast (...)
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China - Amendment enlists ICT companies in protection of state secrets
China today adopted an amendment to the State Secrets Law forcing Internet and telecommunications companies to cooperate closely with the authorities on matters relating to national security. Under the amendment, which will take effect on 1 October, companies in these two sectors will be required to block transmission of state secrets over their networks, keep records of the activity and alert the authorities to possible violations. They could also be forced to suppress certain kinds of (...)
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United Arab Emirates - Files to be kept on Internet-users going online in cybercafés
Reporters Without Borders today voiced concern over a move by the authorities in the United Arab Emirates to monitor people going online in cybercafés. The daily Emarat al Yaoum reported yesterday on an interior ministry plan to check the identity of anyone using the Internet in public places. The step was justified by the fight against cyber-crime and child pornography. “The fight against cyber-crime and child pornography is a legitimate one, but this step constitutes a real risk for (...)
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Uzbekistan - Start of popular radio journalist's trial on charge of belonging to banned Islamic group
The trial of Khayrullo Khamidov, a popular radio host, poet and sports commentator, on a charge of belonging to a banned Muslim organisation began today behind closed doors in Gulbakhor, near the capital, Tashkent. Fourteen other people are being tried with him on the same charge. The police manned checkpoints on the road from Tashkent to Gulbakhor today, while a police cordon prevented access to the courthouse where Khamidov, who has been detained ever since his arrest on 21 January, is (...)
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Salvador - Police arrest alleged mastermind of documentary filmmaker's murder
The Salvadorean authorities say they have arrested the gang leader who ordered documentary filmmaker Christian Poveda's murder. Poveda, who had dual French and Spanish nationality, was gunned down in an outlying district of San Salvador on 2 September 2009. Accused of various crimes and regarded by the police as one of the main leaders of the “Mara 18” gang, Daniel “El Black” Cabrera Flores was arrested on 20 April in La Campanera, the east San Salvador district where Poveda had been filming (...)
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Mexico - Two journalists missing after armed ambush found alive two days later
Two Mexican journalists who had been missing since an armed ambush on the humanitarian convoy they were accompanying in the southern state of Oaxaca on 27 April were located yesterday. Although two people were killed and at least 15 others were wounded when gunmen fired on the convoy, Ericka Ramírez and David Cilia of the weekly Contralínea managed to avoid being hit and fled into the surrounding mountains. Ramírez was weak and dehydrated when found, while Cilia sustained injuries to a foot (...)
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Ukraine - Open letter to the Ukrainian President
Dear President Yanukovych, Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that defends journalists and press freedom worldwide, has closely followed your recent statements and actions regarding the media in Ukraine and would like to share its surprise and concern with you. Your government's behaviour towards the media conflicts with what you told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, namely that reinforcing democracy was an “absolute priority” and that “it is free, independent (...)
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Egypt - Hounding of bloggers continues
Reporters Without Borders has called for the case to be dropped against blogger Wael Abbas whose appeal opens tomorrow in Cairo for having sold communications services without a licence. Neither he nor his lawyers were informed of his trial on these charges and he was sentenced to six months in prison and fined 500 Egyptian pounds (65 euros) in his absence. “This trial has been completed trumped-up. Wael Abbas should be acquitted. These repeated charges demonstrate that the authorities (...)
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United States - Raid on blogger's home revives issue of shield law protection for bloggers
There is a growing controversy about the raid that the police carried out on 23 April on the California home of blogger Jason Chen, the editor of Gizmodo, a blog about gadgets and technology, because it obtained a prototype iPhone and published an exclusive about it, together with photos and videos, without Apple's agreement. Desktops, laptops, portable hard drives, cameras and gadgets were all seized in the raid on Chen's home. “All items seized during the raid must be returned to Jason (...)
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India - Kashmiri journalist was held for 41 months without trial
Reporters Without Borders has interviewed Maqbool Sahil, a journalist based in Srinagar, the summer capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, who was detained for 41 months without trial. Now the editor of the Urdu-language weekly Pukaar, Sahil has spent 19 years covering the conflict in Kashmir, in which thousands have died since 1989. Arrested in 2004 after covering the rape of an Australian tourist for Chattan, the newspaper he then worked for, he was beaten and tortured (...)
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Russia - Newspaper editor badly beaten in his Sochi home by intruders
Reporters Without Borders is dismayed to learn that Arkady Lander, the editor of the independent newspaper Mestnaya (Local), was badly injured in a brutal asault by two unidentified men in his apartment in the southern city of Sochi on 26 April. The press freedom organisation urges the authorities to do everything possible to shed light on this attack and bring those responsible to justice. But it fears that impunity will again prevail as it has in virtually all other cases of violence (...)
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Azerbaijan - Return of violence against journalists?
Reporters Without Borders is shocked and concerned about the beating that several journalists received from the police during an opposition demonstration outside the city hall in Baku, the capital, on 26 April. At least five journalists were attacked, some of them severely, by plain-clothes policemen. The journalists were there to cover a demonstration by members of the leading opposition party, Azadlig. A witness said the policemen surrounded the journalists at the end of the (...)
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China - Propaganda Department sets rule for covering Shanghai Expo and Qinghai earthquake
The Propaganda Department and the government Information Office have imposed strict rules for coverage of the Shanghai World Expo that begins this weekend and the 14 April earthquake in the Tibetan province of Qinghai. In a 23 April directive, the Propaganda Department asked the Chinese media to wait until after tomorrow's opening ceremony to run articles about the exhibition's best pavilions and advised them to use the official news agency Xinhua's reports about the content of the pavilions. (...)
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Belarus - Journalists' emails probed, Charter 97 website persecuted
Reporters Without Borders condemns a senior police officer's decision to allow police computer experts to access the email and Skype instant messaging accounts of several independent journalists as part of an investigation prompted by a defamation suit by a former senior official in the Committee for State Security (KGB). Natallya Radzina of the Charter 97 website, Svyatlana Kalinkina and Maryna Koktysh of the opposition newspaper Narodnaya Volya and Iryna Khalip of the Russian independent (...)
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Chile - Court acquits filmmaker who was working with Mapuche indigenous
Reporters Without Borders welcomes Chilean documentary filmmaker Elena Varela López's acquittal on charges of criminal association and “links with a terrorist group” in connection with two holdups in 2004 and 2005. Arrested on 7 May 2008 while making a documentary about the Mapuche indigenous people, Varela was detained for three months before being released pending trial. A court in the southern city of Villarica finally acquitted her on 22 April after seven days of hearings in which 20 (...)
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Russia - Газета «Журнал де Диманш» должна заплатить штраф за «оскорбление чести» движения «Наши». Агитпром вместе информации?
21 апреля 2010 года Савеловский районный суд города Москвы удовлетворил иск движения «Наши» против газеты «Journal de Dimanche» ( против «Le Monde» и «The Independent» также поданы иски) в оскорблении «чести и достоинства и присудил газете штраф 250 тысяч рублей(около 6 тысяч евро). Стратегия молодежного движения, которая состоит в том, чтобы преследовать в судебном порядке российские и иностранные СМИ, обвиняя их в оскорблении чести и достоинства удивляет и вызывает много вопросов относительно тех целей, которые преследуют те, кто руководят этим (...)
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Nigeria - Three journalists killed in a single day
Reporters Without Borders is deeply shocked to learn that three journalists were killed in two separate incidents on 24 April. Edo Sule Ugbagwu, a court reporter for the daily The Nation, was gunned down in his Lagos home. Nathan S. Dabak, the deputy editor of the Protestant fortnightly Light Bearer, and Sunday Gyang Bwede, one of his reporters, were hacked to death in Jos, a city torn by sectarian violence. “These murders join the long list of cases of violence against journalists in (...)
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Tunisia - Another human rights activist beaten by police, while journalist waits to be freed
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the severe beating that human rights activist and online journalist Zouhaïer Makhlouf received from police officers who arrested him at his home on 24 April. His arrest seems to have been partly motivated by a desire to prevent him meeting a prominent French lawyer on a visit to Tunisia. Another independent journalist, Taoufik Ben Brik, is meanwhile about to be released on completing a six-month jail sentence. “We are deeply shocked to learn that a (...)
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Sri Lanka - Gang boss known for hostility towards journalists appointed deputy media minister
“In what country do you appoint an arsonist to put out fires?” Reporters Without Borders asked today after learning that Mervyn Silva, a politician notorious for insulting and physically attacking journalists, has been appointed deputy minister of media and information. Labour minister in the last government, Silva was confirmed in his new post by parliament on 23 April. “The Sri Lankan government has against distinguished itself by assigning key posts to very controversial figures implicated (...)
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Rwanda - Editor of bi-monthly acquitted on appeal
Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the acquittal on appeal of Asumani Niyonambaza, editor of the bi-monthly newspaper Rugari. A judge at the Nyarugenge High Court in the capital Kigali on 23 April quashed his two-year jail sentence handed down in the lower court on a charge of “extortion” and ordered his immediate release. The appeal judge said there was no proof of the editor's guilt. “We hail the release and acquittal of Asumani Niyonambaza, who has been imprisoned for more than eight (...)
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India - Police beat reporter on Srinagar street
Indian policemen yesterday gave Gowhar Bhat, a reporter for the Greater Kashmir daily, a beating on a street in Srinagar, the capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the photos taken by a colleague, one can see a dozen police officers smiling as they lay into Bhat with their batons. Led by Sub-Inspector Javaid Ahmad of the Kothibagh district police station, the policemen attacked Bhat while he was covering a People's Democratic Party demonstration. “I was covering the (...)
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Cuba - Authorities imprison one journalist, arrest another and summon a third
The crackdown on independent journalists is intensifying, with three cases of journalists being jailed, arrested or summoned in the past few days. The journalist who has been jailed is Dania Virgen García of Primavera Digital and CubaNet, who was given a 20-month sentence on 23 April. Her case brings the number of journalists imprisoned in Cuba to 25. Arrested at her home in the Havana suburb of San Miguel del Padrón on 22 April, García was tried and convicted in less than 48 hours and was (...)
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Thailand - Thai Netizen Network's statement on the further censorship of websites and media under Emergency Decree
After the Thai government has declared a state of emergency in Bangkok and surrounding provinces on April 7, 2010, the government has officially blocked 36 websites associated with, or sympathetic to, the red-shirt movement. In further development, Thai Rath daily newspaper in a report on April 16, 2010 cited an anonymous source, stated that 190 further URLs have been blocked [1]. We object to such indiscriminate censorship of political content on the Internet for the following reasons. 1. (...)
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China - Reporters Without Borders inaugurates its “Garden of Freedoms”
It is hard to imagine a “Better city – Better life” in a country that censors the Internet and jails human rights activists on such a wide scale as China. The Expo 2010 Shanghai slogan is meaningless when a government imposes so many curbs on its citizens' freedom of expression. “City under surveillance – Lives under surveillance” would be a better slogan for this World Expo in China. As Shanghai prepares for the official opening of its World Expo on 1 May, Reporters Without Borders is today (...)
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Russia - In victory for agit-prop over news, French weekly convicted of libelling pro-Kremlin youth movement
In a 21 April ruling, Moscow's Savyolovsky district court ordered the 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. Nashi has also sued the French daily Le Monde, the British daily The Independent and other media. The youth movement's strategy of bringing lots of defamation suits against both Russian and international media is surprising and raises many (...)
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Kazakhstan - More court rulings violating freedom of expression
Reporters Without Borders condemns a 21 April ruling by a court in the western city of Ural ordering 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. The press freedom organisation supports the newspaper's decision to appeal and hopes that the ruling will be overturned or that, at the very least, (...)
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Mexico - Newspaper editor sends text messages reporting his abduction by police
Evaristo Ortega Zárate, the editor of the local weekly Espacio in Colipa, in the eastern state of Veracruz, has just become the 11th journalist to disappear in Mexico since 2004. His sister Irene received several messages from him on 20 April reporting that he had just been arrested by police while on Xalapa, the state capital. He has been missing ever since. “Alert everyone... They've arrested us... They have made us get into a police car,” Ortega said in his last message to his sister. They (...)
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Ukraine - Open letter to Ukraine's minister of interior
Mister Anatoliy Mohylyov Minister of Interior Kiev Ukraine Paris, 23 April 2010 Dear Minister, Reporters Without Borders would like to draw your attention to the erosion of the right to information in your country in recent months as a result of arrests and intimidation of journalists working for both traditional and online media. This aim of this behaviour by police officers abusing their authority appears to have been to scare journalists and pressure them into censoring (...)
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Thailand - Media beset by both violence and state of emergency
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the impact on press freedom of the political violence and state of emergency in Thailand and reiterates its appeal to all parties to respect and guarantee the work of the press. “The gravity of this crisis reinforces the need to respect the free flow of news and information, without which rumour will triumph over fact,” the press freedom organisation said. “But the violence and the state of emergency are exposing Thai and foreign (...)
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Azerbaijan - European Court of Human Rights tells Azerbaijan to free imprisoned newspaper editor
Reporters Without Borders welcomes today's ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg calling on Azerbaijan to release opposition newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev, who was sentenced to eight and half years in prison on 16 January 2008. The European Court found that the charges brought against Fatullayev were politically motivated and had no place in a country that has signed the European Convention on Human Rights. Ruling that Azerbaijan violated articles 10 and 6 of the (...)
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- Overview of Reporters Without Borders financial aid to journalists and media in danger in 2009
Reporters Without Borders approved 134 assistance grants in 2009 under its mandate to help journalists and media in danger. The grants, with a total value of just over 110,000 euros, enabled journalists and their families to cope with difficulties linked to their work. They were sent to the five regions of the world covered by our organisation: Maghreb and Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and ex-USSR, and Americas. 1. Distribution of grants by region Eighty-four per cent of the 134 (...)
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Cameroon - Sick journalist dies in prison
Reporters Without Borders today voiced its sadness and anger at the death overnight of Ngota Ngota Germain, editor of the weekly Cameroun Express, who had been held in Kondengui jail in Yaoundé for six weeks. “The prison authorities knew that my husband was suffering from asthma and high blood pressure. They never gave him the medication he needed”, his wife, Ngo'o Georgette told the worldwide press freedom organisation. “We had already expressed our concern to the Cameroon authorities about (...)
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- Potential threats to online free expression seen in draft trade treaty
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release by the European Commission of the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which until now has been the subject of confidential negotiations among some 40 countries. Released on 21 April, the draft nonetheless contains a number of provisions that could pose a threat to online free expression. “Although it is pity that the different positions of the various governments involved do not appear in this document, a real public debate will (...)
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Philippines - Open letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo President of the Republic Manila Philippines Paris, 23 April 2010 Dear President Arroyo, More than 50 of your fellow citizens, including 30 journalists, were massacred five months ago by the militiamen of one of your political allies in Maguindanao province. The bloodshed sent shockwaves far beyond your country's borders. You reacted very firmly at the time, condemning this “supreme act of inhumanity that is a blight on our nation.” You also promised (...)
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Yemen - Soldiers overrun media company to suppress story about army raid on police station
Soldiers stormed the building of 14 October, a national media company based in Al-Ma'ala, in the southern province of Aden, on the evening of 21 April in order to seize the latest issue of Al-Tariq, a daily newspaper it publishes. The building remained surrounded until yesterday morning. “What happens in Yemen is hallucinating,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Not a day goes by without a news media being attacked or a journalist being kidnapped, arrested or convicted.” The raid in Al-Ma'ala (...)
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Honduras - Seventh journalist shot dead in increasingly alarming climate
Georgino Orellana is the seventh Honduran journalist to be murdered in the past six weeks. A programme producer and presenter for Televisión de Honduras, Orellana was slain by a single shot to the head fired by an unidentified person who was waiting outside when he left the station's studios in San Pedro Sula last night. Honduras has been the world's deadliest country for the media since the start of this year. Three journalists have fled abroad to escape the wave of violence. Orellana's (...)
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Turkey - Journalist and writer facing three trials for book about newspaper editor's murder
Reporters Without Borders hopes the courts will dismiss all three of the prosecutions brought against Turkish writer and investigative journalist Nedim Sener for his book about the role of intelligence failures in the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and instead make more of an effort to shed light on the Dink murder itself. Justice is being delayed in the Dink case while the judicial authorities devote their energy to secondary charges against journalists that are (...)
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Sudan - Blocking of elections monitoring website seen as dangerous move amid electoral tension
Access to the Sudan Vote Monitor website, a collaborative platform created by Sudanese civil society with the aim of facilitating independent monitoring and reporting of the current elections and their results, has been partially or totally blocked for the past six days. The elections, which began on 11 April and which are the first multiparty general elections in Sudan since 1986, have been marked by allegations of irregularities. “We demand the immediate and total unblocking of this (...)
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Cameroon - Health of three journalists deteriorating in Kondengui prison
Reporters Without Borders today voiced its fears for the health of three editors who have been held in Kondengui jail in Yaoundé since 10 March 2010 and called for their immediate release. Serge Sabouang, Robert Mintya and Ngota Ngota Germain have been accused of jointly forging a document with the signature of the Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Laurent Esso, with the aim of discrediting him. Sabouang, editor of the bi-monthly La Nation and Mintya, editor of the (...)
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Iraq - Continuing wave of media freedom violations since last month's parliamentary elections
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the continuing wave of press freedom violations in Iraq and reiterates its appeal to the Iraqi parliament to pass a law protecting journalists. “Many journalists and media have been the target of physical attacks or lawsuits since the 7 March parliamentary elections,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The threats come from both the security forces and public figures. The context yet again shows the urgent need for the Iraqi parliament to being (...)
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Burma - Journalist and son arrested for taking photos of bombing sites
Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association urge the authorities to explain the reasons for the arrests of journalist and artist Maung Zeya and his son in Rangoon. It is believed they are being held for taking photos of the locations of last week's bomb explosions at a celebration of the water festival near Rangoon. “If they were arrested for taking photos of the sites of the recent deadly bombings, they must be freed at once,” the two organisations said. “The authorities have (...)
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United States - CIA destruction of interrogation videos threats US credibility on human rights
CIA destruction of interrogation videos threats US credibility on human rights It emerged on 15 April from emails released by the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that the agency's then director, Porter J. Goss, approved the 2005 decision by the head of its clandestine service, José A. Rodriguez, to destroy dozens of videotapes of brutal interrogations carried out on two detainees in Thailand in 2002 because of concern that they would expose the CIA to prosecution. “This is (...)
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Yemen - Yemeni media and journalists targeted by spate of prosecutions
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns a sharp decline in the press freedom situation since the start of the second half of 2009. “What is happening in Yemen now is very serious,” the organisation said. “The situation of the media is getting worse by the day, with one prosecution after another. The international community must intercede as a matter of urgency.” Al-Maqalih tried twice Mohamed Al-Maqalih, the editor of the opposition Socialist Party's news website, Al-Eshteraki, and an (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Power changes hands but censorship resumes in southern city
Reporters Without Borders condemns the decision by the provisional government's Coordinating Council in the southern region of Osh to introduce a new system of censorship on 15 April and reiterates its appeal to interim President Rosa Otunbayeva's administration to keep its promises to respect the rule of law. The opposition to ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's government's criticised its failure to respect basic freedoms, but now the new Kyrgyz authorities seem to be taking the same road, (...)
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Bahrain - Government bans using Blackberry app to share local news
Reporters Without Borders deplores the Bahraini culture and information ministry's ban on using a chat application available on Blackberry mobile phones to share local news. The ministry threatened to prosecute violators when it announced the ban on 7 April. As a result of the prohibition, local journalist Muhannad Sulaiman has had to suspend his “Urgent News,” a daily service of briefs from six leading dailies which he distributed free of charge via Blackberry. “This is an act of censorship (...)
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Latvia - Newspaper owner gunned down in apparent contract killing
Reporters Without Borders is stunned to learn that media owner Grigorijs Ņemcovs was the victim of an apparent contract killing on 16 April in Daugavpils, the largest city in the southeastern region of Latgale. Publisher of the regional newspaper Million and owner of a local TV station of the same name, Ņemcovs was shot twice in the head at close range when he went to a meeting in a café. He was already dead when the emergency services arrived at the scene. “We are both shocked and surprised (...)
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Cambodia - Opposition editor freed, pledges to continue fight for press freedom
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release of Hang Chakra, the editor of the opposition daily Khmer Machas Srok, after ten months in prison on a charge of disinformation. He was freed under a royal pardon to mark the Khmer New Year. “Deputy Prime Minister Sok An is directly to blame for Hang Chakra's long imprisonment and the deterioration in his health,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We reiterate our request to Prime Minister Hun Sen to respect his promise to ensure that journalists (...)
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Zimbabwe - Mix of hope and resignation about the return of independent press
Fed up with years of inactivity because of forced closures and still waiting for their newspapers to be given licences to start working again, Zimbabwe's independent media journalists are drifting in limbo - between hope and resignation - Reporters Without Borders found during a fact-finding visit to Harare from 20 to 23 March, its first trip to Zimbabwe after years of being denied visas. “The Zimbabwean press has endured enough repression in recent years,” Reporters Without Borders said, (...)
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Pakistan - A second Samaa TV journalist killed in a suicide bombing
Reporters Without Borders is deeply saddened to learn that reporter Azmat Ali Bangash today became the second Samaa TV journalist to be killed by a suicide bomber in past 48 hours. We would like to express our condolences to the victim's family and our support for Samaa TV for its courageous work in what is one of the world's toughest regions for the media. Bangash was doing a report in a camp for displaced Shiite villagers near the Afghan border, 65 km from Peshawar, when two suicide (...)
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Ukraine - Police step up attempts to intimidate journalist Olena Bilozerska
The Kiev police have stepped up their attempts to harass and intimidate journalist and blogger Olena Bilozerska in connection with her coverage of a demonstration outside an animal fur store in February, in which smoke grenades and eggs with paint were thrown at the store. When she was interrogated again on 13 April by a police inspector, he was accompanied by a man who claimed to have been one of the demonstrators. The inspector insistently encouraged the young man to state, that (...)
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Equatorial Guinea - AFP correspondent held for five hours by police in Malabo
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the five-hour detention of Samuel Obiang Mbana, correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Africa n°1 radio, at the police station in the capital Malabo on 14 April. The journalist was arrested at Malabo international airport where he went to cover arrivals for an extraordinary summit of heads of state of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). “It is unacceptable that security forces should prevent this journalist from (...)
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China - Prison sentences for three bloggers who exposed gang-rape
Reporters Without Borders condemns the jail sentences which a court in the southern city of Fuzhou passed today on three bloggers – Fan Yanqiong, You Jingyou and Wu Huaying – who took up the case of a mother who was calling on the authorities to reopen the investigation into her daughter's death. Convicting them on charges of defamation and disturbing public order, the court imposed a two-year sentence on Fan and one-year sentences on You and Wu for posting information online supporting the (...)
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Ukraine - Disturbing deterioration in press freedom situation since new president took over
Reporters Without Borders is dismayed by an alarming deterioration in the press freedom situation in Ukraine since the two-round presidential election on 17 January and 7 February, which was won by Viktor Yanukovych. Despite the persistence of self-censorship, Ukraine had risen significantly in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index in recent years, but the past three months have seen a return of intimidation and physical attacks on journalists and abuse of authority towards the (...)
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Pakistan - Journalist injured in kidnap attempt in Tribal Areas
“It is playing with death to work as a journalist in Bajaur,” a journalist in this Tribal Area told Reporters Without Borders after yesterday's attempted abduction of one of his colleagues, Imran Khan, in Khar, a town in Bajaur. Khan and his sister were both seriously injured when resisting the kidnap attempt by armed militants. “We firmly condemn targeted violence against journalists in the Tribal Areas,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The Taliban leaders must give a clear undertaking not to (...)
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Iran - Iranian journalist Jila Bani Yaghoob wins "Freedom of expression" award sponsored by Reporters without borders
Iranian blogger, journalist and women's rights activist Jila Bani Yaghoob was awarded the "Reporters Without Borders, Freedom of expression” prize for her blog “We are journalists” (http://www.zhila.org/spip.php?article217) at the sixth international “Best of the Blogs” event held in Berlin by German radio Deutsche Welle from 13 to 15 April. “Her Persian-language blog deals with the news in Iran, social issues and the subject of women. Jila is in the forefront of the struggle for freedom of (...)
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Côte d’Ivoire - Call for justice reiterated in Paris and Abidjan on sixth anniversary of journalist's disappearance
News conferences were held simultaneously in Paris and Abidjan today to mark the sixth anniversary of Franco-Canadian journalist Guy-André Kieffer's disappearance in Abidjan. His brothers, Bernard and Eric Kieffer, and his daughter, Canelle, gave a news conference at Reporters Without Borders headquarters in Paris together with the press freedom organisation's secretary-general Jean-François Julliard, and French lawyer Alexis Gublin, while the Ivorian Guy-André Kieffer Truth Collective gave a (...)
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- Reporter killed in Quetta, journalist injured in kidnap attempt in Tribal Areas
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the death of Samaa TV cameraman Malik Arif in a suicide bombing at a Quetta hospital today in which five other journalists – Noor Elahi Bugti of Samaa TV, Salman Ashraf of Geo TV, Fareed Ahmed of Dunya TV, Khalil Ahmed of Express TV and Malik Sohail of Aaj TV – were injured. The journalists were at the hospital to film a gathering by Shiites in support of a Shiite businessman who had been the target of a murder attempt. Seven other people were killed (...)
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Iraq - Car-bomb maims satellite TV station's public relations chief
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the targeted car-bombing in which journalist Omar Ibrahim Al-Jabouri, the satellite TV station Al-Rasheed's head of public relations, lost both of his legs today in Baghdad. “This deliberate attack is unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We call on the authorities to do everything possible to shed light on the motives for this targeted bombing against a journalist. Those responsible must be brought to justice. We have been reminded yet (...)
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Rwanda - Two leading independent weeklies suspended for six months
Reporters Without Borders “firmly condemns” the High Media Council's decision to suspend two independent Rwandan newspapers, Umuseso and Umuvugizi, for six months. Announced yesterday by the council's executive secretary, Patrice Mulama, the suspension comes at a time of tension between the government and independent media and will prevent the two newspapers from covering the presidential election, now just five months away. “This decision clearly aims to gag Rwanda's main sources of (...)
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Spain - After seven years, closed newspaper finally acquitted of Basque terrorist links
Reporters Without Borders hails a Spanish court's decision on 12 April to acquit five journalists who ran the Basque-language daily Euskaldunon Egunkaria of all charges of links to the Basque armed separatist group ETA. The charges were brought against the journalists in 2003 and, as a result, the newspaper had been closed since 20 February 2003 on the orders of a National Court judge, Juan de Olmo. Reporters Without Borders had repeatedly expressed its dismay about the newspaper's closure (...)
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Moldova - Does arrest signal campaign by breakaway region against pro-Moldovan journalists?
Reporters Without Borders condemns the detention of leading independent journalist and political analyst Ernest Vardanean in Tiraspol, the capital of the breakaway region of Transnistria. Arrested by the Transnistrian intelligence agency, the MGB, on 7 April, he is facing between 12 and 20 years in prison on a charge of high treason. Vardanean, who is from Tiraspol, is currently being held in the breakaway territory's national security headquarters after a court held a closed-door hearing (...)
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Cuba - Journalist's release leaves 24 others waiting to be freed
Oscar Sánchez Madán, the Miami-based website Cubanet's correspondent in Matanzas province, who was one of the 25 journalists imprisoned in Cuba, was released on 11 April on completing a three-year jail sentence. Sánchez was given a summary trial in April 2007 and convicted of “pre-crime social dangerousness,” a charge often used against dissidents. Based on the notion of a “potential threat” to society, it allows the Cuban authorities to violate the most elementary principles of the rule of law (...)
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Colombia - Investigators of murder of community radio boss rush to judgement
Reporters Without Borders today condemned a hasty conclusion of a “crime of passion” made by the investigators of the murder of indigenous community radio director Mauricio Medina Moreno, at his home in Ortega in the Tolima department on 11 April. The judgment was made almost immediately after the discovery of the body of the head of CRIT 98.0 FM Estéreo who had been stabbed 25 times, ruling out any possible link with an armed group that is active in the region, the worldwide press freedom (...)
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Iraq - Car-bomb aims satellite TV station's public relations chief
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the targeted car-bombing in which journalist Omar Ibrahim Al-Jabouri, the satellite TV station Al-Rasheed's head of public relations, lost both of his legs today in Baghdad. “This deliberate attack is unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We call on the authorities to do everything possible to shed light on the motives for this targeted bombing against a journalist. Those responsible must be brought to justice. We have been reminded yet (...)
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Azerbaijan - Hearing paves way for jailed newspaper editor's trial on trumped-up drug charge
Reporters Without Borders accuses the Azerbaijani judicial system of persecuting newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev with the aim of keeping him in prison. Already serving an eight-year jail sentence, Fatullayev is to be tried at the end of the month on a charge of possessing heroin. A pre-trial hearing was held in the Garadag district of Baku on 9 April. The authorities claim that 220 mg of heroin were found in Fatullayev's clothes during a search of his cell in Prison No. 12 on 29 (...)
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Turkey - Five police officers may be investigated in connection with Hrant Dink murder
The Turkish interior ministry has asked the judicial authorities to investigate five police officers attached to the Security Directorate in Istanbul on suspicion of failing to take the threats against newspaper editor Hrant Dink seriously and failing to protect him. Dink, who was of Armenian origin, was gunned down in January 2007. The five policemen – Bahadir Tekin, Özcan Özkan, Volkan Altinbulak, Ibrahim Pala and Sevki Eldivan – are alleged to have been remiss in not investigating threats (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Media situation since rioting erupted six days ago
The current situation of the media in Kyrgyzstan reflects the confusion and uncertainty that has prevailed in the country as a whole since the unrest that allowed the opposition to seize power six days ago. Although the ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has fled the capital, he is still refusing to stand down. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) resumed local broadcasting on the FM waveband yesterday after being banned for two years by the Bakiyev government and can now be (...)
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Russia - Police try to search Moscow weekly for sources to story about elite unit
Reporters Without Borders condemns today's abortive attempt by the Moscow police to search the premises of the Moscow-based independent weekly The New Times/Novoye Vremya in execution of a court order that is the subject of an appeal by the weekly. Moscow's Tverskoi district court issued the search order on 5 April in response to a libel action by the elite Omon police and the General Directorate for Internal Affairs (GUVD) under article 129 of the criminal code over a 1 February story in (...)
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Israel - Israeli media forbidden to report case widely covered internationally
Reporters Without Borders condemns an absurd court-ordered ban on Israeli media coverage of the case of Anat Kam, an online journalist and former soldier accused of leaking classified military information. An appeal by Channel 10 and the daily Haaretz against the gag order is due to be heard by a Tel Aviv court on 12 April. Kam's arrest has been widely reported internationally. A contributor to the website Walla, she has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv since December on treason and (...)
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Democratic Republic of Congo - Freelance cameraman gunned down in eastern town
Reporters Without Borders is shocked and outraged by the murder of freelance cameraman Patient Chebeya Bankome, who was gunned down yesterday evening in front of his wife outside his home in Béni, in the eastern province of Nord-Kivu. “If the Congolese authorities investigate this murder in a serious and independent manner and do not neglect any leads, they have an opportunity to end the impunity for murders of journalists that has prevailed until now,” Reporters Without Borders said. “All (...)
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United States - The Obama administration should renew its commitment to transparency and accountability
Reporters Without Borders is asking the US government for increased transparency after the whistleblower website WikiLeaks released a video on April 5th, 2010, of a US military Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad three years ago which killed two Reuters employees and several other people. Wikileaks said that it had obtained the video "from a number of military whistleblowers" and posted it at collateralmurder.org. Reuters filed a FOIA request in for the video back in 2007 but it was (...)
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Cuba - International community can no longer ignore fate of Cuba's imprisoned journalists and dissidents
“How many more deaths will be needed in Cuban prisons?” was the question posed at a news conference held today at Reporters Without Borders headquarters in Paris for representatives of the French, Spanish and Latin American media. This question has been more pressing than ever since political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death on 23 February. Some independent journalists such as Guillermo Fariñas, who is not currently detained, and Darsi Ferrer, who is in prison, have decided to follow (...)
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Fiji - Proposed decree establishes legal basis for media censorship and repression
Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about the impact on press freedom of a proposed Media Industry Development Decree that the military government unveiled yesterday, regarding it as an authoritarian imposition by a regime with no democratic legitimacy. The press freedom organisation urges Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama to carry out proper consultations on the draft decree, which is unacceptable in its present form. “Nowhere is press freedom mentioned in this proposed decree, (...)
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Egypt - Police seize video footage, mobile phones to remove all traces of repression
When police used violence to disperse a demonstration by about 100 people outside parliament on 6 April they also targeted journalists covering the event, one of several protests against a 29-year-old state of emergency that were held in the centre of Cairo that day in response to a call by the 6 April Movement. “The violence used by the police in an attempt to suppress any visual record of this demonstration was particularly disturbing,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Journalists were (...)
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Iraq - Urgent need for parliament to debate protection of journalists bill
Reporters Without Borders urges the Iraqi parliament to approve a much-delayed bill for the protection of journalists after several media employees were injured in bombings and other attacks in recent weeks even if they were not necessarily the targets. “We condemn the indiscriminate violence and bloodshed in which civilians are the victims,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It highlights the urgent need for the Iraqi parliament to begin debating the protection of journalists bill that has (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Need to preserve news media and means of public debate during political unrest
Reporters Without Borders appeals to all parties to the current political events (both government and opposition representatives) to act responsibly and to respect the right of their fellow citizens to report and receive news and information, a right that is particularly important at such a key movement for the future of Kyrgyz society. The media must be able satisfy the public's need for coverage of all the developments that are taking place in Kyrgyzstan. To this end, it is particularly (...)
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Thailand - Government uses state of emergency to escalate censorship
The Thai government has censored dozens of websites and a TV station under article 9 of yesterday's state of emergency, which forbids the “dissemination of information liable to disturb public order.” Most of the media affected are linked to the opposition “Red Shirts” movement but some, such as the website Prachatai, are independent. “We firmly condemn any use of news media to call for violence, but it is deplorable that the authorities are using the state of emergency to censor neutral or (...)
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United States - Net Neutrality in Danger !
Reporters Without Borders is asking Congress to take a stand in favor of Net neutrality after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority under existing legal framework to prevent Internet service providers from blocking or slowing specific websites. “This is a major stepback”, the organization said “The ruling is contradictory to the government's commitment to Net neutrality and equal access to the Internet for (...)
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China - Two young Tibetan writers arrested in raid on university in Gansu
Reporters Without Borders condemns the detention of two young Tibetan writers who are studying in Lanzhou, in the northwestern province of Gansu. Identified as Tashi Rabten (pen-name Therang) and Druklo (pen-name Shokjang), they were arrested on 4 April, apparently because of what they have written about the situation in Tibet. “We fear that these two young Tibetan writers will be mistreated during their first few weeks in detention,” Reporters Without Borders. “We urge the authorities in (...)
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Vietnam - Independent magazine keeps publishing despite harassment
Reporters Without Borders voices its full support for the writers and editors of To Quoc (http://www.to-quoc.net), an independent fortnightly that has managed to keep appearing in print and online despite a campaign of threats and harassment. One of its founders told Reporters Without Borders the threats were part of a “dangerous plans by the conservatives” before the Communist Party's next congress. “The Vietnamese authorities are trying to block the emergence of an independent press but, (...)
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China - Sakharov Network requests Chinese dissident Hu Jia's release
The Sakharov Network calls on the European Parliament's president and the countries of the European Union to take energetic action to obtain the release of imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia on health grounds, as Hu is seriously ill. Winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2008, Hu has been hospitalized in Beijing since 30 March, when his condition worsened. His family fears he may be suffering from liver cancer. The authorities have refused (...)
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Turkey - Government urged to clarify policy as courts continue to harass Kurdish media
As Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday ended a two-day visit to France aimed at reducing French opposition to Turkey's entry into the European Union, an Istanbul judge jailed the editor of the country's only Kurdish-language newspaper, Azadiya Welat (Free Country), for speaking in Kurdish at his trial. He faces up to 41 days in prison. This shocking decision, which has sent a very negative signal to Turkey's Kurds (a quarter of the country's population), is just the latest (...)
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Somalia - Al-Shabaab uses terror to stop local stations from retransmitting BBC and VOA
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab's announcement today that it is banning local radio stations in the regions it controls from retransmitting the broadcasts of the BBC and Voice of America on the grounds that they carry Christian propaganda. “Already responsible for killing or kidnapping many journalists and a permanent climate of terror for the Somali media, Al-Shabaab has today added another misdeed to its long list of violations of free (...)
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Thailand - Japanese cameraman fatally shot in clashes between troops and Red Shirts
Hiroyuki Muramoto, a Japanese cameraman working for the Reuters news agency, was fatally shot today in Bangkok during armed clashes between government troops and “Red Shirt” supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It has not been determined where the shots came from, with each side blaming the other for clashes that left at least 13 dead and more than 500 wounded. Muramoto was shot in the chest while covering clashes in the Rajdumnoen Road area of the capital. Reuters (...)
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Mexico - Journalist murdered in Michoacán, authorities failed to act after being told of threats
The body of Enrique Villicaña Palomares, a teacher and columnist for the daily La Voz de Michoacán, was found in Morelia, in the southern state of Michoacán, yesterday morning, five days after he was kidnapped. His throat was cut. His employers told Reporters Without Borders that the Michoacán state justice department failed to take any action after being notified two weeks ago that threats had been made against him. Villicaña was the fifth journalist to be murdered in Mexico this year. His (...)
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Haïti - Media slowly resurfacing, operations centre approaching three-month mark
The Haitian press is slowly resurfacing three months after the 12 January earthquake that ravaged the capital and surrounding region and killed 230,000 people. That is the assessment of our Haitian correspondent, Claude Gilles, manager of the Media Operations Centre that Reporters Without Borders and the Canadian media group Quebecor set up nine days after the earthquake with the government's support. Address: 8A Rue Butte, Bourdon, Port-au-Prince. Phone: +1 514 664-8695. Part 1 Part (...)
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Afghanistan - France 3 TV crew threatened in video posted online by abductors
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about two French TV journalists and their Afghan assistants after a video of them was posted online by their Taliban abductors yesterday. Identified by the French government and their employer, France 3 television, only as Hervé and Stéphane, the two journalists have been held hostage since late December. “We are aware that the two French journalists were forced by their abductors to say what they said in the video,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Honduras - Sixth journalist killed since start of year, robbery ruled out
Journalists are continuing to be murdered in Honduras. Radio W105 presenter Luis Antonio Chévez Hernández was gunned down in San Pedro Sula, the country's business capital, on 11 April, following a particularly violent month of March in which five journalists were slain. Aged 22 and nicknamed “El Huevo” (The Egg), Chévez and a cousin were getting out of a car outside Chévez's house when they were shot by unidentified gunmens, who fleds the scene. The motive is still unknown but the police have (...)
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Thailand - Japanese cameraman fatally shot in clashes between troops and Red Shirts
Hiroyuki Muramoto, a Japanese cameraman working for the Reuters news agency, was fatally shot today in Bangkok during armed clashes between government troops and “Red Shirt” supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It has not been determined where the shots came from, with each side blaming the other for clashes that left at least 13 dead and more than 500 wounded. Muramoto was shot in the chest while covering clashes in the Rajdumnoen Road area of the capital. Reuters (...)
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Mexico - Newspaper journalist missing after reporting attack on indigenous community
Ramón Ángeles Zalpa, a reporter for the Cambio de Michoacán newspaper in the southern state of Michoacán, has been missing since the afternoon of 6 April, bringing the total number of disappearances of journalists in Mexico since 2003 to ten. Ángeles has not been seen since leaving his home in the town of Paracho by car to go to the National Pedagogic University, where he is also a teacher. His disappearance comes just five months after fellow newspaper reporter María Esther Aguilar Cansimbe of (...)
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China - Sakharov Network requests Chinese dissident Hu Jia's release
The Sakharov Network calls on the European Parliament's president and the countries of the European Union to take energetic action to obtain the release of imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia on health grounds, as Hu is seriously ill. Winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2008, Hu has been hospitalized in Beijing since 30 March, when his condition worsened. His family fears he may be suffering from liver cancer. The authorities have refused (...)
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Turkey - Government urged to clarify policy as courts continue to harass Kurdish media
As Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday ended a two-day visit to France aimed at reducing French opposition to Turkey's entry into the European Union, an Istanbul judge jailed the editor of the country's only Kurdish-language newspaper, Azadiya Welat (Free Country), for speaking in Kurdish at his trial. He faces up to 41 days in prison. This shocking decision, which has sent a very negative signal to Turkey's Kurds (a quarter of the country's population), is just the latest (...)
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Somalia - Al-Shabaab uses terror to stop local stations from retransmitting BBC and VOA
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab's announcement today that it is banning local radio stations in the regions it controls from retransmitting the broadcasts of the BBC and Voice of America on the grounds that they carry Christian propaganda. “Already responsible for killing or kidnapping many journalists and a permanent climate of terror for the Somali media, Al-Shabaab has today added another misdeed to its long list of violations of free (...)
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Thailand - Government uses state of emergency to escalate censorship
The Thai government has censored dozens of websites and a TV station under article 9 of yesterday's state of emergency, which forbids the “dissemination of information liable to disturb public order.” Most of the media affected are linked to the opposition “Red Shirts” movement but some, such as the website Prachatai, are independent. “We firmly condemn any use of news media to call for violence, but it is deplorable that the authorities are using the state of emergency to censor neutral or (...)
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United States - Net Neutrality in Danger !
Reporters Without Borders is asking Congress to take a stand in favor of Net neutrality after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority under existing legal framework to prevent Internet service providers from blocking or slowing specific websites. “This is a major stepback”, the organization said “The ruling is contradictory to the government's commitment to Net neutrality and equal access to the Internet for (...)
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China - Two young Tibetan writers arrested in raid on university in Gansu
Reporters Without Borders condemns the detention of two young Tibetan writers who are studying in Lanzhou, in the northwestern province of Gansu. Identified as Tashi Rabten (pen-name Therang) and Druklo (pen-name Shokjang), they were arrested on 4 April, apparently because of what they have written about the situation in Tibet. “We fear that these two young Tibetan writers will be mistreated during their first few weeks in detention,” Reporters Without Borders. “We urge the authorities in (...)
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Vietnam - Independent magazine keeps publishing despite harassment
Reporters Without Borders voices its full support for the writers and editors of To Quoc (http://www.to-quoc.net), an independent fortnightly that has managed to keep appearing in print and online despite a campaign of threats and harassment. One of its founders told Reporters Without Borders the threats were part of a “dangerous plans by the conservatives” before the Communist Party's next congress. “The Vietnamese authorities are trying to block the emergence of an independent press but, (...)
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Cuba - International community can no longer ignore fate of Cuba's imprisoned journalists and dissidents
“How many more deaths will be needed in Cuban prisons?” was the question posed at a news conference held today at Reporters Without Borders headquarters in Paris for representatives of the French, Spanish and Latin American media. This question has been more pressing than ever since political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death on 23 February. Some independent journalists such as Guillermo Fariñas, who is not currently detained, and Darsi Ferrer, who is in prison, have decided to follow (...)
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Fiji - Proposed decree establishes legal basis for media censorship and repression
Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about the impact on press freedom of a proposed Media Industry Development Decree that the military government unveiled yesterday, regarding it as an authoritarian imposition by a regime with no democratic legitimacy. The press freedom organisation urges Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama to carry out proper consultations on the draft decree, which is unacceptable in its present form. “Nowhere is press freedom mentioned in this proposed decree, (...)
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Egypt - Police seize video footage, mobile phones to remove all traces of repression
When police used violence to disperse a demonstration by about 100 people outside parliament on 6 April they also targeted journalists covering the event, one of several protests against a 29-year-old state of emergency that were held in the centre of Cairo that day in response to a call by the 6 April Movement. “The violence used by the police in an attempt to suppress any visual record of this demonstration was particularly disturbing,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Journalists were (...)
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Iraq - Urgent need for parliament to debate protection of journalists bill
Reporters Without Borders urges the Iraqi parliament to approve a much-delayed bill for the protection of journalists after several media employees were injured in bombings and other attacks in recent weeks even if they were not necessarily the targets. “We condemn the indiscriminate violence and bloodshed in which civilians are the victims,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It highlights the urgent need for the Iraqi parliament to begin debating the protection of journalists bill that has (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Need to preserve news media and means of public debate during political unrest
Reporters Without Borders appeals to all parties to the current political events (both government and opposition representatives) to act responsibly and to respect the right of their fellow citizens to report and receive news and information, a right that is particularly important at such a key movement for the future of Kyrgyz society. The media must be able satisfy the public's need for coverage of all the developments that are taking place in Kyrgyzstan. To this end, it is particularly (...)
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Israel - Israeli media forbidden to report case widely covered internationally
Reporters Without Borders condemns an absurd court-ordered ban on Israeli media coverage of the case of Anat Kam, an online journalist and former soldier accused of leaking classified military information. An appeal by Channel 10 and the daily Haaretz against the gag order is due to be heard by a Tel Aviv court on 12 April. Kam's arrest has been widely reported internationally. A contributor to the website Walla, she has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv since December on treason and (...)
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Democratic Republic of Congo - Freelance cameraman gunned down in eastern town
Reporters Without Borders is shocked and outraged by the murder of freelance cameraman Patient Chebeya Bankome, who was gunned down yesterday evening in front of his wife outside his home in Béni, in the eastern province of Nord-Kivu. “If the Congolese authorities investigate this murder in a serious and independent manner and do not neglect any leads, they have an opportunity to end the impunity for murders of journalists that has prevailed until now,” Reporters Without Borders said. “All (...)
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United States - The Obama administration should renew its commitment to transparency and accountability
Reporters Without Borders is asking the US government for increased transparency after the whistleblower website WikiLeaks released a video on April 5th, 2010, of a US military Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad three years ago which killed two Reuters employees and several other people. Wikileaks said that it had obtained the video "from a number of military whistleblowers" and posted it at collateralmurder.org. Reuters filed a FOIA request in for the video back in 2007 but it was (...)
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Afghanistan - Japanese freelance journalist missing in north
The Japanese government has confirmed that Japanese freelance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka has been missing since 31 March. According to Japanese news reports, he was kidnapped in a Taliban-controlled area near the northern city of Kunduz, but there has so far been no report of any group claiming his abduction. “A degree of caution is needed in this case as the abduction has not been confirmed by any independent source and it is important not to compromise any local negotiation attempts,” (...)
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Ukraine - In intimidating move, police question two journalists, search homes, seize files
Reporters Without Borders condemns the conduct of the Kiev police in interrogating online journalist and blogger Olena Bilozerska (http://bilozerska.livejournal.com) and press photographer Olexiy Furman of the Photolenta agency (www.phl.ua) and searching their homes in the past few days in a bid to obtain information about participants in protests. Bilozerska and Furman were summoned to a police station, respectively on 30 March and in early March. They were questioned about certain (...)
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Niger - National conference could herald start of new era for Niger's media
Reporters Without Borders hopes that a three-day national conference on the media that ended yesterday in Niamey will help to restore press freedom in Niger and establish a new relationship between its government and news media. “Niger's media have just lived through several grim years under authoritarian rulers who despised them,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We therefore hope that this national conference, coming shortly after a change of regime, will mark the beginning of a new era for (...)
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Turkey - Former editor of Turkey's sole Kurdish daily facing up to 525 years in prison
Vedat Kursun, the biggest shareholder in Turkey's only Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat (Free Country), was sentenced to three years in prison by a court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on 30 March on a charge of propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The newspaper's managing editor until jailed last year, Kursun is the latest in a series of Kurdish journalists to fall victim to Anti-Terrorist Law No. 3713. In this case, he was convicted under article 7 of the (...)
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Thailand - Website editor facing 50 years in jail in latest abuse of lèse majesté law
Reporters Without Borders calls for the withdrawal of all charges against journalist Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of Prachatai.com website, who is facing up to 50 years in prison under the computer crimes and lèse majesté laws for failing to remove comments from her site with sufficient speed. Posted by visitors, the comments are deemed to have insulted the monarchy. Arrested and charged on 31 March, Chiranuch was released after three and a half hours when her sister stood guarantee (...)
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Dominican Republic - Controversy after broadcasting authority forces TV station off the air
Canal 53, a privately-owned TV station also known as Cibao TV Club that is based in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, was controversially forced to cease operations on 25 March on the orders of the Dominican Telecommunications Institute (Indotel), which accused it of “illegal broadcasting.” The controversy is due to the fact that the order was issued after Ernesto Fadul, the host of the programme “En Salud” and the brother of industry and commerce minister Ramón Fadul, referred on the (...)
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China - Amid more Internet censorship, Yahoo! asked to explain attacks on email accounts
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about repeated cases of censorship and cyber-attacks on the Chinese Internet. The Yahoo! email accounts of several foreign journalists based in China have been the target of hacker attacks in recent weeks. The Chinese version of Google's search engine, based in Hong Kong since 22 March, has been subject to intermittent censorship in recent days but appeared to be functioning normally again this morning. “We urge Yahoo! to recognise the need for (...)
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Iran - Several journalists held in Evin prison are seriously ill
Reporters Without Borders is extremely worried about the appalling conditions in which Iranian prisoners of conscience, including many journalists, are being held. The authorities continue to detain them arbitrarily even when they are ailing and in very poor physical or psychological health. “The lives of many journalists are now in danger,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Emadoldin Baghi, Badrolssadat Mofidi, Mehdi Mahmudian and Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand are seriously ill. We call for their (...)
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Israel - Palestinian journalists repeatedly targeted by IDF gunfire during March
Reporters Without Borders deplores the frequency of press freedom violations by the Israel Defence Forces, which routinely fire on Palestinian journalists. At least eight journalists were injured by shots fired by Israeli soldiers during March in the West Bank and Jerusalem. “The incidents continue with complete impunity,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The IDF soldiers involved are rarely punished and, less still, disowned by the superiors, who endorse the use of violence against media (...)
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Afghanistan - Presidential pardon for journalist who published translation of Koran
Reporters Without Borders hails President Hamid Karzai's decision to pardon former journalist Ahmed Ghous Zalmai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in September 2008 for publishing a translation of the Koran into Dari (the Persian dialect spoken in Afghanistan). Issued a few days ahead of the Persian New Year festival of Nawruz, the pardon also affects Mohammad Ateef Noori, the printer, and Qari Mushtaq, the mullah who approved the translation. “President Karzai is repairing an (...)
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Belarus - Crackdown on independent media continues
Amid a wave of harassment of independent journalists, the authorities have seized tens of thousands of copies of two publications in the eastern city of Vitebsk, in an outrageous development that reverses all of the relative progress made in 2009. Activists who help with the printing said police confiscated 24,000 copies of the monthly magazine Nash Dom and 10,000 copies of the weekly Vitebsky Kuryer on 25 March. A court ordered their seizure and fined their publisher, Viktar Ramnyu, (...)
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Kuwait - Journalist gets six-month jail term in continuing judicial harassment
A Kuwait City court today sentenced leading writer and journalist Mohammed Abdel Qader Al-Jassem to six months in prison on a charge of slandering Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, for saying in public gatherings that he was incapable of running the country and calling for his resignation. Al-Jassem was released on payment of 5,000 dinars (13,000 euros) in bail pending the outcome of an appeal. The court had begun hearing the prime minister's lawsuit on 4 March, (...)
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Bangladesh - Organisers of photo exhibit censored and threatened
Reporters Without Borders urges Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to lift a ban on a photo exhibition in Dakha's Drik gallery about extrajudicial executions by a special police unit. The press freedom organisation also calls on the police to investigate the death threats that have been made against the gallery's founder, the well-known photographer Shahidul Alam. “The censorship of this exhibition is a serious violation of freedom of expression,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The threats against (...)
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Ukraine - Local newspaper editor badly injured in assault
Reporters Without Borders deplores the violent attack that Vasyl Demyaniv, the editor of the local weekly Kolomyiski Visnyk, suffered as he was returning home on the evening of 23 March in the western city of Kolomyia. Demyaniv was hospitalised with severe head injuries and a broken leg following the attack, in which unidentified assailants repeatedly kicked him and beat him about the head and body. Doctors described his condition as serious and said he would need three months to recover. (...)
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- Human Rights Council resolution on blasphemy
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned by a resolution condemning “defamation of religions” which the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted on 25 March. It was submitted by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). “Under the pretext of trying to reconcile freedom of expression and religious freedom, some member states are establishing a mechanism with the sole aim of forbidding criticism of religions, above all Islam,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Thailand - Grenade attacks and online censorship amid mounting political tension
Reporters Without Borders joins the Thai Journalists Association and the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association in condemning grenade attacks on two Bangkok TV stations on the night of 27 March. It is vital that the different political groups abstain from taking revenge on media that do not support their cause, as happened during the violence at the end of 2008. “This new political crisis is making it harder for certain news media to function properly,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Even (...)
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Turkey - Journalists under threat from anti-terrorism law
Reporters Without Borders is astounded by the sentences that Turkish journalists are facing just for doing their job. Since an amendment to the anti-terrorism law took effect in 2006, media personnel have been exposed to the possibility of long spells in jail just for covering ordinary news developments including judicial proceedings. One of the latest victims is photographer Nurettin Kurt of the daily Hürriyet, who is facing a possible three-year jail sentence under article 6-1 of the (...)
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Ecuador - Controversial jail sentence amid tension between authorities and journalists
Reporters Without Borders condemns the three-year jail sentence that a court in Guayaquil imposed on Emilio Palacio, a columnist for the daily El Universo, on 26 March on a charge of libel. He was also ordered him to pay 10,000 dollars in court costs. Palacio is still free pending the outcome of an appeal. The sentence is disproportionate, contrary to the western hemisphere tendency to decriminalize press offences, and inopportune because the Ecuadorean parliament is currently debating (...)
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Brazil - Three military policemen get along jail terms for killing journalist in 2007
A São Paulo court has just struck a major blow against impunity by passing long jail sentences on four men, three of them members of the military police, for the 2007 murder of journalist Luiz Barbon Filho. The difficulty of convicting policemen, although they are often involved in press freedom violations, makes the case all the more remarkable. The court sentenced Sgt. Edson Luiz Ronceiro, Capt. Adélcio Carlos Avelino and businessman Carlos Alberto da Costa on 27 March to 18 years and four (...)
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Honduras - Two journalists gunned down in ambush, bringing media death toll in March to five
Reporters Without Borders offers its condolences to the relatives and colleagues of local radio journalists Bayardo Mairena and Manuel Juárez, who were ambushed and slain by gunmen on 26 March in eastern Honduras. After spraying their car with bullets, the gunmen cold-bloodedly finished them off with shots fire at close range, witnesses said. Their deaths bring the number of journalists killed in Honduras since the start of the year to five. All of these murders took place in March. (...)
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Burma - No credible elections without media freedom
Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association believe that, as things stand, the elections which the military government plans to hold this year will have no credibility because of the lack of freedom for both Burmese and international news media. Prior censorship, intimidation, imprisonment and expulsion of foreign reporters are all completely incompatible with a free election. “The electoral laws established by the military government do not guarantee the media's right to (...)
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Singapore - Open letter to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong Prime Minister's Office Orchard Road Istana Singapore 238823 Paris, 25 March 2010 Dear Prime Minister, A foreign news organisation has yet again been forced to apologise to you and your father and pay you a large sum of money for publishing an article you did not like. This time it is the New York Times Co. that is a victim of this double punishment because of a compliant judicial system that always rules in favour of you and your family in all the (...)
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Gabon - Newspaper editor and reporter summoned three times over libel suit
Reporters Without Borders is baffled by the fact that Albert Yangari, the publisher and editor of the newspaper L'Union, and Jonas Moulenda, one of his reporters, have been summoned three times in connection with a libel suit brought by Alfred Nguia Banda, the former director-general of the Gabonese Shippers Council (CGC), which oversees maritime traffic in Gabon. Banda's suit was prompted by an article by Moulenda in L'Union's weekend edition on 28 November about the murder of Banda's (...)
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Yemen - Two journalists freed on health grounds after being held arbitrarily for months
Two illegally-held journalists have been freed in the past 24 hours on medical grounds. They are Mohamed Al-Maqalih, the editor of the opposition Socialist Party's news website, Al Eshteraki, who was released today “for humanitarian and health reasons,” and Hisham Bashraheel, the founder and owner of the daily Al-Ayyam, who was released yesterday. “We hail the release of Maqalih and Bashraheel but it is totally unacceptable that the Yemeni authorities kept them in detention without bringing (...)
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China - Suspicious questionnaire about Tibet distributed to overseas Chinese
Reporters Without Borders has obtained a copy of a questionnaire that has been circulated within the organisations of Chinese living it Europe. It canvasses views on Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Presented as a poll by Beijing's Communication University, this very detailed questionnaire was in fact prepared at the behest of the government department responsible for overseas Chinese. Described as a poll “about the attitude of Chinese citizens and foreigners of Chinese origin about the Tibet (...)
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- Curbing free speech still more, authorities arrest two opponents over comments made in public
The arrests of two well-known opponents of President Hugo Chávez for statements made in public, together with the government's recently declared intention of regulating the Internet, have raised serious concerns about the future of free speech in Venezuela. Given the government's tendency to treat any criticism or verbal attack as an act of “conspiracy against the state,” one wonders whether Venezuelans are still allowed to say anything at all about their country and their president. The first (...)
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Kazakhstan - Independent newspaper reporter badly beaten near his home
Reporters Without Borders is shocked by a physical attack on journalist Igor Lara and concerned about the press freedom situation in Kazakhstan. Lara, who works for the independent daily Svoboda Slova, was assaulted and repeatedly beaten by three unidentified men near his home in the western city of Aktobe on the evening of 22 March. The staff of his newspaper said the fact that his assailants did not take his mobile phone, camera, tape-recorder or money indicated that it was a targeted (...)
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Nigeria - Fundamentalists target Twitter and Facebook in unprecedented move
Reporters Without Borders deplores yesterday's ruling by an Islamic court in Kaduna, in the northern state of Zamfara, ordering a Nigerian human rights group, the Civil Rights Congress, to close its blog and stop hosting debates on Twitter and Facebook about the use of amputation to punish theft. The debates were prompted by the 10th anniversary of Nigeria's first amputation under Sharia law. “An Islamic court has banned an online debate about the Sharia and human rights for the first time in (...)
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China - After Google, another US Internet company decides to limit its services in China
US Internet company GoDaddy announced during a US congressional hearing yesterday that it will stop selling websites with Chinese domain names (those ending in the .cn suffix) because of the radical controls being demanded by the Chinese authorities. “We welcome the fact that another US company is following the example set by Google and is resisting the demands of the Chinese censors,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We now call on Microsoft and Yahoo! to be courageous and follow their (...)
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Sri Lanka - Cartoonist kidnapped two months ago still missing
Reporters Without Borders appeals to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to order the release of the results of the police investigation into leading cartoonist and political reporter Prageeth Eknaligoda's disappearance two months ago. The police have shown no interest in finding this opposition journalist alive, while government ministers have made contradictory statements that have spread confusion about the circumstances of his disappearance. “With some senior officials such as defence minister (...)
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Iraq - New cases of violence against Iraqi journalists
Reporters Without Borders is very disturbed to learn of attempts on the lives of two journalists in the past week – Muayad Al-Lami, the head of the Iraqi Union of Journalists, on 21 March in Baghdad, and Maytham Al-Ahmed, a radio station manager and newspaper editor, on 17 March in the southern city of Basra. “The Iraqi authorities must take all necessary measures to put a stop to the violence and to ensure that both attacks are properly investigated,” Reporters Without Borders said. (...)
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United States - New Bill Could prevent Arab based satellite providers from broadcasting
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned with H.R 2278, passed by the House of Representatives on December 8th, 2009. The press freedom organization voiced its concerns about the new piece of legislation in a press conference in Washington DC on March 22nd, 2010. Under the new bill, satellite providers that knowingly and willingly contract with entities identified as "global terrorist" would themselves be designated as "global terrorists". The bill would also consider (...)
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United States - Google stops censoring search-engine's Chinese version in bold move that other Internet companies must follow
US Internet giant Google announced today that it has stopped censoring its search engine's Chinese version, Google.cn, and is redirecting its mainland China users to its Hong Kong-based search engine Google.com.hk, where uncensored search results are available in simplified Chinese characters. “The Chinese authorities have chosen to censor rather than open up their Internet,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We can only deplore the fact that the world's biggest search engine has been forced to (...)
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Belarus - Supreme court ruling deprives independent journalists of protection in run-up to elections
Reporters Without Borders deplores yesterday's supreme court decision stripping the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an organisation that has been defending press freedom in Belarus since 1995, of its ability to provide a degree of protection to journalists who are not officially recognised. The ruling is the latest move in a renewed offensive aimed at reining in independent or dissident media and journalists in the run-up to a series of elections due to be held in the coming (...)
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Thailand - Online journalist countersues in response to charges linked to lèse majesté cases
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the complaint that online journalist Frank G. Anderson filed criminal charges on 20 March against two men who have accused him of defaming them in online articles about the lèse majesté charges they have had brought against many Thai citizens. As far as we know, this is the first time that a journalist has countersued in response to lèse majesté-linked charges. “We have long been condemning the abuse of lèse majesté charges for political ends, which restricts (...)
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China - At least 50 Tibetans convicted for sending information abroad
Since the March 2008 unrest in Tibet, at least 50 Tibetans have been arrested – and in some cases sentenced to long jail terms – for sending reports, photos or videos abroad. The latest to be convicted is a netizen called Dasher who has been given a 10-year prison sentence on a charge of “separatism” for sending reports and photos of the March 2008 protests. “The repression has never stopped since the March 2008 uprising in the Tibetan regions,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This persecution (...)
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Colombia - Journalist gunned down in region under paramilitary sway after protection withdrawn
Reporters Without Borders urges the Colombian authorities, especially the interior ministry, to explain why they recently stopped providing protection for Clodomiro Castilla Ospina, a magazine editor and radio reporter who was gunned down in the northern department of Córdoba on 19 March. As someone who had often reported on the links between the Córdoba authorities and paramilitary groups, Castilla was a particular exposed journalist in one of the hemisphere's most dangerous regions for the (...)
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Algeria - Does blocking of independent radio station's website herald start of Internet censorship by Algeria?
Reporters Without Borders is disturbed to learn that access to the website of the independent news radio station, Radio Kalima-Algérie (www.kalimadz.com), has been completely blocked for the past two days. At the same time, Eutelsat has stopped carrying the station's broadcasts on its Hotbird satellite. “We fear that this act of censorship heralds the start of government control of the Internet in Algeria,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge the authorities to explain this blocking, which (...)
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Denmark - Are media, arts and culture really starting to censor themselves? (4)
Reporters Without Borders continues its weekly look at the state of free expression and self-censorship in Denmark by publishing an interview with a leading figure from the world of the Danish media and arts. Following Flemming Rose, Carsten Jensen, and Lotte Garbers, president of the Danish Writers Association (Dansk Forfatterforening), this week's interview is with Tøger Seidenfaden, editor of the daily Politiken. Why does free expression continue to be a prominent political issue in (...)
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Belarus - New escalation of violence against journalists
Reporters Without Borders condemns the heavy-handed raids which masked members of the Minsk police carried out on 16 March on the premises of two opposition media, the newspaper Narodnaya Volya and the Charter 97 website. Charter 97 editor Natalia Radzina was hit in the face as the police stormed in the website's office. The police also searched Radzina's home and the homes of Narodnaya Volya journalist Maryna Koktysh and another journalist, Iryna Khalip. Eight Charter 97 computers and other (...)
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Sri Lanka - Anti-terrorist police arrest journalist close to Gen. Fonseka
Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrest of a journalist close to Sarath Fonseka, the former armed forces chief who was President Mahinda Rajapaksa's main challenger in January's election, and calls on the authorities to release him at once. “We are outraged by Ruwan Weerakoon's arrest,” Reporters Without Borders said. “What we feared has come about. The decision to prosecute him is part of a witch-hunt against the relatives and supporters of Gen. Fonseka, who is himself under arrest. The (...)
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Azerbaijan - Opposition newspaper editor freed on president's orders
Reporters Without Borders welcomes imprisoned journalist Ganimat Zahidov's early release on the president's orders. The editor of the opposition daily Azadlig, Zahidov was released from Prison Colony No. 17 on 11 March. He had been held since November 2007 on a trumped-up charge of hooliganism. “I want to thank all the people who contributed to my release,” Zahidov said as he left the prison. “I have a right to freedom.” Although he appeared weak, he said he was in good health and intended to go (...)
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Nigeria - Negative signs from police investigating newspaper journalist's murder
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the conduct of the investigation into the murder of Bayo Ohu, the assistant news editor of the Lagos-based daily The Guardian, who was shot dead at his home in a Lagos suburb on 20 September 2009. The police, who claimed this week that they had found the people who killed Ohu, are still insisting that he was shot in the course of a break-in although there are strong indications that he was the victim of a targeted killing related to his work as (...)
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Somalia - Militia arrests three journalists, threatens radio station
Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns three new arrests of journalists by the Al-Shabaab militia. They are radio Markabley manager Ahmed Omar Salihi, who was arrested yesterday and was held overnight in the southern city of Bardhere, and two of the station's reporters, Mohamed Salad Abdulle and Mohamed Abdikarim, who were arrested earlier yesterday in other towns in the south and are still being held. “The continued arrests and detention of our members by the Al-Shabaab group has reached (...)
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Indonesia - Indonesian Broadcasting Commission urged to grant licence to Radio Era Baru
Reporters Without Borders wonders why the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) are refusing to issue a licence to Radio Era Baru, a station based in Batam, in the province of Riau, that broadcasts in local language and Mandarin. “We fear that this obstruction is the result of pressure by China,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Media freedom is a constitutional right in Indonesia so no foreign government should have the right (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - How far will government go in its escalation of censoship?
Reporters Without Borders is dismayed by an unprecedented wave of harassment of independent and opposition news media, coinciding with the 5th anniversary of the Tulip Revolution. Coming after a year marked by biased coverage of a presidential election and violence against journalists, it seems to dash any lingering hope of democratisation and confirm that Kyrgyzstan is falling into line with its autocratic central Asian neighbours. The leading independent news websites and the (...)
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Iran - Blogger's death in detention still unexplained one year later
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi's tragic death in Tehran's Evin prison, a death that could have been avoided if the prison staff had not been negligent. “If they have acted promptly and done what was necessary, Mirsayafi could have been saved,” Reporters Without Borders said. “His death is all the more regrettable as his detention was totally unjustified.” Mirsayafi collapsed at 12 noon on 18 March 2009 and was taken to the prison infirmary. The prison authorities (...)
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Bosnia-Herzegovina - Unacceptable call for boycott of state TV station by Serb premier
Reporters Without Borders condemns Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik's call for a boycott of the state-owned federal television news station (FTV) on the grounds that its coverage is allegedly “biased and distorted.” Republika Srpska (RS) is one of two main political entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a confidential internal memorandum dated 3 March and leaked on 14 March, Dodik asked all of the representatives of the country's Serbian community to ignore requests (...)
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Cuba - President Lula told action on Cuba should no longer be Latin American taboo as Havana continues to crack down
Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva President of the Federative Republic of Brazil Planalto Palace, Brasília, D.F. Dear Mr. President, Appeals were addressed to you by Cuban dissidents following imprisoned dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo's tragic death on 23 February. You were in Havana when Zapata died after more than 80 days on hunger strike. Some people accused you of taking too long to express your regrets at Zapata's demise. Your comments nonetheless gave rise to hopes that you could act as (...)
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Sri Lanka - Journalists close to Gen. Sarath Fonseka threatened with arrest
Reporters Without Borders is very worried by attempts to intimidate at least four journalists linked to jailed opposition leader Sarath Fonseka, who are being threatened with prosecution. They have been summoned by the anti-terrorist police and they fear they could be arrested at any time for a period of 90 days, which is allowed by the law. “We urge the authorities not to arrest these four journalists: Tissa Ravindra Perera, Ruwan Weerakoon, Prasanna Fonseka and his brother Mihiri (...)
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Venezuela - False posts cannot be used to justify arbitrary control over the Internet
Reporters Without Borders is worried by President Hugo Chávez's professed desire to regulate the Internet. Chávez called for Internet regulation on 13 March, at the same time as he called for a criminal prosecution to be brought against Noticiero Digital, a news and comments website that wrongly reported that a minister had been assassinated. “Imposing restrictions on the Internet will not solve the problem of false reports,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The government is using this case as (...)
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Denmark - Are media, arts and culture really starting to censor themselves? (3)
Reporters Without Borders continues its weekly look at the state of free expression and self-censorship in Denmark by publishing an interview with a leading figure from the world of the Danish media and arts. Following Flemming Rose and Carsten Jensen, this week's interview is with Lotte Garbers, president of the Danish Writers Association (Dansk Forfatterforening). Is freedom of expression in danger in Denmark? It is a very sensitive question, because we do not have any open debate in (...)
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Vietnam - Seriously ill dissident editor granted early release
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release of Father Nguyen Van Ly, one of the editors of the dissident publication Tu do Ngon luan, whose health deteriorated drastically while held in Ba Sao prison in the north of the country. “The authorities have finally shown a minimum of compassion towards Father Ly, who suffered a stroke in his cell,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We hope he will be able to convalesce without being under constant police surveillance and we urge the authorities to (...)
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Turkey - Judicial harassment of newspaper publisher makes journalism impossible in provincial region
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the latest sentence to be passed on Haci Bogatekin, an independent journalist based in Gerger, in the southeastern province of Adiyaman. The owner and publisher of the Gerger Firat biweekly and editor of the Gergerfirat.net website, Bogatekin was sentenced by a provincial court on 2 March to five years, one month and seven days in prison. “This is just the latest stage in the judicial system's harassment of Bogatekin,” Reporters Without Borders said. (...)
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Burma - Reporters Without Borders supports Best Burmese Blogger Award
For the second year running, Reporters Without Borders has supported the Best Burmese Blogger Award, created by its partner organisation, the Burma Media Association (BMA). The results were announced at a conference organised by the BMA at the end of February in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. Thousands of Burmese Internet users helped to choose the winners by voting for their favourite blogs. Ten blogs received prizes. The best blog in the general category was Myanmar E-Books (...)
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Jordan - Media coverage of corruption case censored for fear of criticism
Reporters Without Borders condemns the order issued by an Amman military court on 10 March banning the media from covering a case of alleged corruption involving several leading Jordanian figures including a former finance minister. The case was exposed in the press several months ago. “This ban shows a lack of political will on the part of the Jordanian government to combat corruption within the government and state-owned companies,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It was the press that (...)
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Romania - Improper behaviour towards a journalist by MEP George Becali
Reporters Without Borders and its partner organisation in Romania, the Active Watch -Media Monitoring Agency, are outraged by the vulgar and obscene comments that George Becali, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), made to Cornelia Popescu of the online newspaper ZIUA Veche on 10 March when she asked him about contradictions between the declarations of financial interests he made to the European parliament and subsequent declarations. “We are stunned by Becali's offensive comments,” (...)
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Yemen - Authorities continue to harass media, seizing broadcast equipment from Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera
Reporters Without Borders deplores the Yemeni authorities' seizure of broadcast equipment from the Sanaa bureaux of the pan-Arab satellite TV stations Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera on 11 March on the grounds that their coverage of unrest in the south of the country was not objective. “Confiscating equipment in this manner is unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The government is clearly stepping up its attempts to impose a news blackout on its military operations, especially in the (...)
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Honduras - Radio journalist gunned down on Atlantic coast after suspected drug cartel threats
Radio journalist David Meza Montesinos last night became the second Honduran journalist to be murdered since the start of the year, following the fatal shooting of TV journalist Joseph Ochoa of Canal 51 on 1 March. Meza was shot by unidentified gunmen in an ambush near his home in the Atlantic coast city of La Ceiba, where he worked for local radio station El Patio as well as for Radio América, a national station, and Abriendo Brecha, a TV station. An often controversial journalist, he (...)
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- Web 2.0 versus Control 2.0
The fight for free access to information is being played out to an ever greater extent on the Internet. The emerging general trend is that a growing number of countries are attemptimg to tighten their control of the Net, but at the same time, increasingly inventive netizens demonstrate mutual solidarity by mobilizing when necessary. The Internet: a space for information-sharing and mobilizing In authoritarian countries in which the traditional media are state-controlled, the Internet (...)
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- Media coverage of corruption case censored for fear of criticism
Reporters Without Borders condemns the order issued by an Amman military court on 10 March banning the media from covering a case of alleged corruption involving several leading Jordanian figures including a former finance minister. The case was exposed in the press several months ago. “This ban shows a lack of political will on the part of the Jordanian government to combat corruption within the government and state-owned companies,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It was the press that (...)
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- Freelance journalist freed after being held by the army for 70 days
Reporters Without Borders hails freelance reporter Mohammad Rasheed's release yesterday after being held incommunicado for 70 days by the Pakistani army. “I am back at my home in Rawalpindi,” he told Reporters Without Borders. “It would good if the army explained why this professional journalist was held incommunicado for so long,” the press freedom organisation said. “I was not tortured during my detention,” Rasheed said. “The military treated me as a suspect. I have been a journalist for many (...)
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Mexico - At least one journalist missing in wave of violence in Tamaulipas state
Terrors reigns in the news media in Tamaulipas, a northeastern state that borders Texas, after more violent clashes between drug traffickers and after reports – not all confirmed – of a total of eight journalists being kidnapped or disappearing. The staff of newsrooms refuse to talk for fear of reprisals. “We don't want to die,” is the typical response. Reporters Without Borders fears that media freedom will not survive the situation in Tamaulipas, which increasingly resembles that of Ciudad (...)
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Eritrea - Radio Erena: an independent news source for Eritrea
Based in Paris and run by Eritrean exile journalists, Radio Erena has been operating for the past nine months. Broadcasting by satellite to Eritreans in Eritrea and on the Internet to the Eritrean diaspora, the station serves as an independent news source for a country where press freedom is non-existent and anyone straying from the official line is severely punished. This original project is supported by Reporters Without Borders. Watch the Radio Erena presentation video: Radio Erena (...)
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Palestinian territories - Security forces raid journalist's home just hours after his release
Reporters Without Borders deplores the fact that journalist Mustafa Sabri's home in Qaliqilya, in the north of the West Bank, was raided by members of the security forces as he was about to give an interview on 9 March, just hours after he was released from prison on payment of 5,000 Jordanian dinars (5,160 euros) in bail. The newspaper Filastine's former bureau chief, Sabri had been detained since 4 January. No date has been set for his trial. “Sabri's release is good news, but Palestinian (...)
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Iraq - Legislative elections become nightmare for independent and opposition journalists
Political rivalry and tension prompted by the 7 March legislative elections in Iraqi Kurdistan resulted in a wave of violence against independent and opposition journalists in the days preceding the election and on election day itself. Journalists describe it as the most harrowing period since the US invasion of Iraq in April 2003. “I am really concerned about these press freedom violations, which were too many to count,” said Halgurd Samad, the editor of Livin, Iraqi Kurdistan's leading (...)
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Kuwait - Journalist and three newspapers fined a total 30,000 euros in separate cases
Reporters Without Borders deplores the fines which a Kuwaiti criminal court imposed on a journalist, three newspapers and two members of parliament in three separate cases heard on 7 March. They all involved published reports containing comments considered offensive to the royal family or Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah. The fines which the journalist and three newspapers were ordered to pay on this sad day for Kuwaiti press freedom came to more than 30,000 euros. (...)
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Vietnam - Human rights lawyer and blogger arrested just three days after completing jail term
Reporters Without Borders condemns the way the authorities are treating human rights lawyer and blogger Le Thi Cong Nhan, who was detained for three hours yesterday, just three days after she was released on completing a three-year jail sentence. Police took her to a Hanoi police station for allegedly violating the terms of the supplementary sentence of three years of house arrest that she is now supposed to serve. Some sources said their real reason for detaining her was to prevent her (...)
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Kosovo - Wave of threats against print media journalists
Reporters Without Borders condemns three separate cases of threats against investigative journalists in the past month. The target in the most recent case was Vehbi Kajtazi, who wrote a story for the 18 February issue of the daily Koha Ditore about internal wrangling and divisions resulting from recent decisions by President Fatmir Sejdiu and the judicial system, in particular, a presidential amnesty granted for the second anniversary of Kosovo's independence, on 17 February. The (...)
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China - Censorship and threats after newspapers publish joint editorial about hukou
Reporters Without Borders urges the Propaganda Department to lift the censorship imposed on a joint editorial in 13 Chinese daily newspapers calling for the elimination of the internal passport system known as the “hukou.” The press freedom organisation has learned that journalists working for news media that published the editorial have been threatened with punishment. “Initiating a debate about the hukou on the eve of a session of the National People's Congress in Beijing was a very positive (...)
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Malaysia - Government imposes censorship and self-censorship on religious issues
Reporters Without Borders condemns the censorship and self-censorship which the home affairs ministry has imposed on Malaysia's leading English-language daily, The Star, by issuing it with a warning about an article criticising the caning of three Muslim women under Sharia law. “As one of the country's most widely-read newspapers, The Star should have a free hand to provide its readers with the broadest range of news and views on social issues,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge Prime (...)
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Nigeria - Concern for two journalists kidnapped five days ago in the Niger Delta
Reporters Without Borders today expressed deep concern about the plight of two sports journalists working for South African M-Net Supersport television who were kidnapped on 1st March and are still being held hostage. South African producer Nick Greyling and Nigerian sports commentator Bowie Attamah were snatched close to airport in Owerri, capital of the south-eastern state of Imo, while they were heading to Lagos on a bus. A third journalist abducted with them, Nigerian cameraman (...)
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Denmark - Are media, arts and culture really starting to censor themselves? (2)
Reporters Without Borders continues its weekly look at the state of free expression and self-censorship in Denmark by publishing an interview with a leading figure from the world of the Danish media and arts. This week's interview is with Carsten Jensen, a writer and journalist who is very critical of the liberal-conservative coalition government. He has just been awarded the Olof Palme Prize for his “courageous, committed and determined” defence of human rights. Is freedom of expression in (...)
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Russia - Court releases policeman who fatally shot detained website publisher
Reporters Without Borders is deeply shocked by the Ingush supreme court's decision to release the policeman who fatally shot Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the Ingushetiya.ru news website, on 31 August 2008. By reducing the gravity of the charge on which Ibragim Yevloyev (no relation) was convicted, the court was able to commute his two-year jail sentence to two years of “supervised residence,” which means he will be able to resume working as policeman. “The two-year jail sentence on a (...)
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Afghanistan - “Illegal” move by government to ban live coverage of Taliban attacks
Reporters Without Borders urges the Afghan interior ministry to reverse its decision to ban live media coverage of Taliban attacks on the grounds that the information provided by journalists could be used by the insurgents to coordinate their actions. The press freedom organisation supports the culture ministry's plan to bring media representatives and security officials together on 6 March to seek a solution to the crisis triggered by the ban. “'We fully understand that the government's (...)
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Italy - State broadcaster suspends political discussion programmes ahead of regional elections
Reporters Without Borders is dismayed by a decision by the board of governors of the state-owned broadcaster RAI to suspend all political discussion programmes on its three TV stations during the one-month run-up to regional elections scheduled for 28 and 29 March. The reason given was the difficulty of ensuring “equality of treatment.” “This move is doubly intolerable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Firstly, an election campaign is under way and Italy's citizens have more need than ever for (...)
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Nepal - Media owner gunned down in troubled Terai region
Reporters Without Borders is saddened and outraged by regional media owner Arun Singhaniya's murder in Janakpur, a city in southern Nepal's troubled Terai region, on 1 March. Claimed by several armed groups operating in the Terai, the killing has highlighted the lack of tolerance for independent media. Reporters Without Borders has added the Terai's armed groups to its list of “Predators of Press Freedom.” “This murder of a respected media owner is a result of violence that has been endemic in (...)
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Honduras - Politicians and media urged not to try to exploit journalist's murder
Reporters Without Borders offers its condolences to the colleagues and family of journalist Joseph Ochoa of the privately-owned Canal 51 TV station, who was shot dead in Tegucigalpa on the evening of 1 March in an attack probably targeted at fellow journalist Karol Cabrera of the state-owned Canal 8 TV station and the privately-owned radio station Radio Cadena Voces (RCV). Cabrera was shot and seriously injured but she is out of danger. The motive of the shooting has yet to be established (...)
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Turkey - Website editor to be tried on charge on insulting president
Baris Yarkadas, the editor of the online newspaper Gercek Gündem (Real Agenda), will face up to five years in prison when he appears before a criminal court in the Istanbul district of Kadiköy tomorrow in response to a complaint brought by the president's office. He is charged with insulting President Abdullah Gül under article 299-2 of the criminal code for failing to remove a comment posted by a reader. “We call for the immediate withdrawal of this baseless charge,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Iran - Two newspapers closed, detained journalists under pressure to request forgiveness
Although a number of journalists and netizens have been freed in the past few days, the crackdown on media and journalists is continuing. The daily Etemad was suspended on 1 March and the weekly Iran Dokht's licence has been cancelled. At the same time, journalists continue to be arrested in Tehran and many others throughout the country have received summonses. Journalists held by the intelligence ministry are being subjected to considerable pressure to publicly ask the Revolution's Supreme (...)
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Egypt - Student court martialled for blogging about army human rights violations
Reporters Without Borders condemns university student Ahmed Abdel Fattah Mustafa's trial by court martial for blogging about army human rights violations. Held incommunicado since his arrest by state security agents on 25 February, he appeared today before a Cairo military court on charges of “publishing false news” and trying to “undermine people's confidence in the armed forces.” The trial was adjourned. “Mustafa is a civilian and there are no grounds for trying him before a military court,” (...)
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Venezuela - Breakthrough arrests of suspected instigators in two murders of journalists
e fight against impunity for violence against journalists saw significant progress on two fronts in late February in the form of the arrests of the alleged instigators of the 2009 murder of newspaper editor Orel Sambrano (photo) and the 2004 murder of radio presenter Mauro Marcano. A common feature of these two murders was that the victims had covered drug trafficking cases. Drug traffickers now figure among the western hemisphere's worst predators of press freedom. Reporters Without (...)
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Mexico - Journalists question decision by prosecutors to close investigation into reporter's disappearance
Journalists are up in arms over a decision by the Federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) to close the investigation into the January 2007 disappearance of journalist Rodolfo Rincón Taracena on the grounds that he is now said to have been kidnapped and killed by members of a criminal gang known as Los Zetas, who burned the body. “The investigation cannot be closed until the authorities have legally demonstrated that the human remains found in a search of a property are those of Rodolfo (...)
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Russia - Controlled media in Sochi behind Winter Olympics facade
As today's closing ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics turns the spotlight on Sochi, the host of the next Winter Games in 2014, Reporters Without Borders would like to cast its own light on the situation of the news media in this Black Sea city and in Krasnodar, the populous southern Russian province in which it is located. Sochi's selection for the 2014 Games was given totally uniform coverage in the local media. Press-ganged into supporting the Kremlin policy of “the games at any (...)
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Greece - The German government does not control the national media
Paris, 25 February 2010 Helenic Parliament Mister Philippos Petsalnikos President Palais du Parlement 10021 ATHENES Subject: Summons issued to German ambassador over German coverage of Greece's financial crisis Mister President, Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom organisation and winner of the 2005 Sakharov Prize, firmly condemns the summons you have issued to the German ambassador about the German media's coverage of Greece's financial crisis. (...)
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Turkey - Website editor freed conditionally but still accused of belonging to terrorist group
Aylin Duruoglu, the editor the Vatan newspaper's website, Gazetevatan.com, was granted a conditional release by an Istanbul court on 23 February, 10 months after her arrest on 27 April for alleged links to a clandestine armed group called Devrimci Karargah (Revolutionary Headquarters). Nine other people who were arrested in the same operation, including Mehmet Yesiltepe, an employee of the magazine Devrimci Hareket (Revolutionary Movement), were also freed conditionally. Duruoglu continues (...)
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Haïti - Video of second post-quake visit by Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is today posting a video that it made during its second visit to Haiti since the 12 January earthquake, from 9 to 15 February. During the first visit, a week after the disaster, the press freedom organisation set up a Media Operations Centre in partnership with the Canadian media group Quebecor. It is being run by Haitian journalists. The Centre's new address: 8 A rue Butte, Bourdon, Port-of-Prince Phone: + 1 514 664 86 95 The footage we shot a month after the (...)
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Iraq - Democracy and free expression under threat in Iraqi Kurdistan
“You have guns, we have pens,” was the message that the Sulaymaniyah-based independent newspaper Hawlati (Citizen) printed on an otherwise blank front page on 24 February in a bold protest against a spate of threats, harassment and physical violence against journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan in the run-up to a parliamentary election on 6 March. Hawlati's front page is just one example of the growing protests by Kurdish intellectuals and independent media against abuses by the Kurdish security (...)
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India - A “disturbing” spate of police violence against journalists
Reporters Without Borders is extremely shocked and disturbed by a wave of police violence against journalists in Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It has registered a total of 13 cases of abusive treatment and physical attacks by police against media personnel in February alone. “Given that a police officer was recently suspended for hitting a Dalit woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh, it would be appropriate to punish police officers who treat journalists in a similar (...)
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Denmark - Are media, arts and culture really starting to censor themselves?
Ranked first in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Denmark is known for a deep attachment to free expression and press freedom. This was seen again on 16 September 2009, when the Copenhagen-based daily Politiken published Thomas Rathsack's entire book Ranger – at War with the Elite as a free insert after the defence ministry tried to get the courts to ban it. The book relates Rathsack's experiences as a member of a Danish special forces unit carrying our sensitive operations (...)
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Italy - Google conviction could lead to prior control over videos posted online
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the six-month suspended jail sentences which a Milan court passed today on three Google executives after finding them guilty of violating the privacy of a handicapped teenager by allowing a video of him being bullied by classmates to be posted on Google Video in 2006. The case was brought by the city of Milan and Vividown, an NGO that defends people with Down's syndrome. Issuing its verdict, the court ruled that “the right to operate a (...)
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Syria - Newspaper reporter freed after being held for three months without charge
Reporters Without Borders welcomes newspaper journalist Maan Aqil's release from prison yesterday but deplores the fact that the authorities held him for three months without ever charging him. The national criminal investigations department still has not said why it arrested Aqil at his place of work on 22 November. A reporter with the government daily Al-Thawra, he had written articles denouncing administrative corruption. 01.12.09 Newspaper journalist is latest victim of wave of (...)
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Somalia - Radio reporter held by Al-Shabaab militia for past three days
Reporters Without Borders joins its partner organisation in Somalia, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), in expressing deep concern about the fate of Ali Yusuf Adan, a journalist who was arrested on 21 February in an area controlled by the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab. “Al-Shabaab, which we have already classified as a ‘Predator of Press Freedom,' has added yet another misdeed to the long list of violations of free expression that it has already committed,” Reporters Without (...)
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Georgia - Another case of political censorship by Eutelsat?
Was Europe's leading TV satellite operator, Eutelsat, censoring again in violation of article 3 of the convention under which it was created when it recently refused to carry the Georgian public TV station Pervyi Kakvazkyi on its W7 satellite? That is the question that a French court will begin to address on 22 March. Examination of the relations between Eutelsat, a company headquartered in France, and the Georgian public broadcaster GPB raises several questions. Why did Eutelsat suddenly (...)
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China - Internet censorship reaches unprecedented level
Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the Chinese government latest attempt to tighten its grip on the Internet. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced today that anyone wanting to operate a website would have to meet with regulators in person and bring identity documents. “These new regulations represent a very disturbing step backwards for the Chinese Internet,” Reporters Without Borders said. “No one is fooled. The pretext of combating pornography does not hold. (...)
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United Arab Emirates - Access to independent online discussion forum blocked
Reporters Without Borders condemns the blocking of the online discussion forum UAE Hewar (http://uaehewar.net/), which has been inaccessible in the United Arab Emirates since 7 February. Some of the contributors to the site think the authorities are blocking it in order to discover the identity of the site's owners, who call themselves “Emirati intellectuals.” One of the site's pages was blocked in November because of an article about religion (see http://www.emarati.katib.org/node/109), but (...)
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Palestinian territories - West Bank court sentences Palestinian journalist to 18 months in prison
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the 18-month jail sentence that a court in the West Bank city of Nablus has passed on Palestinian journalist Tareq Abu Zayd, the correspondent of Hamas-run TV station Al-Aqsa. “We call on the West Bank authorities to do what is necessary to free this journalist, who was just doing his work,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We are astonished that the mere fact of working for Al-Aqsa is treated as a crime.” The sentence was imposed by a Palestinian (...)
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Pakistan - TV reporter gunned down in broad daylight in Khairpur
Reporters Without Borders is dismayed to learn of TV reporter Ashiq Ali Mangi's murder in the southeastern district of Khairpur in yet another sign of the growing dangers for journalists in Pakistan. Employed by the privately-owned television station Mehran, Mangi was gunned down as he rode to the local press club in Gambat on a motorcycle on 17 February. The press freedom organisation also joins the Khyber Union of Journalists and the Tribal Union of Journalists in calling for the (...)
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Iran - Physical attack on hardline conservative journalist with intelligence agency links
Reporters Without Borders condemns an assault on Payam Fazlinejad, a reporter who works for the ultra-conservative daily Kayhan. The official news agency IRNA said he was taken to Bagiolah Azam hospital after being seriously injured in an attack by several individuals on motorcycles on the evening of 21 February in Tehran. “Fazlinejad's controversial personality and his links with the intelligence agencies do not in any way justify the use of violence against this journalist,” Reporters (...)
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Côte d’Ivoire - France 24 suspended, opposition newspapers threatened
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the current tension in Côte d'Ivoire and the fact that local retransmission of the French TV news station France 24 has been “suspended” until further notice by the National Council for Communication (CNCA). Serious threats have also reportedly been made against several opposition newspapers. “The CNCA should act with the utmost care and not take arbitrary decisions because the current situation is extremely sensitive and the danger of (...)
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Mexico - Authorities free activist wrongly accused of murdering US cameraman Brad Will
Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, a grass-roots activist who had been wrongly held for the past year as a suspect in the 2006 murder of US cameraman Brad Will of the Indymedia agency in the southern city Oaxaca, was finally released yesterday for lack of evidence. Martínez participated in a series protests that the Popular Assembly of Oaxaca Peoples (APPO) staged against Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz in 2006. Will sympathised with the protests and was filming a major one when he was shot on (...)
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Eritrea - A year after her arrest, Radio Bana journalist being held in solitary confinement
Reporters Without Borders has just learned from credible Eritrean sources that journalist and essayist Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu has been held in solitary confinement for the past few weeks in May Srwa prisons, to the north of Asmara. It is not known why she is being given this treatment. “The Eritrean government has yet again demonstrated its cruelty,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Yirgalem Fisseha is on the point of completing a year of being held incommunicado in particularly appalling (...)
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Cuba - Reporters Without Borders correspondent turns 60 in prison
In poor health ever since his arrest in 2003, the Reporters Without Borders Cuba correspondent, Ricardo González Alfonso is today “celebrating” his 60th birthday in jail. Sentenced to 20 years in prison just for doing his job, González has had to endure the harassment and mistreatment that is standard fare for Cuban prisoners of conscience. González founded and ran the Manuel Márquez Sterling training centre for independent journalists and edited the independent biweekly De Cuba. He won the 2008 (...)
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- Reporters Without Borders in Berlin presents new desk “Help for Journalists in Need“
European Union must abandon restrictive granting of visas for victims of political persecution With the newly created desk “Help for Journalists in Need” the German section of Reporters without Borders (RWB) can now systematically offer help and support to persecuted media professionals. The organisation, which works to protect press freedom and freedom of speech, is reacting to the high number of journalists in danger and those who have had to flee their home countries. “These people depend (...)
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Belarus - Leading journalist harassed over coverage of trial of top officials
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the continuing harassment of investigative journalist Maryna Koktysh, the deputy editor of the Minsk-based independent newspaper Narodnaya Volya, over her coverage of a case involving senior police officers and interior ministry officials in the southeastern city of Homyel. “The independent press has just done its duty by reporting developments in a scandal implicating senior officials that elicited comments from President Alexander (...)
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Syria - Two journalists freed after being held for more than a month without charge
Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that reporter Ali Taha was freed on 7 February, after 36 days in detention, and that cameraman Ali Ahmed was freed a few days later. The two journalists, who work for the TV station Rotana, were arrested on 2 January. “The release of these two journalists is good news, but we condemn that the fact that they were held for a more than month without charge,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Ali Taha has no political links and his reporting is just (...)
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Libya - After progress, regime goes into reverse and cracks down on media, journalists
Four Radio Benghazi journalists who worked on a programme that specialises in covering corruption were arrested yesterday evening outside the station in Benghazi (650 km east of Tripoli) and were released at midday today. Their arrests come amid a general crackdown by the Libyan authorities on news media, especially independent news websites. “We firmly condemn these arrests and the campaign that has been waged since the start of the year against Libyan media that dare to criticise abuses (...)
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Egypt - Authorities urged to stop persecuting leading blogger Wael Abbas
Leading Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas could see his six-month prison sentence upheld tomorrow if his appeal is rejected by the court that is due to hear it tomorrow. The sentence was imposed on 11 November by a court in the North Cairo suburb of Hadayek El Qobba after it convicted him on a charge of damaging an Internet cable. The damage was in fact caused last April by a policeman and his brother (the cable's actual user), who were also responsible for a physical attack on Abbas. “We call (...)
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Iraq - Journalist kidnapped
Reporters Without Borders today expressed concern about Iraqi journalist, Hossam Daoud Lazim, who has been kidnapped in Kirkuk. “We urge the authorities to deploy all the means necessary to find the journalist safe and sound”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. Four armed men in civilian clothes snatched the 22-year-old journalist from outside his home in the Nasr district in the east of Kirkuk, 255 kilometres north of Baghdad, at around 1pm yesterday. He works for the satellite (...)
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Bolivia - Army should allow access to information and open the files of the dictatorships
Reporters Without Borders today condemned as outrageous the refusal by the army chief of staff to give way to a prosecutor's request for access to part of the archives of the military dictatorships on the crucial subject of disappearances. “We support the initiative of the Evo Morales government, announced this week, to declassify military files relating to a period on which light should be shed and which journalists and citizens have the right to be informed about. The army must give way to (...)
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Iraq - Independent journalists harassed, attacked in Kurdistan in run-up to elections
Cases of harassment and physical violence against independent and opposition journalists have been increasing in frequency in Iraqi Kurdistan in the run-up to legislative elections scheduled for 6 March. Commenting on these press freedom violations, Kurdish intellectual and writer Aso Jabar told Reporters Without Borders: “The Kurdish authorities are showing their darkest side through these acts of repression. Real democracies do not oppress their people for using the right to free speech.” (...)
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Zimbabwe - Harassment of privately-owned newspaper The Zimbabwean
Reporters Without Borders condemns the Zimbabwean authorities' repeated harassment and intimidation of The Zimbabwean, a privately-owned newspaper that is edited in Britain and printed in South Africa. In the latest instance, criminal charges of “publishing falsehoods” have been brought against the directors of Adquest, the company that distributes it inside Zimbabwe. No date has yet been set for their trial. “We deplore the fact that the privately-owned Zimbabwean media are still exposed to (...)
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Yemen - Opposition newspaper reporter murdered in northwest
Mohammed Shu'i Al-Rabu'i, a correspondent for several news media including the opposition newspaper Al-Qahira, was gunned down on 13 February in the district of Beni Qais (in the governorate of Hajja), 120 km northwest of Sanaa. Those allegedly responsible have already been arrested. “We offer this journalist's colleagues and family our heartfelt condolences,” Reporters Without Borders said. “His murder is an outrage that could have been avoided if the authorities had not been so negligent. His (...)
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Iran - International community urged to face up to responsibilities during UN Human Rights Council's review of Iran
The United Nations Human Rights Council is to review the situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran on 15 February. Until now, Iran has escaped any kind of sanction since the Council's creation in March 2006. A firm decision by the international community, including China and the countries of the Islamic Conference, would help to induce Iran to respect its human rights undertakings. When Iran was the first country to be reviewed by the Council in March 2007, the debate took place behind (...)
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Turkey - Kurdish newspaper editor sentenced to 21 years in prison
“Freedom of expression must be extended once and for all to the Kurdish press,” Reporters Without Borders said today, reacting to the 21-year jail sentence which a court in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, has passed on Ozan Kilinç, the owner and editor of the country's only Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat. “Banning the democratic expression of ethnic minority demands will not help Turkey to put an end to extremist violence,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Peru - Former mayor acquitted again of ordering journalist's murdering Alberto Rivera
ALBERTO RIVERA
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Jordan - 15 days in jail for criticising government policy
A state security court prosecutor in Amman yesterday ordered newspaper columnist Mwaffaq Mahadin and Sufian Tell, a specialist in environmental issues, held for 15 days for criticising the assistance which the Jordanian intelligence services provide the United States in its fight against Al-Qaeda. Mahadin, who writes for the daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm, and Tell were taken to Al-Juweida prison, 15 km south of the capital, after responding to a summons for questioning. “Their detention shows how (...)
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Turkey - Supporters of editor's alleged killer hack into newspaper's website
Hackers broke into the website of the Turkish and Armenian-language newspaper Agos today and succeeded in posting a photo of Ogün Samast – the youth who is on trial for the January 2007 murder of the newspaper's founder, Hrant Dink – together with a Turkish flag background and around 10 lines of ultra-nationalistic comments. Headlined “Our good morning to Ogün Samast,” the content left by the hackers continued to be visible for several minutes on the site, which is now inaccessible. The (...)
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Bulgaria - Broadcast licence blackmail and disturbing increase in violence
Reporters Without Borders is disturbed by renewed cases of threats and physical violence against Bulgarian journalists in the past few days. An assault on TV reporter Dimitar Varbanov on 10 February and a police spokesman's threats against news agency reporter Ivan Yanev in the city of Stara Zagora on 8 February show that a climate of intimidation continues. These incidents and major irregularities in the handling of Radio K2's application for an official broadcasting licence suggest that (...)
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Iraq - Photographer Ibrahim Jassam freed after US Army held him for 17 months without explanation
Reporters Without Borders welcomed the release today of Iraqi photographer, Ibrahim Jassam, of Reuters, who had been held by the US military since his arrest on 1st September 2008. “This release is excellent news”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “However it comes after long months in custody during which the US army never deigned to give any reason for the photographer's arrest and this despite the fact that an Iraqi court had ordered his release”. “I am happy to be reunited (...)
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Uzbekistan - Relief at release of photographer but revulsion at hypocrisy of justice system
Reporters Without Borders voiced relief at the release today of photographer Umida Akhmedova but expressed dismayed at the “extremely dangerous precedent” set by the Tashkent court which found her guilty of “slander” and “insulting the Uzbek people”. The court convicted her only two days into her trial but immediately released her on the grounds that she was eligible under an amnesty that was declared last August. “We are above all relieved, but it would have been the unbelievable height of (...)
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Kazakhstan - Court climbdown interrupts latest government offensive against media
Reporters Without Borders hails yesterday's climbdown by a court in the Almaty district of Medeu as a victory for independent news media and press freedom organisations over a government bid to impose de facto censorship throughout the country. The court rescinded the order it issued a week earlier banning all of the Kazakh media from publishing any information that could damage the reputation of President Nursultan Nazarbayev's son-in-law, businessman Timur Kulibayev. “A campaign of (...)
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Slovenia - Right of reply : "Mr. Berglund should not fear the legal system if his allegations are supported with evidence"
Following our 2 February press release, the Slovenian Democratic Party sent us this reply on 10 February : "Reporters without borders on February 2nd 2010 condemned the former Slovenian Prime Ministers' lawsuit against the Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund in connection to the bribery allegations he made in his “Truth about Patria” on Finnish TV station YLE on September 1st 2008. On that occasion, Magnus Berglund accused - without providing any evidence - former Prime Minister and president (...)
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Palestinian territories - Israeli soldiers fire on news photographers during East Jerusalem clashes
Around 10 of the journalists who went to cover a major Israeli military operation in the Shu'fat refugee camp, in East Jerusalem, were targeted by Israeli soldiers firing tear-gas grenades, stun grenades and rubber bullets on 8 and 9 February. “Everything indicates that Israeli soldiers deliberately fired on the journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “And this is far from being the first time. Will the Israeli authorities ever put a stop to the impunity allowed to their soldiers? We (...)
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China - Call for release of China's “Olympic prisoners” during Vancouver Games
As Vancouver prepares to inaugurate the 2010 Winter Olympics tomorrow, China continues to detain human rights activists, journalists and bloggers who were arrested for speaking out before, during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “Dozens of Chinese families continue to suffer the awful effects of the last Olympics because a loved-one is still in jail for using the fundamental right to free expression,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Unfortunately, the International Olympic Committee and (...)
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Iran - Connections severed or slowed and Google Mail blocked in latest anti-Internet offensive
Reporters Without Borders condemns the government's latest offensive against the Internet coinciding with celebrations marking the Islamic Revolution's 31st anniversary. Online access has again been disrupted, as it is whenever opposition protests are expected. In major cities such as Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Ahvaz and Shiraz, Internet connections have been slowed right down, restricted to certain neighbourhoods or entirely suspended in some areas for the past few days. Some mobile phone (...)
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China - Heavy jail sentences for activists who wrote about plight of Sichuan earthquake victims
Reporters Without Borders condemns the long jail sentences that judges in Chengdu (in the southwestern province of Sichuan) have imposed on two human rights activists and netizens in the past 48 hours. A three-year sentence was upheld for Huang Qi yesterday while Tan Zuoren was given a five-year sentence at a hearing today during which police arrested and manhandled nine Hong Kong journalists. “Bloggers and human rights defenders who dared to contradict official reports about the victims of (...)
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Cameroon - Authorities urged to account for two journalists held incommunicado by intelligence agency
Reporters Without Borders calls on National Security Chief Emmanuel Edou to immediately explain what has happened to two journalists, Simon Hervé Nko'o and Serge Sabouang, who were arrested by members of the General Directorate for External Investigation (DGRE), an intelligence agency, on 5 February. There has been no news of them since then. “The unacceptable manner in which these two journalists have been arrested resembles the ‘abductions' of journalists in Zimbabwe at the height of the (...)
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Colombia - Journalists still in danger
The Day of the Journalist that Colombia celebrates today will inevitably be overshadowed by the fact that press freedom is making no progress. Despite government boasts about “successful” measures for protecting the media, endangered journalists insist that they are not any safer and this will not change until the president takes a clear position. Paradoxically, the government has become one of the biggest threats to the media, which continue to suffer from the effects of measures taken by (...)
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Nepal - TV magnate shot dead, police urged not to rule out media activities as motive
Reporters Without Borders urges the Nepalese authorities not to rule out the possibility that yesterday's murder of media owner Jamim Shah was linked to his media activities. The head of satellite TV station Channel Nepal and cable TV company Space Time Network, Shah was shot dead in the centre of Kathmandu yesterday. “Although a controversial figure, Shah made a major contribution to media development in Nepal by enabling many Nepalese to gain access to TV stations all over the world,” (...)
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Iran - Number of journalists and netizens in prison now tops 65
Reporters Without Borders deplores the fact that, as a result of arrests in the past few days, the number of journalists and netizens detained in Iran now exceeds 65. “This is a figure that is without precedent since Reporters Without Borders was created in 1985,” the organisation's secretary-general, Jean-François Julliard, said. “The detainees include journalists based in Tehran and the provinces.” At the same time, the Internet has been experiencing a great deal of disruption since the (...)
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Vietnam - Writer who was assaulted gets three-and-a-half-year sentence on trumped-up assault charge
Reporters Without Borders condemns the three-and-a-half-year sentence which a Hanoi court passed today on writer and human rights activist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy on a trumped-up charge of assault. Analysis of some of the prosecution's evidence against Thuy and her husband, Do Ba Tan, who was given a suspended sentence, shows that it was fabricated by the police. Thuy and her husband assaulted no one. On the contrary, they were the victims of violence on the part of the security forces, which (...)
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Belarus - Authorities step up pressure on independent journalists
The Belarusian police are increasingly harassing and intimidating independent journalists by charging them with relatively minor offences. This practice should stop at once if the government really intends, as it claims, to turn Belarus into a democracy. In the latest case, Ivan Shulha, a journalist who works for the privately-owned satellite television station Belsat TV and who is an active member of the independent Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ), was sentenced to 10 days in (...)
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China - Did Gao Zhisheng die under torture in detention?
Reporters Without Borders calls on the Chinese authorities to produce evidence that detained human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, of whom there has been no news since 4 February 2009, is still alive. “We fear the worst,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The authorities must provide his relatives with proof that he is still alive. They must give the family details about his current place of detention and must allow his wife to have direct contact with him.” The press freedom organisation added: (...)
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Spain - Court urged to acquit journalists in trial of Basque daily Egunkaria
Reporters Without Borders calls on the court that is trying five journalists who ran the Basque-language daily Euskaldunon Egunkaria to acquit of them all charges of links to the Basque armed separatist group ETA. The trial is finally being held seven years after Spanish civil guards raided the newspaper on 20 February 2003 and arrested a total of 13 journalists and members of its board on suspicion of “the crime of belonging to or collaborating with the terrorist organisation ETA.” The (...)
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Brazil - O Estado de São Paulo approaching 200th day of ban restricting press freedom
The São Paulo-based daily O Estado de São Paulo and its website Estadão are approaching the 200th day of a court order banning them from publishing any information about legal matters involving businessman Fernando Sarney, the son of former President José Sarney, who is now senate speaker. Their first six months of censorship under the 31 July order, which has set a dangerous press precedent for press freedom, was completed on 1 February. The federal supreme court took only three months to (...)
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Haïti - US military must explain why marines censored Haitian photographer
Three weeks after the earthquake, the Haitian press has just had its first serious run-in with the US military. Homère Cardichon, a photographer working for the daily Le Nouvelliste, had his camera confiscated by US marines yesterday while covering a demonstration by disgruntled residents outside the US embassy in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre. We urge culture and communications minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassègue to demand an explanation from the US military authorities. “Six (...)
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Uzbekistan - Photographer who showed Uzbek reality to be tried for “insulting the people”
Reporters Without Borders condemns the upcoming trial of photographer and documentary film-maker Umida Akhmedova as an absurd and flagrant violation of free expression that is all the more disturbing for having unleashed an all-out campaign of nationalist and conservative hysteria. Two months after being summoned for the first time to a Tashkent police station, Akhmedova was officially notified on 23 January that the authorities had completed their investigation and would soon try her in (...)
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Rwanda - Independent weekly threatened with being closed for good
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the fate of the Umuseso, one of Rwanda's leading independent weeklies, which could be closed down as a result of case brought by the public prosecutor's office accusing it of libel and invasion of privacy for reporting that a government minister was having an extra-marital affair with the mayor of Kigali. A neighbourhood court in Nyarugenge is due to issue its verdict on 22 February. “We urge the judge to keep a cool head and to issue a fair (...)
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Mauritania - Court imposes new two-year sentence on website editor
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the harsh, two-year jail sentence which a court passed yesterday on Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, at the end of an incomprehensible and arbitrary trial. Dehah, who was not freed in December on completing a six-month sentence of a charge of violating public decency, was convicted this time on charges of violating public decency, inciting revolt and “criminal publication.” The press freedom organisation, which met the Islamic (...)
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Belarus - Government extends its control over all media
Reporters Without Borders regrets that President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday signed a decree establishing extensive control over Internet access and online content. The decree is due to take effect on 1 July. “The fears we expressed at the start of last month (see release below) have been realised,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The Belarusian authorities are trying to tighten their control over the Internet as they already did with the traditional media.” The press freedom organisation (...)
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Iran - New round of Stalinist-style trials gets under way
Reporters Without Borders condemns the start of another mass trial of government opponents before a Tehran revolutionary court for their role in protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection, including the major demonstrations on 27 December. All of the 16 defendants in the latest trial, which began on 30 January, are accused of being “mohareb” (enemies of God) and “corrupt on earth” – charges that carry the death penalty – and of activities against national security. They (...)
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Venezuela - Presidential speeches should have to be broadcast by just one station
A milestone in government misuse of the broadcast media was reached when President Hugo Chávez delivered his 2,000th networked speech or “cadena” yesterday on the 11th anniversary of the start of his first term. The “cadenas” are nowadays enforced under the 2004 Radio and TV Social Responsibility Law (Ley Resorte), which in theory just ensures that the government and state agencies are given broadcast time for public announcements. In practice, the law allows the president to deliver (...)
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Mauritania - Still held illegally, website editor is being tried again on same charge
Reporters Without Borders reiterates its call for the immediate release of the Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, and the withdrawal of all the charges against him. Dehah is being retried on the same charges on which he has already served a six-month sentence. The trial opened on 1 February and the next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. The court should be acting as if last summer's trial never took place. It has ordered the prosecutor's office to correct procedural (...)
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- Reporters without borders thanks the American Iranian community for its support
Reporters Without Borders would like to express its heartfelt appreciation to the organisers of the charitable function held in San Francisco on 23 January in support of our campaign to help Iranian journalists who have had to flee their country. Thanks to the efforts of Firuzeh Mahmoudi of United4Iran, journalist and cartoonist Nikahangh Koswar, members of the Kiosk's group, human rights activist Parviz Dhokat and others, several dozen people attended the event, at which Iranian (...)
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Cuba - Dissident journalist arrested in Holguín as freedom to inform is stalled
Cuba's National Revolutionary Police (PNR) arrested Juan Carlos Reyes Ocaña, journalist on the small news agency Holguín Press on 29 January then took him to a police barracks to face charges of “insult”, “disobedience” and “illegal economic activity”. He was released the following day, but has started a hunger strike as he awaits his trial which could mean a prison sentence. The regime continues to harass bloggers, deal out unfair detentions and ill-treat prisoners of opinion as it refuses to (...)
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Mexico - Another journalist shot dead amid a wave of threats against media personnel
A newspaper editor's murder has brought the total of journalists killed in Mexico in the space of a month to three. Jorge Ochoa Martínez, the editor of the local daily El sol de la Costa and the weekly El Oportuno, was shot dead in Ayutla de los Libres, in the southern state of Guerrero, on 29 January. He was 55. According to the police, Ochoa was shot several times with 38 calibre firearm. The authorities have not so far suggested any motive but his family told Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Slovenia - Former PM sues Finnish journalist for 1.5 million euros before Slovenian court
Reporters Without Borders condemns the defamation actions which former Prime Minister Janez Jansa and the Slovenian state have brought against Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund in connection the bribery allegations he made during a programme broadcast on Finnish TV station YLE on 1 September 2008. Berglund accused Jansa, other senior officials and high ranking military officers of collecting around 20 million euros in illegal commissions in a contract with Finnish arms manufacturer Patria (...)
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Tajikistan - Officials bring libel actions against print media in run-up to parliamentary elections
"The Tajik authorities must stop using the judicial system to harass independent news media", Reporters Without Borders said today in reaction to an appeal court's decision to uphold an astronomical damages award against a news weekly and the announcement of new lawsuits against a total of four leading newspapers. The damages award of 300,000 somoni (49,000 euros) against the weekly Paykon (“Arrowhead”) was confirmed on 26 January by a Dushanbe court. The newspaper had been ordered to pay (...)
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- Assistance for local radio stations under threat in Chad and Honduras
Reporters Without Borders has provided financial support for many community radio stations under its mandate to assist local media in difficulty. They include the Chadian radio station FM Liberté, whose transmitter and amplifier stopped working after a short-circuit in February 2009. The equipment was sent to Belgium for repair. Reporters Without Borders contributed to the transport and repair costs, which totalled 1,125,000 CFA francs (1,714 euros). Granted in September 2009, the funding (...)
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Burma - Another video reporter gets long jail sentence
Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association condemn the 13-year jail sentence passed on journalist Ngwe Soe Lin by a special court inside Rangoon's Insein prison on 27 January. He is the second video reporter for a Burmese exile radio and TV station based in Oslo to be convicted in the space of a month. “The military junta has again expressed its phobia of uncontrolled video reporting by imposing a heavy prison sentence on a Democratic Voice of Burma video journalist,” the two (...)
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Russia - Journalist ordered to pay damages, retract line about Soviet Union's disappearance
Reporters Without Borders condemns a Moscow court's decision to rule against freelance journalist and former Soviet dissident Alexandre Podrabinek in a lawsuit by Second World War veteran Viktor Semenov, who claimed he was offended by an online article last September criticising government attempts to paint a rosy picture of the Soviet era. In its ruling, issued on 27 January, the court ordered Podrabinek to pay Semenov 1,000 roubles (23 euros) in damages and publicly retract a line in his (...)
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Sri Lanka - President Rajapaksa urged to halt post-election crackdown on media
Two days after he was declared the winner of this week's election, Reporters Without Borders appealed today to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to put a stop to arrests and intimidation of journalists working for privately-owned and foreign media. “This wave of post-election violence could cast a lasting stain on the start of President Rajapaksa's second term and bodes ill for the political climate during the coming years,” said Reporters Without Borders, which highlighted an increase in election (...)
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Israel - High court quashes jail sentence against two journalists
Reporters Without Borders welcomed the Supreme Court decision today to overturn prison sentences of eight months, six of them suspended, against Khader Shahin, correspondent for Iranian Arabic-language television al-Alam, and his assistant Mohammed Sarhan. After the Israeli army launched operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008, Shahin, living in Jerusalem, was summoned by Israeli police on 5 January for having announced the start of the land offensive on the evening of 3 (...)
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China - Online journalist and writer to be tried for covering demonstration
Reporters Without Borders is very worried about the state of health of online journalist and writer Huang Xiaomin, who has been detained since March 2009 in the southwestern province of Sichuan and is due to be tried on 1 February. “We urge the authorities to drop the charges against him and free him at once,” the organisation said. Huang Xiaomin was arrested by the Jinniu district public security bureau in connection with his coverage of a 23 February demonstration outside the intermediate (...)
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China - Internet still not restored in Xinjiang
Despite claims by the Chinese authorities that restrictions on Internet services and communications are gradually being lifted in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, this is not the case. Official websites such as Xinhuanet.com and People.com.cn are again available but most of the Internet is still cut off seven months after the riots. “We condemn the Chinese government's propaganda, which is trying to give the impression that communications have been restored in Xinjiang,” Reporters Without (...)
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Philippines - In “encouraging” move, journalist's killer sentenced to life imprisonment
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the life sentence passed on hit man Madix Maulana for the 2005 murder of radio journalist Edgar Amoro in Pagadian, on the southern island of Mindanao. The organisation regards it as an “encouraging sign” but believes the case should not be closed until the masterminds and accomplices have been identified and brought to trial. In a written message to Reporters Without Borders after sentencing, Amoro's daughter wrote: “Finally, the day has come when I could (...)
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Honduras - Presidential inauguration must not eclipse coup's impact on press freedom
Coinciding with Porfirio Lobo Sosa's inauguration today as the country's new president, Reporters Without Borders and six other organisations are releasing a report on the state of press freedom in Honduras since the 28 June coup d'état (available in Spanish). The report is the result of a joint fact-finding visit to Honduras from 1 to 7 November. The other six organisations are Article 19, World Association of Newspapers/Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas Argentina (WAN/ADEPA), World (...)
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Burma - Blogger Zarganar turns 49 in jail, he still has 34 years to serve
Blogger, comedian and human rights activist, Zarganar, marked today his 49th birthday in prison. He is still being held in Myitkyina jail in the north of Burma, where his health is worsening because of jaundice and high blood pressure. Reporters Without Borders calls again for his release so that he can receive treatment. His sister-in-law has made a video about him, which can be seen here: Zarganar was sentenced to 35 years in prison on 16 February 2009 for "disturbing public order". He (...)
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Turkmenistan - Turkmen President's visit to France a key opportunity to urge improvements
France: Press Turkmen Leader to End Rights Abuses Turkmen President's Visit a Key Opportunity to Urge Improvements President Nicolas Sarkozy should use the upcoming state visit by his Turkmen counterpart to speak out about Turkmenistan's abysmal human rights record and to press for concrete improvements, the French League for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, and Reporters Without Borders said today. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is (...)
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Russia - Alternative France-Russia Year to address civil society's omission from official event
The historic links between France and Russia are part of a long tradition of exchanges and mutual fascination. Our two countries maintain intense cultural, economic and strategic relations that have had their ups and downs and, of late, a vigorous revival. The most recent developments point clearly to a rapprochement between the two states, one that bears the regrettable mark of Realpolitik (sale of Mistral-type warships, industrial and financial contracts and the development of stronger (...)
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Iran - Two bloggers face possible death penalty
Two netizens and human rights activists, Mehrdad Rahimi and Kouhyar Goudarzi, have been accused of wanting to wage “a war against God,” in a similar manner to the two men who were executed this morning in Tehran on charges of “Mohareb” (being enemies of God). Both contributors to an opposition website, Rahimi and Goudarzi are also facing a possible death penalty. “The authorities have shown they will no longer content themselves with just arresting and convicting in order to put pressure on (...)
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Sri Lanka - Websites blocked just hours before poll results due to be announced
Reporters Without Borders condemns the imposition of additional restrictions on online free expression in Sri Lanka as the country held a presidential election today. Access to the independent news websites Lankaenews, Lankanewsweb, Infolanka and Sri Lanka Guardian have been blocked by the country's main Internet Service Provider. “The authorities blocked access to several independent websites just hours before the results of a very close presidential election were due to be announced,” (...)
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Venezuela - Six TV channels suspended over Chávez “cadenas”
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the government's ‘allergic reaction' to dissident voices in the media as six cable TV channels were suspended yesterday for declining to give airtime to interminable presidential speeches known as “cadenas”. They were faced with the choice of having to broadcast the presidential ramblings or to disappear off the nation's television screens. First in line for the extension of the “cadenas” to cable television was Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) – (...)
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Sri Lanka - All-out propaganda and intimidation in run-up to presidential election
Tension surrounds today's presidential election, especially for the press, which has had to face many obstacles. Use of the state media to support President Mahinda Rajapaksa's campaign for another term has been accompanied by harassment and violence against privately-owned opposition media, culminating in the 24 January abduction of political reporter Prageeth Eknaligoda. Reporters Without Borders appeals to both sides to make every effort to avoid an Iran-style scenario in which the (...)
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Iraq - Security forces now biggest enemy for Iraqi journalists
The latest series of bombings in Baghdad, yesterday afternoon, were targeted at the city's main hotels, which house many Iraqi and foreign news media. The offices of the Al-Hurra TV station were damaged and many journalists sustained minor injuries. Reporters Without Borders condemns this indiscriminate violence against Iraqi civilians but points out that the situation for journalists in Iraq has evolved a great deal in the past two years. Nowadays, the main problem for Iraqi journalists is (...)
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Sri Lanka - Political reporter and cartoonist missing in Colombo on eve of election
Reporters Without Borders urges the security forces to assign more personnel to the search for journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, who sent missing last night in Colombo. A senior police official told the press freedom organisation he was too busy with tomorrow's presidential election to make the case a priority. Eknaligoda, who writes political analyses for the Lankaenews website, left work at about 9 p.m. but did not arrive home and has not contacted any family members or friends. He had told (...)
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- Threat to online free expression from imminent international accord
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the threat to online free expression from measures to combat digital piracy and copyright violations in an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that is currently being negotiated. The next three-day round of talks about the proposed agreement are due to begin tomorrow in Mexico. A total of 39 countries including Australia, France, Mexico, Morocco and the United States, and the European Union, are participating in the negotiations, (...)
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United States - Hillary Clinton's historic speech
Reporters Without Borders welcomes yesterday's speech by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the future of the Internet. Speaking at the Newseum in Washington DC, she expressed clear support for online freedom of expression, identifying it as a priority of US foreign policy. While stressing the need for stronger law enforcement measures to counter hackers who target US interests, Clinton also urged American companies to take a “principled stand” against online censorship, calling on (...)
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Haïti - Media Operations Centre open to local journalists after official launch
The Media Operations Centre that has been set up in Port-au-Prince by Reporters Without Borders and Quebecor was officially inaugurated yesterday with the Haitian government's support. At a news conference held with two Reporters Without Borders representatives, culture and communications minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassègue announced that the centre will be headed by Ives-Marie Chanel, the editor of the Mediacom news agency. Chanel will be assisted by Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Azerbaijan - Another adjournment in case of jailed bloggers Adnan Hadjizade and Emin Milli
A Baku court should have begun today to hear the appeal of imprisoned bloggers Adnan Hadjizade and Emin Milli but, as happened so many times during the original trial, the hearing was adjourned, although this time it was at the request of the defence. The court is now scheduled to start hearing their appeal on 5 February. Reporters Without Borders joined the Adnan Hadjizade and Emin Milli Support Committee in organising a rally at 3 p.m. today outside the embassy of Azerbaijan on Avenue (...)
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Middle East & North Africa - Disturbing moves to create super-police for Arab satellite TV stations
When Arab information ministers meet in Cairo on 24 January they are to discuss a joint proposal by the Egyptian and Saudi governments for the creation of a regional office to supervise Arab satellite TV stations. The proposal is partly a response to bill adopted last month by the US House of Representatives that could result in satellite operators themselves being branded as “terrorist entities” if they contract their services to TV stations classified as “terrorist” by the US Congress. It is (...)
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Uzbekistan - Popular radio host arrested on religious extremism charge
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the arrest of Khayrullo Khamidov, a well-known sports commentator, poet and host of a popular radio show. Arrested at his home on the morning of 21 January and accused of participating in an illegal religious group, he is due to be brought before a Tashkent court today. “The haste with which the authorities have acted is very suspect given their readiness to brand all government opponents and civil society activists as extremists,” Reporters (...)
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United States - Supreme Court decision could bring forward execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal
The Supreme Court on 19 January sent back to a Philadelphia appeal court the case of journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, aged 55, a one-time Black Panther, sentenced to death in dubious circumstances in 1982. The country's court of highest jurisdiction ordered the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to revisit its March 2008 ruling that a new jury should decide on the penalty handed down to the radio journalist. It said the review should be made “in the light” of one of its recent rulings in (...)
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Russia - Large demo in Moscow in homage to Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov
More than 1,000 people took part in yesterday's rally in Moscow in homage to journalist Anastasia Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov on the first anniversary of their murder. Young anti-fascist activists, representatives of human rights NGOs and above all ordinary citizens made up the unusually large crowd that defied freezing temperatures and marched with photos of Baburova and Markelov and other murdered journalists and activists such as Anna Politkovskaya and Natalia (...)
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Haïti - Emergency centre of operations for journalists nearly ready, but will need broader help to keep going in mid-term
Reporters Without Borders and the Canadian media group Quebecor are in the process of installing an emergency centre of operations for Haitian journalists in the Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Canapé-Vert. Located on Cheriez Street, the centre will have communications equipment provided by Quebecor. A second equipment convoy is due to arrive today from the Dominican Republic. The centre's priority aim is to provide journalists who have not been able to work since the earthquake with (...)
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Israel - Lack of transparency on Israel's expulsion of US journalist
Reporters Without Borders today condemned suspicious circumstances surrounding Israel's expulsion of US journalist, Jared Malsin, editor for the English service of the Palestinian press agency Ma'an. “The journalist was expelled after giving up his right of appeal. This decision was taken in dubious circumstances in that the journalist's lawyer was not present,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “Did the journalist come under pressure?” it asked, “It is reasonable to question the (...)
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Italy - Government wants to clamp down on online video
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about a proposed government decree drafted by communications undersecretary Paolo Romani that would require all websites showing videos to obtain a licence from the authorities. The decree, which could take effect as early as 27 January, envisages disproportionate fines of up to 150,000 euros for copyright infringement and poses yet another threat to free expression in Italy. Reporters Without Borders urges the Constitutional court to reject it in its (...)
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Vietnam - Court sentences four netizens and pro-democracy activists to a total of 33 years in jail
Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the long jail sentences imposed on a total of seven bloggers, cyber-dissidents and human rights activists in rushed sham trials in the past two days. Sentences totalling 33 years in prison were passed on four dissidents who were tried by a court in Ho Chi Minh City today. “The Vietnamese authorities have embarked on an all-out witchhunt for pro-democracy activists and a demonization of the Internet, whose potential for disseminating news and (...)
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Peru - The government revokes another media licence in the Amazonas region
Reporters Without Borders today condemned as an act of political revenge the cancellation of a television station's licence, seven months after the same action was taken against radio La Voz de Bagua Grande, also in the Amazonas region. Televisión Oriente, based in Yurimaguas in the north-east, lost its broadcast licence on 15 January on the order of the Transport and Communications Ministry (MTC). Like La Voz de Bagua, Televisión Oriente fulfilled all the legal conditions for its licence, (...)
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Russia - 21-month jail sentence for blogger sets dangerous precedent
Reporters Without Borders condemns the Tatarstan supreme court's decision on 15 January to uphold blogger Irek Murtazin's 21-month prison sentence on a charge of defaming the president of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaimiyev, in a September 2008 post on the LiveJournal website suggesting that Shaimiyev might have died of ill-health while on holiday. Murtazin used to be Shaimiyev's press spokesman. As well as defamation under article 129 of the criminal code, he was also convicted under article 282 (...)
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Sri Lanka - State media turned into presidential propaganda outlets
Flouting a 15 January supreme court ruling, state-owned TV stations Rupavahini and ITN continue to openly favour President Mahinda Rajapaksa's campaign to win another term in the presidential election to be held on 26 January with a total of 21 candidates taking part. Detailed monitoring by Reporters Without Borders has established that 98.5 per cent of the news and current affairs air-time on these two stations on 18 and 19 January was given over to the president and his supporters. This (...)
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- Eshan Maleki
Video Iranian photojournalist, Ehsan Maleki was forced to flee his country after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed réélection. He arrived in France on 6 November 2009, and is currently living in La Maison des Journalistes, where Reporters Without Borders interviews him. La Maison des Journalistes offers shelter to 15 exiled journalists in Paris, for six months. For more informations (...)
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Haïti - Media Operations Centre gets backing from Haitian government
Haiti's culture and communications minister, Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassègue, has given her support for the Media Operations Centre installed in Port-au-Prince by Reporters Without Borders and Quebecor. Their representatives are to meet with her in the capital this morning (at 9 a.m. local time) to discuss the way the centre will function and the choice of journalists to run it. The centre's mandate is to: 1- make the equipment that Haitian journalists need to work available to them 2- act (...)
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Iraq - More threats and violence against independent journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan
Reporters Without Borders has observed an increase in press freedom violations and violence against independent journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan since the 25 July regional elections. Both of the two political parties that control the region have had a hand in these violations, of which there have been several recent cases. The most recent is that of freelance journalist Sabah Ali Qaraman, the target of a kidnap attempt on 19 January. “I was returning home by car with a friend at about 5 p.m. (...)
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Iran - Press freedom violations recounted in real time (from 1st January 2010)
15 January 2010 - Suspension The weekly Hemat, a conservative pro-government publication, was suspended on 14 January 2010 on the order of the Tehran prosecutor for “insulting highly placed officials of the regime”. It was the paper's second ban in less than a month, and for the same reason. Hemat had carried a photo on its front page of former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, flanked by several other figures in the regime and captioned “Rafsanjani's men”. Iran's Press Authorisation and (...)
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Thailand - Blogger's letter from prison
Reiterating its appeal to King Bhumibol Adulyadej to pardon nine bloggers (see the 4 December press release: http://www.rsf.org/King-asked-to-pardon-Internet.html), Reporters Without Borders today published a letter written by one of the jailed bloggers, Suwicha Thakor, from prison. In the meantime, the request for a pardon submitted by Suwicha has mysteriously disappeared from his official file. Suwicha was given a 10-year sentence on 2 April 2009 on a charge of lese majeste although (...)
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Iran - Iranian regime accused of crimes against humanity
Condemning the continuing arbitrary arrests and illegal detention of journalists, many of whom are being held incommunicado for long periods, Reporters Without Borders today accused the Iranian regime of “crimes against humanity” and urged the international community to speak out. “The systematic suppression of all criticism of the regime's political and religious institutions is creating a climate of terror that forces journalists to censor themselves or flee the country,” Reporters Without (...)
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Yemen - Woman journalist sentenced to three months in prison and banned from working
Reporters Without Borders condemns the three-month jail sentence which a Sanaa special court for press matters passed on Anissa Mohammed Ali Othman on 16 January for “insulting the president” in two articles for the weekly Al-Wassat in July 2007. The court also banned her from working as a journalist for a year and fined her editor, Jamal Amer 10,000 rials (34 euros). “This sentence, worthy of a bygone era, matches the pattern of the Yemeni government's press freedom violations of the past (...)
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China - Google e-mail accounts of foreign reporters hacked, sources endangered
Reporters Without Borders is deeply disturbed and outraged by cyber-attacks on the Google E-mail accounts of several Beijing-based foreign journalists. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) sent its members a note today alerting them that at least two foreign news bureaux in Beijing have been the target of attacks by hackers. The warning follows Google's revelation that the Gmail accounts of several dozen Chinese human rights activists were the target of sophisticated attacks in (...)
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Russia - Support persecuted journalists and human rights activists in Russia !
After initially banning it, the Moscow authorities have finally given the go-ahead for a march today in Moscow in homage to human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and the young Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasia Baburova, who were gunned down on a central Moscow street exactly one year ago. The march is being organised by the ad hoc “19 January Committee” to protest against the criminalisation of civil society groups in Russia and the failure to punish acts of violence by far-right-wing (...)
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Vietnam - Trial of four pro-democracy activists, including blogger who studied in France
Reporters Without Borders calls for the acquittal of four pro-democracy activists – human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, human rights defenders Le Thang Long and Nguyen Tien Trung (a blogger who studied in France) and Huynh Duy Thuc – who are due to be tried tomorrow before a court in Ho Chi Minh City of charges of subversion and trying to overthrow the “people's government.” Their real crime, in the eyes of the authorities, was to have requested more freedoms, although these are universal values (...)
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Haïti - Reporters Without Borders to create centre of operations for Haitian journalists
It is impossible to locate survivors, organise relief and distribute aid without reliable news and information being relayed by functioning news media. The major relief operation being mounted by the international community in Haiti requires a similar effort on the part of the international media, which have a vital role to play. But the Haitian press has been devastated by the earthquake. Reporters Without Borders therefore intends to set up a centre of operations for Haitian journalists (...)
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Haïti - Three radio stations still operating after Port-au-Prince earthquake
The 12 January earthquake completely wrecked the premises and infrastructure of the Port-au-Prince-based TV stations Tele Ginen and Canal 11 and the radio station Magik 9, and killed a Tele Ginen cameraman, Reporters Without Borders has learned from its correspondents in Haiti. Another respected radio station, Radio Ibo, sustained serious damage and is unable to broadcast. The headquarters of the National Association of Haitian Media (ANMH) was destroyed in the partial collapse of the (...)
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Haïti - Locating victims
“The key problem is finding the bodies, and the rescue work is being considerably slowed by the amount of rubble that needs to be cleared, says Ives-Marie Chanel, the head of radio Sans-Souci FM and the small news agency Mediacom, as he roams Port-au-Prince in search of missing relatives and journalists. While touring the ruins of Haiti's news media and assessing the damage, he is also trying to find a location for an emergency centre of operations that would allow the capital's surviving (...)
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Jordan - Court ruling poses threat to online free expression
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about a ruling by Jordan's highest appeal court, published on 13 January, that news websites and electronic media are subject to the country's press and publications law. Media and communications minister Nabil Al-Sharif told the Jordan Times that the court's decision was reached independently and should therefore be applied. The ruling poses a real threat to online free expression in Jordan, where the traditional media usually toe the government line. (...)
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Dominican Republic - Businessman accused of paying two men to murder cameraman 18 months ago
Jaime Flete García, a businessman based in the northern city of Santiago de los Caballeros, was charged on 12 January with hiring two men to murder Normando García, a cameraman employed by Santiago-based TV station Teleunión, on 9 August 2008. The two alleged hit men, José Amauris Santiago and José Agustín Espinal, were also charged with his murder. “In a country where impunity has often been the rule in cases of violence against the press, the progress that has been made in the investigation (...)
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Kuwait - Draft amendments to press law threaten press freedom
Reporters Without Borders today urged the Kuwaiti prime minister and parliament not to back amendments to the publications law that it said would pose a threat to freedom of the press. Parliament is due to vote in the next few days, according to the website Alqabas.com, on amendments proposed by the information minister, Sheikh Ahmad Abdallah al-Sabah. “The adoption of these amendments by parliament would gag the Kuwaiti press and would conflict with the determination of the authorities in (...)
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India - Tibetan journalists in Dharamsala (Portfolio)
No independent news or information can be reported by the print media, broadcast media or new media in Chinese-controlled Tibet. But outside the country, especially in India, where hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have found refuge, independent news media produce and disseminate alternative news. For more informations : http://www.rsf.org/The-Voice-of-the...
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United Arab Emirates - Court closes independent website for a month, upholds fine on editor
An Abu DHabi appeal court yesterday upheld the fine of 20,000 dirhams (3,755 euros) and damages of 10,000 dirhams (1,877 euros) that a lower court imposed on Ahmed Bin Gharib, the editor of the Hetta.com news website in a defamation suit brought by the Abu Dhabi Media Company over comments about alleged corruption posted by readers. The court also ordered the site closed for a month. Gharib intends to appeal to the country's highest court. “The decision taken in this case against an (...)
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Mauritania - Website editor still held three weeks after completing prison sentence
Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, continues to be detained illegally in Nouakchott's Dar Naim prison although he should have been freed on 24 December on completing a six-month sentence on a charge of “offending public decency.” The good news is that, under pressure from his family, he has abandoned the hunger strike that was threatening his health. An appeal by the prosecutor's office was considered today by the supreme court, which ruled that Dehah's case should be sent (...)
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- Media should play a vital role in the face of a major humanitarian disaster
The horrifying 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti, on 12 January 2010, will obviously require an enormous reconstruction effort which will also involve media hit by the tremor. Reporters Without Borders, in solidarity with Haitian journalists who already work in challenging conditions, will play its part in this process. International and national media that are still able to operate will have a key role to play in a major humanitarian catastrophe such as this. This role should (...)
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Peru - Editor of Amazonian weekly gets one-year sentence for defamation
Reporters Without Borders condemns the one-year jail sentence that a court in Bagua, in the northeastern Amazonian province of Utcumbamba, passed yesterday on Alejandro Carrascal Carrasco, the editor of the regional weekly Nor Oriente, on a change of “aggravated defamation” in a case dating back to 2005. Carrascal fainted when the court issued its verdict and was rushed to hospital. The sentencing took place in his absence. He is now in Bagua's San Humberto prison. “This is the second case of (...)
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Israel - Imminent deportation of US journalist working in West Bank
Reporters Without Borders condemns the detention and imminent expulsion of US journalist Jared Malsin, who has worked for the past two years as an editor with Ma'an, an independent Palestinian news agency based in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Malsin, 26, was arrested and placed in a detention centre on arriving at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on the afternoon of 12 January on a flight from Europe. One of his colleagues told Reporters Without Borders he was due to be deported to the (...)
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India - The “Voice of the Voiceless” for Tibet
No independent news or information can be reported by the print media, broadcast media or new media in Chinese-controlled Tibet. But outside the country, especially in India, where hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have found refuge, independent news media produce and disseminate alternative news. Despite jamming by China, radio Voice of Tibet functions as a voice for the Tibetans who cannot speak for themselves. Reporters Without Borders met the station's editor-in-chief, Karma Yeshi, in (...)
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Venezuela - Interminable presidential speeches now extended to cable channels
Reporters Without Borders today reacted with dismay as compulsory airing of President Hugo Chávez's extremely lengthy speeches (cadenas) was extended for the first time to cable channels, meaning no Venezuelan TV viewer will be able to escape them in future. The presidential programmes allowing the head of state to requisition unlimited airtime from all media for his live speeches, under Article 10 of the Law of Social Responsiblilty in Radio and Television (Resorte law adopted in 2004), was (...)
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Pakistan - Reporter probably held by army after being kidnapped by Taliban
Reporters Without Borders urges the Pakistani authorities to explain what has happened to Mohammad Rasheed, a freelance reporter who is probably being held by the army. It is believed he was arrested after being held for several days by a Taliban group in North Waziristan. “I don't know where he is; his entire family is very worried,” his wife told Reporters Without Borders. “The authorities must quickly say what they know about the possible detention of this journalist, whose only apparent (...)
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Kazakhstan - Despite heading OSCE, Kazakhstan continues to suppress free expression
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the prosecution of three press freedom activists for organising a “flash mob” in support of imprisoned journalists in Almaty on 6 January. The three activists were charged with holding an illegal demonstration when they appeared before an Almaty court on 11 January. “The prosecution of Raushan Esergepova, Rozlana Taukina and Vladimir Kozlov must stop at once,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Although the Kazakh government has just taken over the (...)
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Sri Lanka - Tamil journalist's release on bail hailed as first step towards acquittal
Reporters Without Borders welcomes Tamil journalist J. S. Tissainayagam's release on bail today pending the outcome of his appeal against a 20-year jail sentence on a trumped-up charge of supporting terrorism. His release was ordered by a Colombo appeal court two days ago. “This is very good news,” his lawyer, M.A. Sumanthiran, told today to Reporters Without Borders. “He left prison with his moral strengthened. And as we have good grounds for the appeal, I am fairly optimistic.” Arrested in (...)
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China - Google rebels against China's Internet censors
Reporters Without Borders hails US Internet giant Google's announcement yesterday that it will stop censoring the Chinese version of its search engine, Google.cn – a move that could lead to Google.cn's closure and Google's withdrawal from the Chinese market. The company said it took the decision following sophisticated cyber-attacks on Gmail accounts coming from China. “We can only welcome the courage shown by Google's executives,” Reporters Without Borders said. “A foreign IT company has finally (...)
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Syria - Authorities say nothing as arbitrary arrests continue
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the detention of reporter Ali Taha and cameraman Ali Ahmed by the Department of Internal Security since 2 January. The authorities have not said why they were arrested or where they are being held. “The continuing arbitrary arrests of journalists in Syria are disturbing,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The authorities provide no information about the legal grounds for these arrests and or the subsequent place of detention. This complete lack of (...)
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Eritrea - United Nations asked to investigate the fate of journalists imprisoned in Eritrea
Reporters Without Borders wrote today, the third anniversary of Eritrean journalist Fessehaye “Joshua” Yohannes' death in detention, to Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, asking him to do everything possible to obtain an improvement in the conditions of journalists imprisoned in Eritrea. “The conditions in which Eritrean detainees are held are among the most disturbing in the world,” the letter said. (...)
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Iran - Three Iranian refugee journalists housed in Dijon
Accommodation has been found for three Iranian refugee journalists in the French city Dijon thanks to the efforts of Reporters Without Borders-Burgundy and exemplary cooperation from all the local authorities (Dijon city hall, Côte d'Or general council and Burgundy regional council). Reporters Without Borders and the Côte d'Or public housing office signed a three-month rental contract on 5 January for Benyamin Sadr, Sepideh Pooraghaiee and Ghasam Shirzadian. Reporters Without Borders is also (...)
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Afghanistan - Embedded British reporter killed by roadside bomb, photographer injured
Reporters Without Borders offers its heartfelt condolences to the family and colleagues of British journalist Rupert Hamer (photo), the London-based Sunday Mirror's defence correspondent, who was killed yesterday when the US military vehicle in which he was travelling was hit by a roadside bomb in southwestern Afghanistan. “Our thoughts are also with his colleague, photographer Philip Coburn (photo), who was seriously wounded in the blast, and we hope he will soon be out of danger,” the (...)
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Salvador - After three environmentalists murdered, community radio threatened over its support for their cause
Reporters Without Borders is disturbed to learn that Radio Victoria, a community radio station in the northern department of Cabañas that has been supporting environmental activists in their opposition to a Canadian company's local gold-mining operations, has received renewed threats just days after two more activists were murdered at the end of last month. “We support the call by the people of Cabañas and we request a thorough and independent investigation aimed at identifying those (...)
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Uzbekistan - Interrogation of journalists raises concerns about new crackdown on press
Reporters Without Borders is very alarmed to learn that five journalists were summoned to the prosecutor's office in Tashkent yesterday for a grilling about their media activities and their sources of income. It has emerged that two other journalists received similar summonses today. “The international community, which has already made too many concessions to the Uzbek authorities, should make a concerted effort to protect the country's few remaining independent journalists and prevent a new (...)
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Philippines - No let-up in violence against journalists as radio host is wounded in shooting
“Nothing seems able to stop the violence against journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said today after learning that radio commentator Eugene Paet was wounded in a shooting attack yesterday in a the northern province of Ilocos Sur. “After a nightmare 2009 culminating in the massacre of 30 journalists by a militia on Mindanao Island, one might have hoped that journalists would stop being the target of killings,” Reporters Without Borders said. “But this attempt to murder a radio presenter (...)
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Mexico - Two more journalists kidnapped, one of them found murdered
Just a week after radio Línea Directa crime reporter José Luis Romero was kidnapped in the northern state of Sinaloa, two other journalists were kidnapped yesterday in Coahuila, another northern state, and one of them, Valentín Valdés Espinosa, was found dead today. According to his newspaper, the Zócalo de Saltillo daily, Valdés was found with a warning message pinned to his chest, a practice often used by drug traffickers. Valdés was driving home after work in the city of Saltillo with two (...)
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Honduras - Arson attack on community radio previously targeted by coup supporters
A community radio station that serves the Afro-Caribbean Garifuna community in the Atlantic-coast town of Triunfo de la Cruz was ransacked and torched yesterday morning. The station, called Faluma Bimetu or Radio Coco Dulce, has often been threatened because of its opposition to last June's coup d'état and to real estate projects in the region. “The arson attack on Faluma Bimetu confirms that news media that are independent or opposed to the coup are still in danger,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Afghanistan - Afghan journalists issue appeal on behalf of kidnapped French TV crew
Several Afghan journalists' organisations have appealed to the people who are holding a France 3 television crew hostage to free them without delay. More than 30 journalists in the provinces of Kapisa, Panshir and Parwan issued a statement yesterday call for the release of their “French colleagues.” “Above and beyond the pointless controversies and contradictory reports about the demands of the kidnappers, we would like to point out that the two French journalists and their Afghan assistants (...)
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Belarus - Government tightens grip on Internet
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the government's plans to tighten control of the Internet in a country where free expression is already restricted. President Alexander Lukashenko acknowledged on 30 December that his government is putting the final touches to a bill to this effect. The draft decree was leaked to the media on December 14, 2009. The discussions around it remain secret. “We must emphasize our concern about this bill, which threatens online free speech and everyone's (...)
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Sri Lanka - Shock and anger continue one year after Lasantha Wickrematunge's unpunished murder
“A year has gone by without any progress in the investigation into his murder,” Lal Wickrematunge said today to Reporters Without Borders, on the eve of the first anniversary of the fatal shooting of his brother, Lasantha Wickrematunge, the Colombo-based Sunday Leader's well-known managing editor. It is Lal who has replaced him at the helm of investigative weekly, some of whose journalists were recently threatened. “When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me,” Lasantha (...)
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Burma - Appalling 20-year jail sentence for Democratic Voice of Burma video reporter
Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association are appalled by the 20-year jail sentence that a court has just imposed on Hla Hla Win, a freelance video reporter who provided material to the Burmese exile broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma. Detained since September, she was already given a seven-year sentence in October. “People had been expecting signs of an opening and goodwill gestures from the military junta in this election year, but this extremely severe sentence on a (...)
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Iran - Iran is world's biggest prison for journalists again
The Islamic Republic of Iran has recovered its status as the world's biggest prison for the media, with a total of 42 journalists detained following the confirmation of Ahmad Zeydabadi's six-year sentence on appeal on 4 January and a Tehran revolutionary court's decision the same day to sentence Bahaman Ahamadi Amoee to 34 lashes and seven years and four months in jail. Also on 4 January, 36 parliamentarians who support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented a bill under which detained (...)
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China - Six-year sentence for Tibetan video-maker
Dhondup Wangchen, a Tibetan filmmaker who has been held since March 2008, was sentenced on 28 December 2009 to six years in prison, Reporters Without Borders has learned from his family, which knows little of the charges on which he was convicted or his present state of health. “This self-taught video-maker, who did nothing but film interviews with Tibetans, has been given a long jail term after judicial proceedings in which his defence rights were violated,” Reporters Without Borders said. (...)
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Latvia - Riga-based daily ransacked by unidentified intruders
Reporters Without Borders condemns a break-in by unidentified intruders at the offices of the Riga-based daily Neatkariga Rita Avize (www.nra.lv) and its publishing house SIA Mediju Nams on the night of 1 January in which windows were broken, the offices of editors and leading reporters were badly damaged, and many files were destroyed or defaced. “They tried to make us think it was an ordinary burglary but that is hard to believe,” a senior staff member told Reporters Without Borders. (...)
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Mexico - Crime reporter kidnapped in Sinaloa, investigating police chief murdered hours later
The news of the abduction of 40-year-old radio journalist José Luis Romero in the northwestern state of Sinaloa has caused shock and anger in a region notorious for being the preserve of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the country's leading criminal and drug-trafficking syndicates. A crime reporter for the Línea Directa radio station, Romero was out shopping in the city of Los Mochis on 30 December when he was grabbed by gunmen and bundled into a pickup. Jesús Escalante, the head of the police (...)
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Yemen - Army machineguns protestors outside newspaper office amidst growing clampdown
Reporters Without Borders condemned Yemen's attempt to use the current anti-terror push to crush human rights after security forces today fired on a crowd of protestors staging a ‘sit-in' outside the offices of a banned newspaper. “The Ali Abdallah Saleh government is taking advantage of support from foreign powers in the fight against terrorism on its soil to deliberately violate people's rights”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “The international community must remind (...)
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Ireland - Making blasphemy an offence takes Europe back several centuries
Reporters Without Borders condemns “with the utmost firmness” a new defamation law in Ireland that establishes blasphemy as an offence punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros. The law took effect on 1 January. Article 36 defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering “matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.” It adds that judges could regard “genuine (...)
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Denmark - Attempt to murder Danish cartoonist “must be punished severely”
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by a Somali Islamist's attempt yesterday to murder Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons that caused such a controversy in 2005. Westergaard escaped unhurt but the attack could have been fatal. The press freedom organisation hopes the Danish judicial authorities will deal severely with the person responsible. “Some Muslims may have been shocked by Westergaard's cartoons, but there is no justification for such violence (...)
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China - iPhone apps about Dalai Lama blocked in China
Reporters Without Borders urges the US consumer electronics company Apple to explain the alleged censorship of the iPhone applications which, according to IDG News Service, it has implemented in its App Store in China. IDG publishes such specialist magazines as Macworld, PC World and Computerworld. “China's iPhone users have a right to know what they cannot access,” Reporters Without Borders said. “For the sake of transparency, Apple should release a complete list of the censored apps – if any (...)
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Yemen - Crackdown on media reinforced under guise of combating terrorism
This has been a grim year for Yemen's independent press, the victim of an media war waged by the government under the guise of combating terrorism and sedition, and the situation could get even worse in 2010, Reporters Without Borders said today, following the arrests of two more journalists in the past four days. “Physical attacks, interrogation, criminal charges, arbitrary arrests, prosecutions with no evidence, solitary confinement, ‘preventive measures' and disappearances – such is the (...)
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Afghanistan - French TV crew kidnapped northeast of Kabul
Reporters Without Borders is “extremely worried” about a TV crew working for the French TV station France 3 that was abducted in the northeastern province of Kapisa on 29 December. The kidnap victims include two French journalists and at least two Afghans. “The security situation in Afghanistan, including the Kapisa region, is such that we cannot rule out any hypothesis,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We will have to wait before adopting a position on the fate of the France 3 crew but the (...)
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Uganda - Newspaper reporter harassed by police for allegedly libelling President Museveni
Reporters Without Borders condemns the way the Ugandan police are harassing Angelo Izama, an investigative reporter and political analyst who works for the independent Daily Monitor and the radio station KFM, over an article he wrote on 20 December. He has been summoned and questioned three times in the past week for allegedly libelling President Yoweri Museveni. “Not only are the libel accusations unfounded, but the methods being used by the police to intimidate him are disgraceful,” (...)
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Afghanistan - Embedded Canadian reporter becomes seventh woman journalist killed in 2009
Reporters Without Borders is shocked to learn that Canadian newspaper reporter Michelle Lang was killed yesterday in the southern province of Kandahar when a roadside bomb struck the Canadian military vehicle she was travelling in. Four Canadian soldiers were also killed. “Lang's death just two days before the New Year is a cruel reminder of the dangers that journalists face in war zones,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The growing number of cowardly, indiscriminate attacks by Islamist (...)
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Azerbaijan - In latest provocative move, authorities say heroin found on imprisoned journalist
Eynulla Fatullayev, a newspaper editor who is serving an eight-year sentence in a high-security, prison, could face an additional three-year jail term after 0.22 grams of heroin were allegedly found in his clothes on 29 December, in what appears to be the latest provocative move in the government's persecution of opposition and independent journalists. “Azerbaijan's leaders seem ready to stop at nothing in order to keep Fatullayev behind bars,” Reporters Without Borders said. “With his (...)
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- Wars and disputed elections: The most dangerous stories for journalists
In 2009 76 journalists killed (60 in 2008) 33 journalists kidnapped 573 journalists arrested 1456 physically assaulted 570 media censored 157 journalists fled their countries 1 blogger died in prison 151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents arrested 61 physically assaulted 60 countries affected by online censorship Two appalling events marked 2009: one was the largest ever massacre of journalists in a single day – a total of 30 killed – by the private militia of a governor in (...)
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- 2009 год в цифрах
Многие журналисты выбрали изгнание, спасаясь от тюрьмы или смерти. Новые СМИ, участвовавшие в судебных тяжбах, почувствовали на себе цензуру. В 2009: 76 журналиста убиты 573 журналиста арестованы 1456 журналистов подверглись нападению или угрозам 570 СМИ подверглись цензуре 33 журналиста были похищены 157 журналистов покинули свою страну проживания Интернет-журналисты : 1 блоггер умер в тюрьме 151 блоггер и кибердиссидент был арестован 61 блоггер подвергся нападению По меньшей мере 60 стран используют цензуру в (...)
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Iran - Witnesses of yesterday's bloodbath arrested or censored
Yesterday's opposition demonstrations, which were dispersed with violence and loss of life, were followed today by raids by the intelligence ministry and Revolutionary Guards on opposition figures and news media and a new wave of hacker attacks on websites. Several journalists, including Emadoldin Baghi, have been arrested. “The authorities want to silence the witnesses of the crackdown in order to continue committing atrocities with complete impunity,” Reporters Without Borders said, (...)
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Azerbaijan - Newspaper journalist with TB finally freed under presidential pardon
Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Mushfig Huseynov, a journalist who wrote for the daily Bizim Yol, has finally been released after serving two years of a five-year sentence which it always regarded as politically motivated. “Keeping him in jail after his tuberculosis reached an advanced stage was absolutely criminal and, as a result, his state of health is now very poor,” Reporters Without Borders said. “His health could have been spared if he had been released earlier, as (...)
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Turkey - Slain newspaper editor “knew he was in danger”
Ismail Cihan Hayirsevener, a leading local newspaper and TV journalist who was gunned down on 18 December in the northwestern city of Bandirma, knew his life was in danger, Reporters Without Borders has been told by colleagues and friends. The editor of the newspaper Güney Maramara Yasam (Life on the South of Marmara) and news editor at Marmara TV, a local station, Hayirsevener was shot three times by an unidentified gunman as he walked down a Bandirma street. Marmara TV managing editor (...)
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China - Eleven-year jail sentence for free speech activist Liu Xiaobo, court sneakily issues verdict on Christmas Day
Reporters Without Borders is profoundly shocked by this unbelievable and outrageous sentence. A Beijing court today sentenced leading Chinese free speech activist Liu Xiaobo 刘晓波) to eleven years in prison on a charge of subverting state authority for posting outspoken articles online and helping to draft Charter 08, a call for democratic reform. He had been facing a possible 15-year sentence. The dissident said he would appeal. “It is a disgrace that Liu Xiaobo is going to spend the next (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Opposition journalist killed by being thrown from window, others attacked
Kyrgyzstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk, who was thrown from a sixth floor window in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 16 December, died today in hospital. Reporters Without Borders expressed its deep sympathy with his family and colleagues. “Ten days ahead of taking over the presidency of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Kazakh authorities cannot allow a murder like this to go unpunished and the Kyrgyz side must cooperate in resolving this case”, the organisation said. (...)
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Mexico - Slain journalist leaves wife about to give birth and 5-year-old son
Reporters Without Borders was saddened to learn today that José Alberto Velásquez López, a journalist and lawyer based in Tulum, in the eastern state of Quintana Roo, died on the night of 22 December after being shot as he drove home. The editor of the Diario Express de Tulum newspaper and a contributor to Canal 30, a local TV station, Velásquez left a wife who is about to give birth and a five-year-old son. “Yet another Mexican journalist has been gunned down, showing that there is never any (...)
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Pakistan - Four killed in suicide-bombing at Peshawar Press Club
Reporters Without Borders condemns a suicide bombing this morning at the entrance to the Press Club of the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed four people – a policeman, the club's cashier, a passer-by and the bomber himself – and injured 17. The club is used by Peshawar's journalists but the only media victim was a cameraman who was slightly hurt. “I passed by the gate some 30-50 seconds before the attack and was looking at a notice-board when a loud explosion struck my ears,” Manzoor (...)
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Egypt - Court rejects retrial for jailed blogger Kareem Amer
Reporters Without Borders condemns a decision by the Cairo court of cassation today to reject a request by the lawyers of jailed blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known by the pen-name of Kareem Amer, for his case to be retried. The judges said they would give the reasons for their ruling on 26 December. “This decision shows the Egyptian judicial system's lack of independence,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The authorities decided to make an example of Kareem Amer in order to (...)
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Chad - Open letter to interior minister about newspaper editor's abduction
Mr. Ahmat Mahamat Bachir Minister of Interior N'Djamena, Chad Paris, 21 December 2009 Dear Minister, Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the fate of Cameroonian journalist Innocent Ebodé, the editor of the N'Djamena-based weekly La Voix, who was kidnapped from his home in N'Djamena yesterday. You have just said he is now in Cameroon but other sources say they think he is still in Chad. His abduction was carried out by three men in plain clothes, who pulled up outside (...)
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Colombia - Manual teaches intelligence agency employees how to spy on problem journalists
The weekly Semana has just revealed the existence of an instruction manual for employees of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), Colombia's leading intelligence agency, that explains how they should spy on, threaten, intimidate and discredit NGOs, judges and journalists who create problems for the government. The revelation is the latest in a series of scandals implicating the DAS, coming after phone tapping revelations in February, the discovery in May of a list of media and (...)
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Iran - Censorship and arrests as Ayatollah Montazeri is buried
Reporters Without Borders is saddened by the news that Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri died yesterday aged 87 in the religious city of Qom, 60 km south of Tehran. As tens of thousands of people defied a government ban on demonstrations in homage to this leading pro-reform figure, the authorities have been censoring national and international media. “We offer our sincerest condolences to Ayatollah Montazeri's family and to the Iranian people,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This man (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Opposition journalist killed by being thrown from window, others attacked
Kyrgyzstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk, who was thrown from a sixth floor window in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 16 December, died today in hospital. Reporters Without Borders expressed its deep sympathy with his family and colleagues. “Ten days ahead of taking over the presidency of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Kazakh authorities cannot allow a murder like this to go unpunished and the Kyrgyz side must cooperate in resolving this case”, the organisation said. (...)
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Azerbaijan - Court refuses to free two bloggers, adjourns appeal hearing until next month
Reporters Without Borders is deeply disappointed that a Baku appeal court refused today to provisionally release jailed bloggers Adnan Hadjizade and Emin Milli and adjourned the hearing of their appeal until 8 January. Their lawyers protested against the court's treatment of the bloggers, who were led handcuffed into the courtroom. “By refusing to release Hadjizade and Milli on bail, by treating them as dangerous criminals and by postponing their appeal hearing, the court has lost an (...)
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United States - Federal Shield Law passes Senate judiciary committee
Reporters Without Borders commends the Senate judiciary committee for successfully pushing forward the new Federal Shield Law Bill. In a 14-5 decision, members of the committee voted to send the bill to the full Senate, all the while defeating several amendments that would have diluted the extent of its reach. “This is a fairly good news for the journalism world in the United States", Reporters Without Borders said. “ Although this law is not perfect, it is still a step forward. The (...)
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Pakistan - Police finally admit to holding missing Baloch journalist
Reporters Without Borders condemns the behaviour of the authorities in the southwestern province of Balochistan in letting seven days go by before admitting that they were holding Rehmatullah Shaheen, a reporter for the Baloch nationalist newspaper Daily Tawar in Bolan District. Shaheen was reported missing on 8 December but it was only after a wave of protests that the local authorities finally acknowledged on 15 December that he had been arrested. Reporters Without Borders is also (...)
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Australia - Open letter to Australia's Prime Minister
The Hon Kevin Michael Rudd Prime Minister Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Australia Paris, 18 December 2009 Dear Prime Minister, Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that defends free expression worldwide, would like to share with you its concern about your government's plan to introduce a mandatory Internet filtering system. While it is essential to combat child sex abuse, pursuing this draconian filtering project is not the solution. If Australia were to introduce systematic (...)
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Brazil - Media boss and radio presenter gunned down in Pernambuco
Reporters Without Borders said today that the murder of radio station owner and presenter José Givonaldo Vieira, shot dead at the door of his offices bore the hallmarks of an “execution”. Two assailants fired five shots from a car at the proprietor of Radio Bezerros who also presented a programme, in Bezerros about 100 kilometres from Recife in the north-east on 14 December. He was hit twice in the head and died on his way to the hospital. He also owned the daily newspaper, Folha do Agreste. (...)
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Afghanistan - Three reporters freed but physical attacks on journalists continue
Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, the correspondent of the London-based Guardian newspaper, and two Afghan journalists were released unharmed yesterday after being kidnapped last week near the Pakistani border in the northeastern province of Kunar. The press freedom organisation, which did not previously reveal what it knew about their abduction to avoid jeopardising their security, is also concerned about several cases of violence (...)
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Colombia - Community journalist murdered, motive still to be established
Harold Humberto Rivas Quevedo, the host of a community programme on local TV station CNC Buga and a sports commentator for two radio stations, Voces del Occidente and Radio Guadalajara de Buga, was shot dead last night in Buga, in the western department of Valle del Cauca. Aged 48, Rivas was gunned down in the funeral parlour that he also managed. A man in a helmet marched in and shot him five times. The killer then walked out and drove off on a motorcycle. “The murder motive has yet to be (...)
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Cameroon - Newspaper publisher held for past week on charge of insulting president
Reporters Without Borders correspondent Jules Koum Koum managed to visit newspaper publisher Jean-Bosco Talla in Yaoundé's Kondengui prison today. Arrested a week ago, Talla was brought before a court in Mfoundi yesterday and pleaded not guilty to a charge of insulting President Paul Biya. “I just published passages from a book,” he told Reporters Without Borders. “I don't see what crime I committed and I am therefore not worried.” Talla is due to appear in court again on 21 December. “We once (...)
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Salvador - Ten new arrests from within the “Mara 18” gang in probe into Christian Poveda murder
Ten members of “Mara 18”, including two women, were arrested in Sopayango, in the San Salvador suburbs on 16 December in connection with the murder of the Franco-Spanish documentary film-maker Christian Poveda. The killing of the photo-journalist, overnight on 2 September 2009, sent shockwaves through the profession. Reporters Without Borders welcomed the commitment of the Salvadorian authorities to solving the case. These latest arrests bring to 25 the number of those in detention in (...)
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Tajikistan - Violating Constitution, decree charges media for access to public information
A Tajik government decree charging privately-owned media for access to public information is “utterly grotesque,” Reporters Without Borders said today. Issued on 31 October, the decree “On the recovery by state institutions of the costs of presenting information” took effect on 19 November. “Having to pay for raw public information is a direct violation of the principles of transparency and free and equal access to information,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This confusing decree is contrary (...)
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Palestinian territories - Tit-for-tat arrests of journalists continue
Reporters Without Borders deplores the continuing tit-for-tat arrests of journalists by Palestinian political rivals Hamas and Fatah, each side carrying out an arrest in response to an arrest by the other faction. “It is hard to keep track of all the arrests of journalists being made by each side,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This is getting ridiculous. We appeal to Fatah and Hamas to put a stop to this endless cycle.” The latest victim is Mohammed Eshtawi, the head of (...)
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Mexico - US immigration urged to grant protection to threatened journalist who fled across border
Reporters Without Borders urges the US immigration authorities to grant an emergency residence permit - followed as soon as possible by political asylum - to Ricardo Chávez Aldana, a radio journalist based in the northern border city of Ciudad Juárez, who was forced to flee across the border with his family to the Texan city of El Paso on 10 December. “The US immigration authorities must be aware of the level of violence in Ciudad Juárez, which has affected security on the US side of the (...)
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United States - Federal Shield Law passes Senate judiciary committee
Reporters Without Borders commends the Senate judiciary committee for successfully pushing forward the new Federal Shield Law Bill. In a 14-5 decision, members of the committee voted to send the bill to the full Senate, all the while defeating several amendments that would have diluted the extent of its reach. “This is a fairly good news for the journalism world in the United States", Reporters Without Borders said. “ Although this law is not perfect, it is still a step forward. The (...)
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Honduras - Human rights and anti-coup activist gunned down on Tegucigalpa street
Human rights activist Walter Tróchez's fatal shooting on 13 December in Tegucigalpa is a “cruel reminder that the repression that began with the 28 June coup d'état is far from over,” Reporters Without Borders said today, warning the international community it would be wrong to think that the elections organised by the de facto authorities on 29 November have ended Honduras's deep political crisis. “Tróchez paid with his life for his commitment to human rights, exposing the truth about the abuses (...)
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Iran - Tehran prosecutor turns on conservative news websites
The Iranian regime's offensive against online free expression is taking a new direction, Reporters Without Borders said today after Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi announced yesterday that he is going to prosecute two conservative news websites, Jahannews and Alef news, for “insulting” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “After gradually deploying an unprecedented repressive strategy against independent media, opposition media and new media in recent months, the regime has embarked on a (...)
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Liberia - Publisher and printer held for past few days by National Security Agency
Reporters Without Borders is disturbed to learn that Syrenius Cephus, the publisher of the Plain Truth daily newspaper, and Michael Makinde, the general manager of the Seamarco Printing Press, are being held in connection with a report claiming that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government supplied arms to dissident forces in neighbouring Guinea. “If the report that appeared in Plain Truth is baseless and defamatory, we think the authorities should be able to demonstrate it without (...)
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Eritrea - Journalist Dawit Isaac still in prison after more than eight years
The time that Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaac has spent in a jail in Eritrea, without a trial and without any visits from his family or lawyers, today reached 3,000 days. “It is a disgrace that he remains in prison and it is remarkable that the Swedish government does not try harder to get him released,” said Jesper Bengtsson, president of the Swedish section of Reporters Without Borders, and Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard. “Sweden should urge the (...)
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Vietnam - Blogger and activist faces possible death penalty
Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about French-educated blogger and pro-democracy activist Nguyen Tien Trung, now facing a possible death penalty under article 79 of the criminal code after the charges against him were changed to “trying to overthrow the people's government.” Arrested more than five months ago, he is due to be tried at the end of the month. “We call for Nguyen Tien Trung's immediate and unconditional release as the charges against him are entirely fabricated,” (...)
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Gambia - International community urged to react five years after prominent journalist's murder
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the still unpunished murder of Deyda Hydara, the joint editor of the Banjul-based daily The Point, on 16 December 2004, Reporters Without Borders condemns the investigation's obstruction by President Yahya Jammeh's government and the international community's failure to do anything about it. “We express our solidarity with Hydara's family and colleagues and with the Gambian press, which has been subjected to fear, silence and injustice since December (...)
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Brazil - Federal Supreme Court upholds censorship of daily O Estado de São Paulo
Reporters Without Borders today condemned as “inexplicable and unsafe” a ruling by judges at the Federal Supreme Court (STF) - the highest court in the land - rejecting an appeal by lawyers for a daily newspaper against preventive censorship slapped on it for the past 133 days. The daily, O Estado de São Paulo, has been banned since 31 July from publishing any reports about court proceedings against businessman Fernando Sarney, the son of former President José Sarney, the current senate (...)
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Mexico - One month after journalist's disappearance, investigation seems to go nowhere
No ransom demand. No news at all. The official investigation has not progressed in the month since María Esther Aguilar Cansimbe, a young journalist employed by the Diario de Zamora and Cambio de Michoacán newspapers in the southwestern state of Michoacán, disappeared on 11 November. Nonetheless, there are reasons for thinking her disappearance was linked to her reporting and that drug traffickers were involved. “It is vital that the Special Federal Attorney's Office for Combating Violence (...)
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- Call to Action to protect environmental journalists
At the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, 14 international, regional and national press freedom organisations are calling on world leaders to protect environmental journalists and give them access to the information they need to cover climate change and the environment. With an increasing number of violent attacks on journalists covering environmental and climate change issues, there is an urgent need for action. At a press briefing today, International Media Support, Reporters (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - By blocking further probe, court ensures trial will shed no light on journalist's murder
Reporters Without Borders condemns a Kyrgyz supreme court ruling on 9 December rejecting a request for further investigation into the 2007 murder of journalist Alisher Saipov and allowing the trial of a man accused of shooting him to continue. Saipov's father, Avaz Saipov, had filed the request at the end of October. “Given the current state of the investigation, the trial is unlikely to shed any light on Saipov's death,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The judicial system's haste and the (...)
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Iran - Iran's six-month-old crackdown on media and Internet
Support Iranian journalists in danger. Make a donation Six months after Iran's disputed 12 June presidential election, the authorities continue to censor news and information and persecute journalists. More than 100 journalists have been arrested in these past six months and around 50 have fled into exile. A dozen newspapers have been closed by the authorities and access to thousands of Internet pages has been blocked. More than 100 arrests, 3 billion toman in bail, and near 65 years in (...)
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China - In a dangerous move, police finally ask prosecutors to charge famous dissident Liu Xiaobo
Reporters Without Borders completely rejects the charge of “subverting state authority” which the Chinese police have asked the prosecutor's office to bring against Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), a famous writer and free speech activist who has been held for the past year without being charged. Liu's lawyer announced yesterday that the police had finally sent the case to the prosecutor's office recommending a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Liu was arrested in December 2008 for (...)
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Nepal - Woman journalist attacked, Maoists promote suspects in reporter's murder
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about continuing physical violence against journalists In Nepal. In the most recent case, a woman journalist, Teeka Bista, was physically attacked in the western district of Rukum on 8 December after criticising the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in an article and has been hospitalised in a serious condition. The press freedom organisation is also shocked to learn that two members of the UCPN (Maoist) have been promoted within the party's (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Government urged to react to increasingly frequent attacks on journalists
Political analyst and columnist Alexander Knyazev was attacked near his home in Bishkek yesterday evening by four men who punched and kicked him repeatedly and took his computer and briefcase. It was the second physical attack on this well-known political and media personality in the past two years and the eighth this year on journalists in Kyrgyzstan. “The political and social climate has worsened dramatically in Kyrgyzstan and calm did not return after the recent elections,” Reporters (...)
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Russia - Policeman gets two years in prison for fatal shooting of news website owner
A court in Karabulak, in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, today sentenced a police officer attached to the Ingush interior ministry to two years in prison for the death of Magomed Yevloyev, an opponent of the Ingush government and owner of the Ingushetiya.ru news website, who was shot in the head in an interior ministry vehicle shortly after being arrested on 31 August 2008. The court was following the prosecutor's recommendations when it found the police officer, Ibragim (...)
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Eritrea - Journalist Dawit Isaak still in prison after more than eight years
The time that Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak has spent in a jail in Eritrea, without a trial and without any visits from his family or lawyers, today reached 3,000 days. “It is a disgrace that he remains in prison and it is remarkable that the Swedish government does not try harder to get him released,” said Jesper Bengtsson, president of the Swedish section of Reporters Without Borders, and Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard. “Sweden should urge the (...)
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Italy - Berlusconi wants to strangle the wrong octopus
Reporters Without Borders has asked Lirio Abbate, an Italian journalist who specialises in organised crime, to say what he thinks of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's comment that he would like to “strangle” people who write books or make films about the mafia. The press freedom organisation is appalled by Berlusconi's remark, made during a public meeting in Olbia, Sardinia, on 28 November. Referring to "The Octopus", a long-running Italian TV series about the mafia, he said: “If I (...)
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- Bloggers invited to compete for special DEUTSCHE WELLE “free expression” prize with Reporters Without Borders
Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster, today announced the start of its sixth annual international Best of the Blogs award, The BOBs. From today until 14 February, Internet users can nominate outstanding blogs in 11 different languages and 17 categories by going to the Best of the Blogs website, www.thebobs.com. There is a special category, sponsored by Reporters Without Borders, for blogs that defend freedom of expression. “We are very honoured to be involved in this (...)
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Iran - Offensive against new-generation media stepped up ahead of today's demonstrations
Support the Iranian journalists in danger Make a donation The Iranian authorities had been stepping up their control of news and information in the past few days, ahead of the demonstrations that took place today, National Students Day. Internet access has been slowed right down or blocked in Tehran and other major cities. SMS messaging and mobile phone connections have been suspended or jammed. At the same time, the accreditation of foreign journalists has been suspended for 72 hours (...)
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Côte d’Ivoire - Reporters Without Borders alerts President Gbagbo
The Ivorian press is already in full election campaign although the presidential election initially scheduled for 29 November has been postponed (without a new date so far being set), Reporters Without Borders found during a visit to Côte d'Ivoire last month that included meetings with President Laurent Gbagbo and the staff of many newspapers. Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard and Africa desk officer Ambroise Pierre visited Abidjan from 9 to 11 November to (...)
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Pakistan - Dangers for journalists in Pakistan: exclusive report from Peshawar
Journalists in Peshawar and Pakistan's Tribal Areas are being targetted, threatened, kidnapped and denied access to the field. Reporters Without Borders has interviewed editors and the representatives of journalists' organisations in Peshawar about the dangers for journalists in this war zone.
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Sri Lanka - Reporters Without Borders calls for calm amid pre-electoral tension
The political parties and candidate's participating in next month's elections must make press freedom and the protection of journalists a priority, Reporters Without Borders said today, after a group of state TV journalists were roughed up while covering an opposition meeting during the weekend. “These elections are crucial for the country's future, but they will not be considered democratic if there is no press freedom,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The government and opposition must, as a (...)
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Brazil - Open letter to federal government about censorship and imprisonment under obsolete law
Mr. Tarso Genro, Minister of Justice Mr. Hélio Costa, Minister of Communications Brasilia, D.F Dear Ministers, Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that defends press freedom worldwide, urges the federal authorities to intercede in certain recent cases that represent a direct attack on the principle of free expression enshrined in the 1988 democratic constitution. One of these cases concerns Antônio Muniz, a local TV commentator and columnist for the daily newspaper O Rio Branco (...)
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Russia - Prominent woman journalist killed in suspicious fall from building
Reporters Without Borders is calling for a thorough investigation into the death of Olga Kotovskaya, a prominent journalist who apparently fell from the 14th floor of a building in the centre of Kaliningrad (the capital of a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania) six days after a court ruled that she had been unfairly stripped of the TV station she had created. “Kotovskaya's tragic and highly suspicious death needs a thorough and meticulous investigation,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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India - Two journalists held in different cases speak out after being freed
Reporters Without Borders is relieved that journalist Laxman Choudhury of the daily Sambad was finally freed on bail yesterday after being held for ten weeks in Gajapati district in the eastern state of Orissa. Released on the orders of the Orissa high court, he is still facing a sedition charge because the local police found Maoist leaflets in his possession. On leaving prison, Choudhury thanked all of his colleagues who campaigned for his release. Reporters Without Borders wrote to the (...)
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Ethiopia - Weekly forced to stop publishing, its journalists flee abroad
Reporters Without Borders condemns the climate of fear to which Ethiopia's independent media are currently exposed. The Addis Ababa-based weekly Addis Neger suspended publication today after several of its editors fled the country in the past few days because they were afraid they would be arrested. “The spectre of the 2005 crackdown on the opposition and on the independent press is resurfacing in the run-up to the May 2010 general elections,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We condemn the (...)
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Iran - More arrests and intimidation of journalists
Journalists and bloggers are still being arrested in Iran. The latest victims are Tahereh Riahai of the daily Jahan Eghtesad (“Economic World”), arrested on 1 December in Tehran, and Farhad Sharfai, a blogger who defends women's rights, arrested on 2 December in Khoramabad. Journalists in various cities have also been summoned for questioning. “The press freedom situation is getting worse by the day in Iran,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Journalists who have chosen not to the leave the (...)
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Pakistan - Prime Minister urged to investigate shooting attack, threats, censorship
Reporters Without Borders calls on Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to assign sufficient resources to the investigation into a shooting attack on a well-known journalist's home to ensure that those responsible are identified. The Rawalpindi home of Kamran Shafi, a leading columnist with the newspaper Dawn, was shot up on the night of 27 November. “I want to know who attacked my home,” Shafi told Reporters Without Borders. “I am not pointing my finger at anyone. This shooting was traumatic for (...)
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Canada - Support for lawsuit brought against Iranian government before Montreal court
Reporters Without Borders is supporting the lawsuit which Stephan Hashemi has brought against the Islamic Republic of Iran before a Montreal court in an bid to obtain reparation for the detention, torture and death of his mother, photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi, in a Tehran prison in July 2003. Kazemi had Iranian and Canadian dual citizenship and lived in Montreal. After two years of legal stalling and postponements in February and May of this year, the Quebec province superior court in (...)
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Chad - Judge orders automatic seizure of all of newspaper's issues
A court in N'Djamena today ordered the automatic seizure of all issues published by the privately-owned weekly La Voix. “We condemn this baseless decision, which reflects a desire to close the newspaper,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The interior ministry's threats have unfortunately been carried out.” “This is a political decision, one that is marred by irregularities,” said one of the newpaper's lawyers, Jean-Bernard Padaré. La Voix hopes to continue publishing. The court could not legally (...)
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Thailand - King asked to pardon Internet users prosecuted on lese majeste or national security charges
Reporters Without Borders has written to King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the eve of his birthday on 5 December asking him to pardon Thai Internet users who are in jail or who are being prosecuted in connection with the dissident views they allegedly expressed online. “By agreeing to this request, the king would show the entire world that he respects freedom of expression and would be putting in to practice what he said on 5 December 2005 about protecting this freedom,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Philippines - Number of journalists killed in massacre rises to 30
Reporters Without Borders notes that the authorities have finally arrested Andal Ampatuan Jr, the leading suspect in the 23 November massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao province. Local reporters have meanwhile told Reporters Without Borders that the toll of journalists killed in the massacre has risen to 30. “All the bodies have been located and identification is almost complete,” a reporter based in the nearby city of Koronadal said. “According to the local media's tally, we lost 30 (...)
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China - Lawyer arrested for talking about Twitter in public
Reporters Without Borders condemns China's latest act of censorship against Twitter, consisting of the arrest of a lawyer while he was giving a class about the popular social-networking tool. Despite the government's censorship attempts, Twitter still provides access to independent news and information in what is one of the world's most repressive countries towards the Internet. “After blocking access to Twitter, the Chinese authorities are now targeting the university circles in which this (...)
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- Press freedom prize awarded to Israeli reporter and Chechen magazine
The 2009 Reporters Without Borders - Fnac Press Freedom Prize was awarded today to Israeli newspaper reporter Amira Hass and the Chechen quarterly Dosh at a ceremony hosted by journalist Bernard de La Villardière at the Espace Fondation EDF in Paris. “In a world dominated by lies that are organised and manipulated, the Reporters Without Borders - Fnac Prize winners deserve our recognition and solidarity not only because they seek the truth, sometimes at risk to their lives, but also and (...)
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Somalia - At least two journalists killed and seven others wounded in Mogadishu suicide bombing
Reporters Without Borders is stunned and saddened by today's suicide bombing in a Mogadishu hotel that killed more than a dozen people including at least two journalists, three government ministers and nine students. The explosion occurred during a ceremony at which Banadir University students were being awarded graduation diplomas. At least seven other journalists were wounded. The figures for dead and wounded are only provisional. “We condemn this attack with the utmost firmness and we (...)
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Syria - Newspaper journalist is latest victim of wave of arbitrary arrests and trials
Reporters Without Borders is worried about Ma'an Aqil, a journalist who was arrested at his office in the government daily Al-Thawra in Damascus on 22 November by police from the national criminal investigations department, who took him to their headquarters for questioning. The police have not explained why he has been arrested. Two days after his arrest, the Union of Press, Publications and Printing, which handles the publication of state-owned newspapers, announced that he had been (...)
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Tunisia - Online journalist gets three months in prison
A court in Grombalia, in the northeastern province of Nabeul, today sentenced online journalist and human rights activist Zouhaïer Makhlouf to three months in prison and a fine of 6,000 dinars (3,115 euros) on a charge of causing harm by means of the telecommunications network under article 86 of the telecommunications law. Prosecuted for an online video about an industrial area for which, according to the authorities, he failed to obtain an official permit or the consent of the people he (...)
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- Sri Lanka: Sunday Leader journalists under threat
Reporters Without Borders: Interview with Frederica Jansz, Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Leader of Sri Lanka Ten months after Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of the independent Sri Lankan weekly, The Sunday Leader, was murdered, the new editor-in-chief and the news editor received death threats. Exclusive testimony.
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Chad - Authorities continue to hound new weekly, seek its closure
Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the government's harassment of the new, privately-owned weekly La Voix. On 28 November, one of its reporters was verbally abused by the interior minister and then detained for several hours while, on 3 December, a court is due to rule on a government complaint challenging its legality. “After deporting La Voix's editor, a Cameroonian national, and putting strong pressure on its shareholders and members for more than six weeks, the Chadian (...)
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Germany - Refusal to renew ZDF editor-in-chief's contract would threaten broadcasting independence
Reporters Without Borders deplores the reported intention of the majority of the board of the German public television network ZDF – who are led by members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat Union – to reject the director-general's request to renew editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender's contract for another five years. The press freedom organisation believes the opposition to the extension of Brender's contract is motivated by party politics and, as such, is a blatant violation of the (...)
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Equatorial Guinea - President dominates state media election coverage, opposition invisible
In the absence of any independent media, Reporters Without Borders condemns the state-owned media's totally one-sided coverage of the campaign for the 29 November presidential election. After winning the 2002 election with 97.1 per cent of the votes, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has “promised” to win this one with more than 97 per cent again. “It is no surprise that Nguema, who has ruled with an iron hand for 20 years, has had the state media's full backing during this campaign,” Reporters (...)
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Turkmenistan - “Mr. Berlusconi, yes or no, should you be cosying up to the Turkmen regime?”
Reporters Without Borders is shocked by the secrecy surrounding Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's visit to Italy. The leader of one of the world's most repressive countries, President Berdymukhamedov arrived yesterday in Rome with a delegation of businessmen and is to meet Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi today. When contacted by Reporters Without Borders last week, the Italian foreign ministry denied that the Turkmen president was going to visit Italy. News agencies (...)
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Brazil - Two bloggers banned from criticising politician accused of embezzlement
Two bloggers in the southwestern state of Mato Grosso, economist Adriana Vandoni and lawyer Enock Cavalcanti, were ordered by judge Pedro Sakamoto on 10 November to withdraw all comments from their blogs (www.prosaepolitica.com.br and paginadoenock.com.br) that were “offensive” to José Riva, the president of the Mato Grosso legislative assembly. The judge also told them they could be fined up to 1,000 reais (390 euros) a day if they posted any new criticism of Riva. Riva is nonetheless a (...)
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Somalia - Two foreign journalists released after 15 months as hostages
Reporters Without Borders is “extremely relieved” to learn that Canadian freelance reporter Amanda Lindhout and Australian freelance photographer Nigel Brennan were released today in Mogadishu. “This fortunate outcome ends a cruel ordeal for Lindhout and Brennan, who were held hostage for 15 months in very tough conditions,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They are still in the Somali capital but we hope they will be reunited with their families without delay.” The press freedom organisation (...)
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Mexico - Radio station director murdered in Jalisco state
The body of José Galindo Robles, the head of Radio Universidad de Guadalajara, was discovered at his home in Guadalajara, in the western state of Jalisco, on 24 November, after it was noticed that several days had gone by with no word from him. His body was found wrapped in a blanket and with the hands tied with cable. The prosecutor's office said the cause of death was a “deep contusion and fracture to the skull.” “This is sad news and, as is so often the case, it comes from a country that has (...)
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Philippines - Number of journalists killed in massacre rises to 29
Reporters Without Borders notes that the authorities have finally arrested Andal Ampatuan Jr, the leading suspect in the 23 November massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao province. Local reporters have meanwhile told Reporters Without Borders that the toll of journalists killed in the massacre has risen to 29. “All the bodies have been located and identification is almost complete,” a reporter based in the nearby city of Koronadal said. “According to the local media's tally, we lost 29 (...)
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Guinea - Independent press group could be targeted by military operation
Reporters Without Borders learned yesterday from a source within the military government in Conakry that the Lynx-Lance press group and some of its journalists could be the target of an “operation.” Consisting of two weeklies, La Lance and the satirical Le Lynx, with a combined print run that is the largest in Guinea, the group is renowned for being independent and outspoken. “We are taking this information and the threat it entails very seriously,” Reporters Without Borders said. “With a (...)
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Kuwait - Journalist held as a result of libel action by prime minister
Kuwait's prosecutor general yesterday ordered the police to continue holding journalist Mohammed Abdel Qader Al-Jassem at the headquarters of the criminal investigation department after he was take in for questioning the day before in connection with a libel suit by the prime minister and then refused to pay bail of 1,000 dinars (2,345 euros). As Kuwait's media legislation has decriminalised defamation, Al-Jassem maintains that he cannot legally be detained for refusing to pay bail in (...)
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Tunisia - Jailed online journalist's trial resumes tomorrow
The second hearing in the trial of imprisoned online journalist and human rights activist Zouhaïer Makhlouf is due to take place tomorrow in Grombalia, in the northeastern province of Nabeul. He faces a possible two-year jail sentence on a charge of “causing harm to another person by means of public communication networks” under article 86 of the telecommunications law. Makhlouf was arrested on 20 October after posting a video report on the Internet about environmental, economic and social (...)
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Iran - Five journalists convicted, another arrested and one released
A UN general assembly committee has expressed deep concern about “serious ongoing and recurring human rights violations” in Iran, especially in the crackdown following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed election in June. In a strongly-worded resolution on 20 November, the human rights committee accused the government of stepping up its use of torture, flogging, amputation and other forms of cruel and inhuman punishment. “Despite such clear condemnation from the United Nations, the (...)
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- Get invoved if you have a blog
Reporters Without Borders is launching a campaign on press freedom. As a blogger, you will have a large audience to convince and to tell about press freedom issues. You can ask our USA branch for the online banners displayed there. Write an email at clc@rsf.org and tell the country and the size you want. 300/250 and 28/90 sizes are available for Burma, China and Iran. How can I download them ? To support our initiative, you can also embed our (...)
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- Are you a teacher ?
PowerPoint Presenting the organization to be soon available Country profiles Press Freedom in Afghanistan Press Freedom in China Press Freedom in Iran Press Freedom in Mexico Press Freedom in Pakistan Press Freedom in Sri Lanka
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- Are you a student ?
Getting involved with Reporters Without Borders on the Press Freedom campaign will ask you to get in touch with one of our contacts in the United States. You can find them here. Here are a some ideas Create a RWB club in your Universities to gather lost of RWB fans. The challenge ? Create a videoclip on press freedom. Have you seen this one ? Begin by passing it on. Then, make your own, send it to clc@rsf.org until March 15th and the winning University will host a press conference on (...)
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- Getting involved in a newspaper
More information on the inserts Reporters Without Borders is launching a campaign entitled "Press freedom is the price for democracy". As a journalist, you are able to write about the situation of press freedom. Did you know that more than 200 of your colleagues are currently in jail because they cannot enjoy the same right as you currently do : freedom of speech ? In the US Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther militant who worked as a radio reporter in the 1970s, was sentenced (...)
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Iraq - Star TV host badly wounded in Baghdad shooting attack
Imad Abadi, the star anchor of the independent satellite TV news station Al-Diyar, was badly injured in a clearly targeted shooting attack last night in Baghdad, just weeks after Reporters Without Borders had highlighted a decline in the level of violence against journalists in its latest press freedom index (see release). “We condemn this murder attempt with the utmost firmness and we urge the Iraqi authorities to do everything possible to identify both the perpetrators and masterminds, (...)
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Honduras - Radio Progreso raid shows how military censor news media
With just six days to go to controversial general elections, Reporters Without Borders is today posting a video of a raid on Radio Progreso, a radio station based in the northern town of El Progreso that was one of the first victims of last June's coup d'état. Just hours after the democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, was deposed and deported on 28 June, 25 soldiers raided Radio Progreso to prevent it broadcasting any information about the coup.> The general elections that the de (...)
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Philippines - Twelve journalists killed on Mindanao island in "dark day for press freedom"
At least 12 journalists were killed today in Maguindanao province (on the southern island of Mindanao) by armed men, including two policemen, linked to the province's governor, a supporter of President Gloria Arroyo. More than 30 other people were murdered. Some of the victims were beheaded. “Never in the history of journalism have the news media suffered such a heavy loss of life in one day,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We convey our condolences and sympathy to all journalists in the (...)
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China - Court urged to show clemency towards editor of human rights website
A court in Chengdu, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, is due to issue its verdict in the trial of leading human rights activist and website editor Huang Qi on Monday, 23 November. “We urge the judges to display humanity by freeing a seriously ill man who has already spent more than six and a half years of his life in prison,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We also hope the court will remember that all this courageous human rights activist did was provide information about the Sichuan (...)
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Democratic Republic of Congo - A year later, investigation into radio journalist's murder is stalled
On the eve of the first anniversary of Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo's murder in Bukavu, the capital of the eastern province of Sud-Kivu, Reporters Without Borders and Journalist in Danger (JED) condemn the lack of action on the part of the military officers in charge of the investigation. Namujimbo was slain by a single shot to the head as he was returning home at around 9:30 p.m. on 21 November 2008 in the Ndendere neighbourhood of the Bukavu municipality of Ibanda. One year (...)
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Vietnam - Information about imprisoned journalist's stroke unavailable in press or Facebook
The Vietnamese government is behaving in a criminal manner towards certain prisoners of conscience, keeping them in detention although they are in very poor health. Father Nguyen Van Ly, the editor of an opposition newspaper, has had as stroke in prison, while writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy's health has been undermined by harsh prison conditions. “Such ruthless treatment of political prisoners, including journalists and writers, is unworthy of a government that has just presided the United (...)
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Thailand - Online censorship and arrests of Internet users
The legal tools that the authorities abuse to restrict free expression in Thailand are the 2007 Computer Crime Act and the lese majeste law (section 112 of the criminal code), which mainly targets Internet users. Harassment and intimidation are constantly employed to dissuade Internet users from freely expressing their views. Two Internet users are currently in prison because of what they posted online. Another Internet user arrested for talking about stock market fall Thassaporn (...)
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Mexico - Journalist missing for one week in Michoacán state
Fears have been raised for the safety of journalist María Esther Aguilar Camcinden of the local daily El Diario de Zamora, in Michoacán state, south-western Mexico, who went missing a week ago. The 32-year-old, who has been covering crime stories for four years, left her home in Zamora on 11 November promising her two young daughters she would not be long, shortly after receiving a mystery phone call. She has not been seen since. “This is the third case of a journalist disappearing in one of (...)
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Gabon - Letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy on eve of talks with President Ali Bongo
Reporters Without Borders wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy on 19 November 2009 on the eve of his meeting in Paris with his visiting Gabonese counterpart, Ali Bongo, asking him to raise the issue of press freedom in their talks. This is the text of the letter: Mr Nicolas Sarkozy President of France Palais de l'Elysée Paris – France Paris, 19 November 2009 Dear Mr President, You are due to meet tomorrow with your Gabonese counterpart, Mr Ali Bongo. Reporters Without Borders would like (...)
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Turkey - Media allowed to use Kurdish language but still forbidden to discuss Kurdish issues freely
Reporters Without Borders hails the lifting of the last restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language by the Turkish news media. “This is an important and symbolically-charged step but its impact will be very limited as long as the media cannot tackle Kurdish issues without risking prosecution,” the press freedom organisation said. The government gazette published a directive on 13 November indefinitely lifting all remaining restrictions on the broadcast media's use of minority languages. (...)
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Indonesia - Two foreign journalists arrested while covering Greenpeace operation
Reporters Without Borders deplores yesterday's arrest of two foreign journalists – Kumkum Dasgupta of India and Raimondo Bultrini of Italy – while covering a Greenpeace protest against uncontrolled deforestation in Pelalawan district in the province of Riau, on Sumatra island. After being held by the police, they were handed over to the immigration authorities. “These arbitrary arrests of accredited journalists are unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Do we have to point out that the (...)
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Surinam - Newspaper reporter threatened after writing about drug trafficking
Reporters Without Borders is very worried about the telephone threats that reporter Ivan Cairo of the Paramaribo-based daily De Ware Tijd received on 7 November in connection with several articles about the unexplained disappearance of 90 kg of cocaine from a police station after it was seized. Cairo is also the Reporters Without Borders Surinam correspondent. “We condemn these threats and we ask the authorities to take all necessary measures to protect Cairo,” Reporters Without Borders (...)
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China - Were Tibetan writers' long jail sentences a pre-emptive response to Obama's comments?
As US President Barack Obama used the Shanghai leg of his China visit to call for an end to online censorship, it emerged that a Chinese court has sentenced Tibetan writer and photographer Kunga Tseyang to five years in prison on various charges including posting articles on the Internet. Two days before, literary website editor Kunchok Tsephel has meanwhile been sentenced to 15 years in prison on a charge of "divulging state secrets". “Was this the Chinese government's pre-emptive response (...)
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Iran - Three more journalists arrested, relatives and lawyers subject to intimidation
Journalists are continuing to be arrested five months after the start of the demonstrations against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection. Three more have been arrested in the past couple of weeks while those who defend the 34 detained journalists and bloggers are being subjected to increased intimidation. “We fear that that, by dint of brutality, intimidation and censorship, the authorities will end up ridding Iran of all of its independent journalists and bloggers, who (...)
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Iran - Interview with Danish journalism student held for six days in Iran
Reporters Without Borders interviewed Niels Krogsgård, a student of journalism at the University of Southern Denmark, who was imprisoned in Iran from 4 to 10 November. When did you arrive in Iran and why did you go there? I left Copenhagen on 13 October with another student from the journalism school. We arrived in Tehran the following evening. We travelled on tourist visas, for which we were subsequently criticised by the Danish authorities. But when I talked to professional journalists, (...)
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Zambia - Judge dismisses obscenity charges against newspaper editor
A Lusaka court yesterday acquitted The Post editor Chansa Kabwela of a charge of “distributing obscene material” for sending the vice-president photos of a woman giving birth in a hospital car park during a strike by hospital staff. Judge Charles Kafunda dismissed the case on the grounds that there was no evidence that the photos would corrupt public morals. “The judge took the right decision as the charges against Kabwela were ridiculous and baseless,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We (...)
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Palestinian territories - Hamas bans press conferences in Gaza City
Reporters Without Borders condemns a police raid on the headquarters of the Ramattan News Agency in Gaza City on 10 November that prevented the National Action Commission from holding a news conference there. Members of the Hamas government also prevented another press conference from taking place in Gaza City the same day. “Such practices are violations of both the law and freedom of the press,” said the management of the privately-owned Ramattan News Agency, which decided immediately after (...)
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Honduras - "The attitude of certain media during the coup has discredited the entire profession"
Geovanny Domínguez, the editor of the Tegucigalpa-based daily Diario Tiempo, gave an interview to Reporters Without Borders during the joint visit it made to Honduras with six other international press freedom organisations from 1 to 7 November. The report of this joint visit will be released on 23 November. See the video of the interview, with English subtitles: Reporters Without Borders: Diario Tiempo English Subtitles envoyé par rsf_internet. - L'info video en direct. Founded in 1970 and (...)
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Burma - Another blogger arrested for posts about Saffron Revolution
A young blogger, Win Zaw Naing, is facing a possibly 15-year jail sentence just for posting pictures and reports about the September 2007 protests, known as the Saffron Revolution. Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association call for his release and the release of all the other detained bloggers. “The international community is so absorbed by diplomatic strategies aimed at resolving the Burmese crisis that it seems to be neglecting the fact that the military government is (...)
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Gabon - Communications council punishes nine media
Reporters Without Borders today condemned what it called Gabon's “persistently repressive impulses” after the National Communications Council (CNC) slapped suspensions and final warnings on eight privately-owned publications. Private television channel Canal Espoir was also suspended in the CNC's clampdown announced at a plenary session on 10 November, when it accused the offending media of “wholesale relaying of public rumours” and some articles of “spreading ethnic divisions, insults and (...)
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Egypt - Violator of online free expression to host international Internet meeting
Reporters Without Borders finds it surprising and disturbing that Egypt is hosting next week's Internet Governance Forum, at which important decisions about the Internet's future will be taken or announced. Representatives of foreign governments, international organisations, universities and ICANN (Internet Cooperation for Assigned Names and Numbers) are all due to attend the forum taking place from 15 to 18 November in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh. “Egypt's legitimacy to host such a (...)
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China - Ten questions for Barack Obama to put to Hu Jintao
Reporters Without Borders calls on US President Barack Obama to put 10 questions about freedom of expression to his counterpart, Hu Jintao, during his visit to China. “If President Obama asks these questions and gets answers and undertakings from the Chinese leader, the cause of free expression and press freedom will have progressed,” the organisation said. Why are the websites of the US companies Twitter and Facebook blocked by the Chinese authorities? Why do the Chinese authorities jam (...)
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Azerbaijan - Prison sentences for two bloggers condemned as “outrageous and unjust”
Reporters Without Borders condemns the jail sentences that a court passed yesterday on two bloggers on clearly trumped-up charges of “hooliganism” and “deliberate physical violence.” Adnan Hadji Zadeh, 26, received a two-year sentence, while Emin Milli, 30, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Arrested after being assaulted by three men in a Baku restaurant on 8 July, they were accused of attacking their assailants. Yesterday's sentencing by judge Araz Huseynov ended a trial of more (...)
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China - Jailed Tibetan filmmaker appeals for help
“My trial has started. There is no good news I can share with you. It is unclear what the sentence will be.” So says Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen in a letter he recently wrote to his family in Chinese from his prison cell in the western city of Xining. A cousin who is a refugee in Switzerland has confirmed its authenticity. Passages have been erased in the accompanying copy because they refer to family matters. “At a time when US President Barack Obama is about to visit China, we appeal (...)
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Iraq - Brutal assault on a journalist in Kurdistan, newspapers facing legal action
Reporters Without Borders today called for police to do their utmost to find those responsible for a “cowardly” physical attack on leading Iraqi Kurdish investigative journalist Nabaz Goran, who has just left Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, to seek refugee in Sulaymaniyah to the east. The 32-year-old editor of the independent Kurdish-language bi-monthly Jehan (World) (http://www.jehan-press.com/) was set upon by unknown assailants and brutally battered about the face and head as he was (...)
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Pakistan - Call for better media access to Tribal Areas
Reporters Without Borders calls on the Pakistani authorities to allow the news media better access to the Tribal Areas in the northwest of the country, where the army has been waging an offensive against the Taliban in Waziristan for the past three weeks. “We are aware of the risks for journalists, but the current lack of access to Waziristan for the Pakistani and foreign media is unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Although it has embarked on a major operation in the Tribal (...)
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Rwanda - Prosecutor calls for more than two years against journalist
Reporters Without Borders today voiced outrage at a prosecution call to permanently shut down the independent bi-monthly Umuvugizi and to sentence its editor, Jean Bosco Gasasira, to a 26-month jail sentence for libel. The worldwide press freedom organisation urged the judge who is due to rule in the case on 13 November not to follow the recommendation made on 26 October by the judge, Silas Nsengiyumva, of the Kagarama lower court in the capital Kigali. The editor is on trial for (...)
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Mexico - Another journalist murdered in Durango State
Reporters Without Borders today voiced anger at the murder of journalist Vladimir Antuna García, found dead last evening after he was abducted on his way to work, pointing the finger of blame at state prosecutors who knew he was getting death threats but failed to protect him. The journalist, who worked as a security specialist on the daily El Tiempo de Durango, was found to have died of “asphyxia from strangulation” but his body also bore bullet wounds to the head and abdomen, official (...)
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United States - Top officials publicly support improved federal shield law
Reporters Without Borders welcomes Attorney General Eric Holder and NSA director, Dennis C. Blair's endorsement of the latest version of the Free Flow of Information Act, aimed at protecting reporters from having to divulge their confidential sources. In a letter released on November 5th, Blair and Holder acknowledged “the critical role that the media plays in a free and democratic society” and urged legislators to pass the bill as it stands, without the addition of further amendments (...)
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Iran - Arrests of journalists since disputed June election now top 100
Reporters Without Borders continues to be very worried about the worsening press freedom situation and treatment of detained journalists in Iran after developments in the past few days. Agence France-Presse correspondent Farhad Pouladi and Nafiseh Zareh Kohan, a journalist who writes for various pro-reform newspapers, were arrested yesterday in Tehran during demonstrations marking the 30th anniversary of the US embassy's seizure. Hassin Assadi Zidabadi, a blogger who heads a student human (...)
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Albania - Independent newspaper editor beaten unconscious by leading businessman
Reporters Without Borders is very shocked to learn that newspaper editor Mero Baze was beaten unconscious by a pro-government businessman and two bodyguards three days ago. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the prime minister's office in Tirana yesterday to protest against the frequency of attempts to intimidate journalists in Albania. “Such use of violence is intolerable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It shows that certain businessmen who are allied with the government think they (...)
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Togo - Broadcast authority should not be used as media police, president told in open letter
Reporters Without Borders today sent an open letter to the President of Togo, Faure Gnassingbé, urging him not to promulgate a draft law passed by parliament on 30 October that would strengthen the powers of the High Council for Broadcasting and Communication (HAAC). This is the text of the letter: Mr Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé President of the Republic Lomé – Togo Paris, 5 November 2009 Dear Mr President, Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation that defends press (...)
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North Korea - Call for more international support for exile radios after station director wins award
Reporters Without Borders congratulates Kim Seong-Min, founder and director of the Seoul-based Free North Korea Radio, on winning the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy's Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award. The foundation announced today that he is to be this year's laureate. “We urge the international community to be much more supportive of the North Korean exile journalists who use radio stations to defy the relentless censorship imposed by Kim Jong-il,” Reporters Without Borders said. (...)
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Iran - Reporters Without Borders' appealfor donations for Iranian journalists who have fled abroad
At least 100 journalists and bloggers have been arrested since the disputed 12 June presidential election and 23 are still being held. At the same time, around 50 have been forced to flee the country to escape the relentless repression. The list of journalists who have fled and who are receiving legal and humanitarian assistance from Reporters Without Borders gets longer every day. In view of the scale of this exodus, Reporters Without Borders is launching an appeal for financial support (...)
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Thailand - Three Internet users arrested for blaming fall in stocks on king's ailing health
Three Internet users have been arrested in the past four days for posting articles blaming King Bhumibol Adulyadej's poor health for last month's fall in the Bangkok stock exchange. They have been charged under article 14 of the Computers Crime Act 2007 with endangering national security by spreading false rumours about the king's health. The first two to be arrested were Katha Pajariyapong, 37, of the brokerage company KT ZMICO, and Theeranan Vipuchan, 43, a former executive with UBS (...)
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Zimbabwe - Improvement in press freedom depends on national unity government's ability to function properly
Reporters Without Borders has written to Tomás Salomão, the executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community, on the eve of a SADC meeting in Maputo on the situation in Zimbabwe. Voicing concern about the impact of the Zimbabwean government's internal crisis on the ability of journalists to work freely and the reemergence of an independent press, Reporters Without Borders urges the SADC and the leaders of Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia to spare no effort to help the (...)
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India - Editor of Tamil weekly held for past 11 days on criminal defamation charge
Reporters Without Borders condemns journalist A.S. Mani's detention in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu on a criminal defamation charge. Mani, who edits the Tamil weekly Naveena Netrikkan, was arrested in the city of Chennai without arrest warrant, on 25 October, as a result of libel suit by a local businessman. “Mani is the latest victim of Indian laws that criminalise defamation,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Misuse of the laws governing defamation and slander pose a permanent danger (...)
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Kyrgyzstan - Newspaper reporter becomes seventh journalist to be physically attacked this year
Reporters Without Borders is very worried about an increase in attempts to intimidate Kyrgyzstan's independent media after Kubanychbek Joldoshev, a newspaper reporter based in the southern city of Osh, became the seventh journalist to be physically attacked since the start of the year. He was badly beaten after his taxi was stopped by police on 2 November. “Joldoshev was attacked and threatened because of what he writes,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We hope an investigation will shed (...)
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Yemen - Convictions and bans pile up against journalists amidst unacceptable indifference
Reporters Without Borders today strongly condemned the decision of a court specialising in press offences that sentenced journalist Munir Al-Mawari of independent weekly Al-Masdar in his absence to two years in prison for libelling President Ali Abdallah Saleh and also banned him for life from working as a journalist. The newspaper's editor, Samir Jubran, was sentenced in the same case on 31 October to a one-year suspended prison term and a one-year ban on exercising his profession. The (...)
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Pakistan - Surge in news censorship condemned as backward step
Reporters Without Borders said it was extremely concerned about two rulings clamping down on electronic media that represent a very serious backward step. Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has ordered some radio stations not to broadcast BBC Urdu-language news programmes, while Parliament is preparing to ratify drastic censorship dating from the era of General Pervez Musharraf. “We thought that Pakistan had rid itself of the censorship impulse, but PEMRA and the (...)
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China - Berlin Twitter Wall website blocked just days after its launch
Reporters Without Borders deplores the fact that the Chinese authorities blocked the Berlin Twitter Wall website (www.berlintwitterwall.com) just days after its launch on 20 October and urges the government to allow its citizens to access this special Twitter site, which is dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The site allows people to express their comments about the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and their related hopes and wishes. The initiative (...)
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United States - Towards a better protection for reporters' sources at a federal level
Reporters Without Borders welcomes an agreement reached by the White House, leading Democrats senators and a coalition of news organizations on Oct. 31, 2009 , regarding the Free Flow of Information Act (FFOA). Under this new deal, reporters and unpaid bloggers engaged in gathering and disseminating news can protect their sources, without facing fines or jail time if federal judges consider ther information of public interest. However, nonconfidential information, like unpublished interview (...)
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Iran - Concern for two imprisoned journalists on hunger strike
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the health of journalists Henghameh Shahidi and Fariba Pajooh who have been on hunger strike for one week. Both women are seriously ill and “will not be able to hold up much longer”, their lawyer and families have said. Shahidi was yesterday moved to the hospital wing of Evin prison. “We are holding the chief executive of the judiciary, Hojatoelslam Sadegh Larijani, personally responsible for the state of health of these two journalists, which is (...)
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Tunisia - Ailing journalist faces three years in prison
Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the prosecutor-general's decision today to place Tunisian journalist Taoufik Ben Brik in custody on charges of violating public decency, defamation, assault and damaging another person's property. “These are trumped-up charges designed to ensure that Ben Brik languishes in prison,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This dissident journalist needs to take medicine regularly for a serious condition but the authorities have opted to cause as much harm as (...)
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Morocco - Open letter to Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton US Department of State Washington DC USA Paris, 28 October 2009 Dear Secretary of State Clinton, Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that defends press freedom worldwide, would like to draw your attention to the disturbing deterioration in the press freedom situation in Morocco on the eve of your official visit to that country on 2-3 November. Ten years after Mohammed VI's accession to the throne in 1999, the record is very (...)
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Burma - At least three journalists and bloggers arrested in crackdown on volunteer group
Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association condemn the arrests of at least three Burmese journalists and bloggers in a crackdown on Lin Let Kye, a citizen network of volunteers that has been helping the victims of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the south of the country last year. “Last month, the authorities released several journalists who had been arrested for covering the post-Nargis situation, but now the security forces are arresting more journalists for the same (...)
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Morocco - Suspended jail terms and exorbitant damages award against newspaper publisher and cartoonist
A Casablanca court yesterday gave Taoufiq Bouachrine, the publisher of the Akhbar al-Youm newspaper, and cartoonist Khalid Gueddar three-year suspended jail sentences and ordered them to pay a colossal 270,000 euros in damages to Prince Moulay Ismaïl, a cousin of the king, for a cartoon of the prince published last month. The sentences were issued as a result of a suit brought by the prince accusing them of “failing to accord due respect to a member of the royal family.” The court imposed (...)
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China - Survey of blocked Uyghur websites shows Xinjiang still cut off from the world
Reporters Without Borders has surveyed access to websites dedicated to the Uyghur community, including sites in the Uyghur language, in Mandarin and sometimes in English. These sites, operated by Uyghurs for Uyghurs, are for the most part inaccessible both to Internet users based in Xinjiang and those abroad. More than 85 per cent of the surveyed sites were blocked, censored or otherwise unreachable. “The discrimination to which Uyghurs have been subjected for decades as regards their (...)
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Colombia - Interior Ministry protection programme for journalists also used for "close-quarters spying"
Journalist Claudia Julieta Duque, who is under an interior ministry protection programme for journalists, has told Reporters Without Borders of harassment and intimidation by the intelligence services, who obtained information about her from her alleged protectors. Duque, of Radio Nizkor, is about to present a file to the authorities exposing the persecution she has suffered since 2001 at the hands of the Department of Administrative Security Department (DAS). Some evidence is already in (...)
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Mauritania - “My aim is to liberalise the press” Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz tells Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders has been given an assurance by Mauritanian president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, elected on 4 August 2009, that freedom of the press will be one of his priorities. The head of state, on an official visit to Paris yesterday, met a delegation from the worldwide press freedom organisation and in a cordial meeting said he was determined to work to improve the state of press freedom in his country. “My aim it to encourage press freedom and freedom of expression for all (...)
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Uzbekistan - EU wants to forget Andijan crackdown but journalists still targeted by police paranoia
In the latest example of official paranoia and harassment of the press, Tashkent-based freelance journalists Vasiliy Markov and Sid Yanyshev were interrogated by police and members of the secret services about their work for more than 10 hours during a recent visit to the eastern border region near the city of Andijan. “The European Union has just lifted the last of its remaining sanctions on the Uzbek government, but this episode shows that there has been no liberalisation and that Uzbek (...)
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United Arab Emirates - Fired for implicating Emirates Airlines
The exclusive account of Courtney C. Radsch, a US journalist who was recently fired by the Al Arabiya news website (www.alarabiya.net) in the United Arab Emirates for posting information about safety violations by the national air carrier, Emirates Airlines. “ On Sunday Oct. 4 one of my reporters asked me if we could write about a report on safety concerns at Emirates Airlines following a report about pilot fatigue. Since the report was from a respected Australian paper based on a Freedom (...)
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Tunisia - Post-poll violence and an arrest targeting two journalists
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the arrest of one journalist and a vicious assault on another following the re-election of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali as president for the fifth time on 24 October. In the run-up to polling, the president publicly warned his detractors that the law would be “brought to bear on anyone casting accusations or doubts on the integrity of the electoral process without solid evidence”. Once the head of state was re-elected with 89.62% of the vote, the regime's (...)
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Uzbekistan - EU Fails Human Rights Victims
The European Union's decision today to lift the arms embargo against Uzbekistan despite its atrocious human rights record is an unconscionable abdication of responsibility toward Uzbek victims of abuse, Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, and Reporters Without Borders said today. The decision underscores the EU's lack of resolve in the face of Uzbekistan's intransigence and severely undermines its global standing and credibility as a principled promoter of human rights, the groups (...)
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Morocco - Tension affects news conference in Casablanca in support of Moroccan media
Reporters Without Borders managed to give a news conference yesterday in Casablanca but, in a sign of the tension in its relations with the government, was unable to hold it as scheduled in a meeting room of the Royal Al-Mansour Hotel, although communication minister Khalid Naciri had previously given it his blessing. An improvised news conference was instead held in the hotel's lobby in the presence of many Moroccan and foreign journalists. “Reporters Without Borders came to express its (...)
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Niger - Abdoulaye Tiémogo freed after more than two months in custody
Reporters Without Borders today noted the release from prison of Abdoulaye Tiémogo, editor of the independent weekly Le Canard déchaîné, after his sentence was reduced on appeal. The journalist, who is in poor health, had been held in custody since 1st August. He had been found guilty of “discrediting a judicial decision”. Tiémogo told Reporters Without Borders after his release on 26 October that he was happy to be home. “I now hope to rest with my family and then I will see a doctor to get (...)
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Grenada - Grenada Today to be liquidated as a result of former prime minister's libel suit
The Grenada Today weekly is apparently about to disappear as a result of a drawn-out libel suit by one of Grenada's former prime ministers, Keith Mitchell. High court judge Claire Henry ordered its liquidation this week after the owners failed to reach an agreement with Mitchell over payment of an exorbitant damages award. “Grenada Today's liquidation is bad news for media diversity and, above all, a very bad precedent for the resolution of disputes linked to press offences,” Reporters (...)
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Bangladesh - Reporter tortured by elite crime force in act of reprisal against newspaper
Reporters Without Borders calls on the civilian and military authorities to draw the appropriate conclusions from the case of F.M. Masum, a journalist employed by the English-language daily The New Age, who was arrested and tortured by an elite crime and counter-terrorist force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), on 22 October in Dhaka. Masum told Reporters Without Borders from his hospital bed that he thinks he will take months to recover from his injuries. “It is encouraging that the (...)
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Sri Lanka - New threats to privately-owned print media
Reporters Without Borders urges the Sri Lankan authorities to take all necessary measures to investigate threatening letters received six days ago by Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushtaq, two journalists who work for the Leader Publications media group. “We will slice you up if you do not stop your writing,” the letters said. At the same time, senior newspaper employees have been questioned by the police about their sources in a new attack on editorial independence. “The police must treat these (...)
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Russia - Death threats followed by lawsuits in campaign against dissident journalist
Freelance journalist Alexandr Podrabinek has gradually re-emerged in recent days after being forced into hiding by a hate campaign orchestrated by “patriotic” youth groups such as Nashi (Ours) but he is now the target of several lawsuits and Nashi is even suing foreign newspapers over their coverage of the case. “This affair has progressed from the brutal phase to the judicial phase,” Podrabinek wrote in his blog on 19 October, 12 days after appearing in public for the first time at tribute in (...)
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Kazakhstan - Newspaper editor's three-year jail term confirmed on appeal
A court in the southern city of Taraz has upheld independent newspaper owner and editor Ramazan Esergepov's three-year jail term and two-year publishing ban. The sentence was confirmed at a secret hearing on 22 October which, like his original trial, was marked by irregularities. Except for the first 15 minutes, the appeal hearing was conducted behind closed doors and in Esergepov's absence. Although Esergepov had disowned his defence attorney, the lawyer nonetheless spoke at the hearing as (...)
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Saudi Arabia - Woman journalist to get 60 lashes for link to TV programme about sex
Reporters Without Borders condemns the sentence of 60 lashes passed by a judge in the western city of Jeddah on 24 October on journalist Rozanna al-Yami because she worked for the Lebanese Broadcast Corporation (LBC), a satellite TV station that shocked conservative Saudis last July by broadcasting an interview with a Saudi man talking openly about his sex life. The judge dismissed allegations that Yami had directly worked on the offending programme but nonetheless imposed the sentence on (...)
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Tunisia - Election campaign impossible for opposition media
Tunisians go to the polls on Sunday 25 October to elect a president and renew the National Assembly. The result of the election is not in doubt. The sole question is by what percentage Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali will be re-elected. As the monthly Afrique-Asie headlined its special issue of October 2009 “Tunisia, why it works”, Reporters Without Borders, including its secretary general Jean-François Julliard, went to Tunis on 12-15 October to observe how the media, particularly those linked to (...)
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Colombia - Herbin Hoyos, exiled radio journalist leads an international campaign against kidnapping
Renowned Colombian journalist Herbin Hoyos Medina, on 8 October narrowly escaped a murder attempt blamed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Since leaving the country under threat, he has found refuge in Spain. From Madrid, the presenter of the popular Las Voces del Secuestro (Voices from captivity) programme on Caracol Radio, that gives air time to families of hostages, gave an interview to Reporters Without Borders. The presenter looks back at his recent misadventures (...)
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Russia - Sakharov Network welcomes Russian NGO among its ranks
The Sakharov Network of former winners of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought hails today's European Parliament decision to award this year's prize to Memorial, an NGO that defends human rights in countries of the former Soviet Union. “Taken in a particularly ill-fated year for Memorial, this decision is all the more important as it pays tribute to decades of exemplary work by an NGO founded by veteran dissidents and now run by human rights activists whose courage and tenacity have (...)
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Iraq - Roadside bomb kills TV cameraman, injures TV reporter
Reporters Without Borders is saddened to learn that Orhan Hijarn, an Iraqi cameraman working for privately-owned satellite TV station Al-Rashid, was killed by a roadside bomb yesterday in Kirkuk, 240 km north of Baghdad. Abdallah Zadeh, an Al-Baghdadiya TV reporter, sustained minor injuries. “Our thoughts go out to the victim's family,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This fatality is reminder that Iraq continues to be a dangerous country for the media. Hijarn is the third Iraqi journalist to (...)
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Vietnam - French city presses for release of Vietnamese blogger and pro-democracy activist
Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard took part in a day of demonstrations and activities that were organised today in Rennes, in northwestern France, to press for the release of Nguyen Tien Trung, a blogger and pro-democracy activist who has been held incommunicado in Vietnam for the past three months. Hundreds of people attended a demonstration called by students and faculty members at the Rennes-based National Institute for Applied Sciences, from which Trung (...)
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Russia - European court rejects complaint by Russian environmental journalist
Reporters Without Borders is “stunned” to learn that, by six votes to one, the European Court of Human Rights yesterday rejected Russian journalist Grigory Pasko's complaint accusing his government of violating his freedom of expression under articles 7 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights by sentencing him to four years in prison on a spying charge. “We share Pasko's disappointment as we have always supported him and our position has not changed,” Reporters Without Borders said. (...)
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Honduras - Anti-coup media resume broadcasting, but closely controlled
Radio Globo and Canal 36 television, two stations that have been the main media opponents of the 28 June coup d'état, were allowed to resume broadcasting on 19 October, three and a half weeks after the de facto government used a decree suspending civil liberties to close them down and confiscate their equipment. Sources at Radio Globo, which had managed to keep operating as a clandestine web radio, nonetheless said the station has had to censor itself since it resumed broadcasting. At the (...)
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Zimbabwe - TV journalists arrested and held during cabinet meeting
Reporters Without Borders today condemned mistreatment by Zimbabwean intelligence agents of two journalists working for Arab satellite TV station al-Jazeera. Cameraman Austin Gundani was physically assaulted and then held for three hours, with his reporter colleague Haru Mutasa, at the presidency where they had arrived on 20 October to cover a cabinet meeting from which Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had pulled out. The worldwide press freedom organisation said the incident demonstrated (...)
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China - More Tibetans arrested in connection with Internet activities
Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of three young Tibetans from the village of Dara who have been held in Nagchu county since 1 October, when they were arrested in nearby Sogdzong county for allegedly sending information about Tibet to contacts abroad via the Internet. The police have not allowed the three – identified as Gyaltsen, 25, Nymia Wangchuk, 24, and Yeshe Namkha, 25 – to have any contact with their families since their arrest. “The Internet is monitored, censored and (...)
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Morocco - Demo outside Moroccan embassy in Paris in defence of press freedom
Reporters Without Borders and the Paris-based news website Bakchich organised a demonstration today outside the Moroccan embassy in Paris in a show of support for Moroccan journalists who have been targeted by a wave of legal actions and severe sanctions in recent weeks. Disproportionate sentences and damages awards are threatening media diversity in Morocco. “This protest was called in response to the wave of trials and disproportionate sentences affecting privately-owned publications,” (...)
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European union - European Union adopting regulations that will penalize Internet users
Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the consequences that the European Union's adoption of the so-called Telecoms Package will have for bloggers and other Internet users. “This Telecoms Package undermines the right to equal Internet access,” said Reporters Without Borders, which last month joined more than 80 organisations from 15 EU member countries in signing an open letter voicing concern. “The European Union should have sent a strong signal by refusing to create a two-speed (...)
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Egypt - Cairo court to rule on jailed blogger's appeal
Reporters Without Borders calls on a Cairo court to release Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, a blogger better known as Kareem Amer, when it considers his appeal tomorrow. The court may decide to refer the case to another court in six months time on the grounds that it can only rule on the questions of law of the case but not facts. Kareem's lawyers would like a fair retrial, but they are also requesting his release for good conduct on 5 November when he will have completed three-quarters of his (...)
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Guinea - Military authorities bar foreign journalists
Reporters Without Borders condemns the latest disturbing escalation in the Guinean military's clampdown, consisting of denying entry to French TV crews and reporters on their arrival at Conakry international airport. It coincides with continuing serious threats to local reporters and yesterday's arrival of United Nations assistant secretary-general Haile Menkerios in Conakry to conduct a UN probe into last month's massacre of opposition demonstrators. “The authorities in Conakry are clearly (...)
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Americas - Southern Cone joins North America while Central America sinks
See the World press freedom index The process of adopting a Shield Law protecting the confidentiality of journalists' sources at the federal level is far from over in the United States (20th) but the judicial authorities are no longer jailing journalists and violating civil liberties in the name of national security as they were in the Bush era. So the US is back in the press freedom top 20, as is appropriate for a country where the press has traditionally played its role as independent (...)
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Africa - Journalists prey to violence, political crises and instability
See the 2009 world press freedom index The Horn was again the African region with the most press freedom violations. Eritrea (175th), where no independent media is tolerated and 30 journalists are in prison (as many as in China or Iran but with a much smaller population), was ranked last in the world for the third year running. Somalia (164th), which is steadily being emptied of its journalists, was the world's deadliest country for the media, with six journalists killed between 1 January (...)
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Asia - Authoritarianism prevents press freedom progress in much of Asia
Fiji falls furthest, but big advance by Maldives Political power grabs dealt press freedom a great disservice again this year. A military coup caused Fiji (152nd) to fall 73 places. Soldiers moved into Fijian news rooms for several weeks and censored articles before they were published, while foreign journalists were deported. In Thailand, the endless clashes between “yellow shirts” and “red shirts” had a very negative impact on the press's ability to work. As a result, the kingdom is now (...)
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Middle East & North Africa - Region performs poorly, Israel nose-dives
See the World press freedom index Israel cast down by Operation Cast Lead This is the first time that Israel (internal) is not at the head of the Middle Eastern countries in the press freedom index. By falling 47 places to 93rd position, it is now behind Kuwait (60th), United Arab Emirates (86th) and Lebanon (61st). Arrests of journalists (and not only foreign ones), their conviction and in some cases their deportation are the reasons for Israel's nose-dive. Israel's media are outspoken and (...)
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Europe & ex-USSR - Europe no longer so exemplary, Russian tragedy deepens
Check the position of your country in the world press freedom index and read the general introduction For the first time since 2002, the press freedom index's top 20 is not quite so European. Only 15 of the 20 leading countries are from the Old Continent, compared with 18 in 2008. Eleven of these 15 countries are European Union members. They include the top three, Denmark, Finland and Ireland. Another EU member, Bulgaria, has been falling steadily since it joined in 2007 and is now 68th (...)
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Equatorial Guinea - AFP and RFI correspondent released after four months in jail
Reporters Without Borders hails yesterday's release of Rodrigo Angue Nguema, the Malabo correspondent of Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale, although a court is insisting that the two French news organisations pay 40 million CFA francs (61,000 euros) in connection with a defamation action that was brought against him. “We welcome his release with a great deal of relief,” the press freedom organisation said. “It ends four months of injustice and allows the foreign media's only (...)
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Iran - Concern about exodus of journalists, as regime steps up suppression of news
Reporters Without Borders keeps on getting requests for help from terrified Iranian journalists who have been forced to flee their country after receiving summonses from the authorities. With 32 of their colleagues now detained in Iran and with a president and a Supreme Leader bent on suppressing all criticism, around 30 journalists have fled since last June's disputed elections. “This is the biggest exodus of journalists since the 1979 revolution,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Describing (...)
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India - Reporter who accused local police of corruption is charged with sedition
Laxman Choudhury, a newspaper reporter based Gajapati (in the eastern state of Orissa) who has written about alleged local police links with organised crime, has been detained for more than three weeks on a sedition charge in Bhubaneswar, the state capital, on the grounds that he was sent Maoist leaflets in the mail. “Choudhury's arbitrary and unjustifiable arrest by the Gajapati police violated the Indian constitution,” Reporters Without Borders said. “He is the victim of an act of revenge by (...)
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Cuba - Doctor and journalist starts hunger strike after 80 days in preventive detention as clampdown continues
Medical doctor and dissident journalist Darsi Ferrer, who began a hunger strike two days ago, today entered his 80th day in “preventive detention”. His wife, Yusnaimy Jorge, has written an open letter condemning the circumstances of his imprisonment, at Valle Grande jail in Havana. “The prosecutor's office has now held him in prison for three months, ignoring the fact that criminal procedure provides for preventive detention only when the offence is particularly serious, that it there is a (...)
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Chad - Cameroon journalist expelled for bogus reasons
Innocent Ebodé, editor of the privately-owned weekly La Voix published in the capital N'Djamena was expelled from Chad yesterday after the authorities accused the Cameroon national of “staying illegally” in Chad. “The summary expulsion of this editor is both shocking and unwarranted”, Reporters Without Borders said. “This may well be the first move in a bid to gag this newspaper since it seems likely La Voix could be made to pay for his alleged 'irregularity'”. “And why should this happen now, (...)
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Iraq - After eight days of silence, prime minister promises probe into attack on woman journalist
Reporters Without Borders deplores the beating that journalist Zohra al-Musawi received at the hands of unidentified men in the centre of Baghdad on 4 October while police and other members of the security forces look on without intervening. Although Musawi, a presenter for satellite TV station Al Iraqiya, was wearing an Islamic veil at the time, clothes were torn off her as she was being beaten by her assailants, who then calmly left the scene. Musawi had been receiving sexually harassing (...)
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Turkey - Basic questions still unanswered during Dink trial's 11th hearing
Essential issues were again left unaddressed at the 11th hearing on 12 October in the trial of the newspaper editor Hrant Dink's alleged killers before an Istanbul court. A Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, Dink was gunned down outside his newspaper in Istanbul on 19 January 2007. “In hearing after hearing, the same fundamental questions remain, including the existence of a political will at the highest level to expose the truth in a case whose ramifications could turn it into a major (...)
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Mexico - Body of radio presenter discovered 48 hours after going missing
The body of radio presenter Fabián Ramírez López who worked for regional radio La Magia 97.1 was found dead close to Mazatlán, Sinaloa, north-western Mexico, 48 hours after he went missing after leaving his home to go to work. The victim was found with his throat cut after an anonymous call was made to the radio station on the evening of 11 October. He also had injuries to his arms and the letters YTTS had been carved onto his back with a blunt instrument, the local press reported. It was (...)
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Turkey - Prosecutors violate online free expression to protect copyright
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the unblocking of the social-networking website MySpace and the video-sharing website Akilli.tv on 6 October after their representatives resolved disputes with the Turkish Record Industry Association. Two other websites that refuse to comply with the association's demands, Lastfm.com.tr and YouTube, continue to be blocked. A total of 1,309 websites have been rendered inaccessible by the Telecommunications Directorate since November 2007 as a result of an (...)
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Slovenia - The daily Dnevnik allowed to publish freely again
Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the decision of the Ljubljana appeal court to lift an injunction against the Slovenian daily Dnevnik that barred it since August 2009 from publishing any news or negative comments about the person or professional activities of Italian businessman Pierpaolo Cerani. The daily's editor Ali Zerdin told the worldwide press freedom organisation that the ruling on 7 October was “an important decision not just for us but for the entire Slovenian media. The (...)
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United States - Video: Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal's lawyer Robert R. Bryan
To mark World Day Against the Death Penalty tomorrow, Reporters Without Borders is releasing the interview it was given on 22 September by Robert R. Bryan, the attorney who represents journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, a death row resident since 1982. His lawyer since 2003, Bryan talks about the appeals in his case and the current situation of the death penalty in the United States. Watch the video : (subtitled in Spanish) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa... (...)
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United Arab Emirates - Court to hear website's appeal against defamation conviction
An Abu Dhabi court is about to hear the appeal of Inas Al Bourini, the owner of the Hetta.com news website, and his editor, Ahmed Mohamed bin Gharib, against a fine of 20,000 dirhams (3,700 euros) that a lower court imposed on 7 September in a defamation suit by the state-controlled Abu Dhabi Media Company. The first hearing is scheduled for 12 October. “Inas Al Bourini and Ahmed Mohamed bin Gharib were the victims of false allegations because they wrote about corruption,” Reporters Without (...)
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Russia - Novaya Gazeta being sued by Stalin's grandson and Chechen leader
Reporters Without Borders condemns the two libel suits that have been brought in rapid succession against the Moscow-based independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta by Joseph Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Dzhugashvili is demanding 10 million roubles (229,000 euros) in damages from Novaya Gazeta and journalist Anatoly Yablokov for an article published on 22 April entitled “Beria found guilty,” claiming that his grandfather personally signed execution (...)
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Iran - More newspapers closed, more journalists detained
Three more newspapers – Farhang Ashti and Arman in Tehran and Tahlil Rooz in the southwestern city of Shiraz – were closed by the ministry of culture and Islamic orientation on 5 October, the same day that Reporters Without Borders learned that two other journalists have been held for months in the capital's Evin prison. “The Iranian leaders publicly attack the media and accuse them of being used in an attempt to overthrow the state,” Reporters Without Borders said. “By denigrating independent (...)
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Venezuela - Journalist still held in custody despite quashing of suspect case against him
A court in the western state of Táchira has ordered that journalist Gustavo Azócar should remain in custody despite ordering the annulment of a criminal case against him. He is the only journalist currently in prison in Venezuela Reporters Without Borders said it feared that the journalist was being hounded for his critical stance towards the government and called for his release. Azócar, former presenter on privately owned regional Televisora del Táchira, Radio Notícias 1060 and former (...)
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India - Tamil Nadu editor arrested over article linking actresses to prostitution
Reporters Without Borders condemns a 7 October police raid on the Tamil daily Dinamalar in Chennai (the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu) and the arrest of its editor,B. Lenin, over an article about Tamil actresses suspected of prostitution. Charged under the Tamil Nadu Women Harassment Act, he could remain in detention until 21 October. “The police raid on Dinamalar was abusive and disproportionate and B. Lenin's arrest was not justifiable either,” Reporters Without Borders said. (...)
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Eritrea - Journalist's choice as Sakharov Prize finalist hailed as victory for Eritrean prisoners of conscience
Reporters Without Borders hails the European Parliament's decision to include Dawit Isaac, a journalist with Swedish and Eritrean dual citizenship who has been detained in Eritrea since September 2001, in the three finalists for the 2009 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The leaders of the parliament's political groups will choose the winner on 22 October. “The Eritrean government has tried for years to ensure that nothing is said about the fate of its political prisoners,” Reporters (...)
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Yemen - Woman journalist describes police crackdown on press freedom activists
A demonstration in defence of free expression that the NGO Women Journalists Without Chains has been organising with hundreds of participants ever Tuesday since April in Freedom Square in Sana'a was dispersed violently yesterday by the police. The head of the NGO, Tawakkol Karman, has given this account: “The authorities have today revealed their true face (…) Each week, hundreds of citizens, journalists and intellectuals have been gathering to defend free expression, talking about the (...)
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Guinea - “We know you, we'll make you pay,” soldiers tell journalists
Soldiers in Conakry have been addressing journalists in a very threatening manner, with such comments as “If you go out the door, I'll cut your tongue out,” “The next time things happen, we'll know where to find you” and “We know you, we'll make you pay.” Ten days after army Red Berets dispersed an opposition protest with a great deal of bloodshed in Conakry on 28 September, Reporters Without Borders warns that the climate for the press has become extremely menacing and appeals to mediators to try (...)
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Honduras - Lifting of state siege does not guarantee restoration of media diversity
De facto President Roberto Micheletti's decision yesterday to lift the state of siege after one week does not unfortunately mean that real press freedom has been restored. By suspending basic freedoms on 28 September, the government that took over after ousting President Manuel Zelaya in June has succeeded in silencing the two main opposition broadcast media, Radio Globo and the Canal 36 TV station. Despite the censorship, Radio Globo is managing to operate as web radio from a clandestine (...)
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Malaysia - Cartoon magazine seized and banned as soon as first issues appears
The government's decision to prosecute the company that published the new cartoon magazine Gedung Kartun for not having a permit is a setback for press freedom in Malaysia. The decision was announced by Jamilah Taib, the head of the interior ministry's communication unit. The company insists it did get a verbal go-ahead. “We urge the interior ministry to reverse its ban on Gedung Kartun,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It is regrettable that the authorities reacted to its appearance by (...)
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Russia - Reporters Without Borders prevented from going to Moscow for third anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya's murder
By not giving them visas, the Russian authorities prevented two Reporters Without Borders representatives, including secretary-general Jean-François Julliard, from travelling to Moscow to hold a news conference there today, on the eve of the third anniversary of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya's murder. The press freedom organisation is nonetheless going ahead with the news conference and the screening of a film about Politkovskaya in Moscow, both of which will be attended by her (...)
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Vietnam - Spate of blogger trials to start tomorrow, another blogger held incommunicado
Reporters Without Borders calls for the acquittal of all the writers, bloggers and pro-democracy activists who are about to be tried in various courts after unexplained delays, with a danger of long jail sentences being imposed. Vu Hung's trial in Hanoi tomorrow and Pham Van Troi's trial the day after are expected to be held without guarantees for defence rights. Six other activists, who were arrested in September 2008 for various offences including posting criticism of government policies (...)
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Turkey - Editor of newspaper's website faces 15 years in prison
“Duruoglu is the victim of inexplicable judicial persecution,” Reporters Without Borders said. “If the authorities want to try her, they should do so without delay and ensure that the trial is fair. In the meantime, there are no grounds for continuing her arbitrary detention, which has already gone on for too long.” Journalist Aylin Duruoglu has spent nearly six months in Istanbul's Bakirköy prison on totally unfounded charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, Reporters Without Borders (...)
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Sri Lanka - Video: interview with Sunanda Deshapriya
Interview with Sunanda Deshapriya, a journalist and press freedom activist in Sri Lanka: Reporters sans frontières: Entretien avec Sunanda Deshapriya envoyé par rsf_internet. - L'info internationale vidéo.
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Iran - Press freedom violations recounted in real time
A hotline for journalists in danger SOS Presse, a phone hotline for journalists - (33) 1 4777-7414 - is open every day round the clock and, with the help of American Express, a Reporters Without Borders official can be quickly reached. 4 October 2009 - Saeed Hajjarian freed Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that journalist Saeed Hajjarian was freed on 30 September from Tehran's Evin prison after paying bail. The former editor of the daily Sobh-e-Emrouz, Hajjarian was (...)
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Italy - Reporters Without Borders in Rome to defend press freedom
More than 100,000 people attended a rally in support of press freedom in Rome on 3 October at which journalists, unionists and well-known performers took it in turns to address the crowd and condemn Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's grip on the media. Gomorra author Roberto Saviano, who went with a police guard because of mafia threats to this life, stressed the importance of an independent press that is free to investigate any subject. Among those invited to take the microphone was (...)
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Honduras - New wave of censorship in response to deposed president's return
Ousted President Manuel Zelaya's reappearance in Tegucigalpa has prompted a new wave of censorship of the national and international press. The de facto government's response to the news of his return and his appeal to the army to “turn its rifles on the enemies of the people” has been to impose an immediate curfew, keep the international press away from the pro-Zelaya demonstrations and do everything possible to silence the few independent and opposition media still operating. “This clampdown (...)
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Kazakhstan - Hounding of independent newspaper continues
Since it replaced the leading independent newspaper Respublika, on 18 September 2009, the newspaper Moya Respublika has come under ever increasing pressure from the authorities. Printers in the capital Almaty all refused to print the new title because of the seizure of copies of Respublika last Friday. “Kometa S”, the only one that agreed to do it, immediately found itself subjected to escalating harassment. Financial police from the department responsible for financial crime and corruption (...)
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Gabon - Fear in Libreville after leading daily's editor is arrested and questioned for several hours
Reporters Without Borders deplores the climate of fear that the authorities have created among the Gabonese media by arresting Albert Yangari, the well-known editor of the national daily L'Union, for several hours today. “Today's incident was clearly motivated by the government's desire to intimidate journalists who dare to investigate sensitive subjects,” Reporters Without Borders said. “L'Union has displayed a commendable readiness to be outspoken in its reporting in the past three months and (...)
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Russia - Journalist in hiding after getting death threats for criticising defence of Soviet Union
Reporters Without Borders is very worried for the safety of freelance journalist and human rights activist Alexandr Podrabinek, who has gone into hiding after getting death threats over a controversial article about the current government's defence of the Soviet Union despite its crimes against the Russian people. The Moscow correspondent of the French public radio station Radio France Internationale, Podrabinek also writes for Novaya Gazeta (the newspaper that journalist Ana Politkovskaya (...)
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Mexico - Media ordeal blamed on escalating security offensive and cumbersome bureaucracy
Reporters Without Borders is today releasing the report of its latest visit to Mexico, which took place from 4 to 12 July. The release coincides with a Reporters Without Borders news conference in Washington at which the speakers will included Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a Mexican journalist who fled to the United States and is now waiting to be granted refugee status (see video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYyR... ). With a total of 55 deaths of journalists since 2000 that were clearly or (...)
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Honduras - Last freedoms suspended leaving media at mercy of total shutdown
Reporters Without Borders said today that the last vestiges of independent news were under threat after the de facto government signed a decree yesterday banning “unauthorised” public meetings and giving itself the power to close media “damaging public order” “Three months to the day after the 28 June 2009 coup, basic rights and public freedoms are just empty words in Honduras”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. The coup government was trying to justify these steps in response to (...)
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China - Censorship and attacks on journalists in run-up to 1 October anniversary
“Government security paranoia in the run-up to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on 1 October has led to a reinforcement of online censorship and abusive behaviour towards foreign journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said today. “A case of police brutality towards three foreign journalists was particularly unacceptable.” The press freedom organisation added: “What the authorities are trying to portray as a big celebration is turning (...)
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Belarus - Foreign news media still being arbitrarily denied accreditation
Four days after a joint international press freedom mission to Belarus, Reporters Without Borders today called on the Belarusian government to stop obstructing the work of journalists working for foreign news media. The press freedom organisation has signed a statement issued by the mission at the end of its five-day visit noting that: “Accreditation of journalists working for Belarus or foreign media, as well as the registration of offices of media, are restricted by non-transparent and (...)
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Honduras - Worse feared after de facto regime closes radio and TV stations, cracks down on journalists
Turning its words into actions, the facto government yesterday followed up its decree suspending civil liberties by closing Radio Globo and Canal 36 television, two Tegucigalpa-based stations that had already been assaulted and suspended several times in the past three months for their opposition to the 28 June coup d'état. In both cases, the police evicted staff and confiscated all the equipment. The Honduran press freedom organisation C-Libre said the closures violated article 73 of the (...)
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- Maintaining status quo is lesser evil
Reporters Without Borders prefers a continuation of the status quo in international Internet governance rather than the creation of an inter-governmental system to replace the existing oversight by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a California-based non-profit. ICANN has until now supervised the Internet under a contract with the US government, but the contract expires tomorrow and so far no announcement has been made as to what will happen next. (...)
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Tunisia - Opposition leader who gave TV interview in Paris is beaten by police on his return
Hamma Hammami, the former editor of the banned newspaper Alternatives and spokesman of the Communist Party of Tunisian Workers (PCOT), was badly beaten by police on arriving at Tunis international airport yesterday from Paris, where he had criticised the government in an interview for Al Jazeera. “We no longer have the right to express our views in Tunisia,” Hammami's wife, Radhia Nasraoui, a lawyer and human rights activist, told Reporters Without Borders. “When we dare to criticise the (...)
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Egypt - Swedish blogger detained at Cairo airport, due to be expelled
Per Bjorklund, a Cairo-based Swedish freelance journalist and blogger who covered a recent wave of factory strikes in Egypt, was denied entry on returning to the country yesterday and his passport was confiscated, apparently because his name appeared on a blacklist. As he arrived in Cairo on a flight from Prague, he is reportedly to be expelled on the next flight back to Prague, which is not until tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, neither the Swedish embassy nor Reporters Without Borders has (...)
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Guinea - Two reporters for foreign media go into hiding after getting death threats
Reporters Without Borders is extremely worried for the safety of Mouctar Bah, the Conakry correspondent of Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale, and Amadou Diallo, the BBC's correspondent. After being threatened and roughed up by soldiers while covering the violent dispersal of an opposition demonstration two days ago in which hundreds died, they are now reportedly wanted by the military authorities. “Journalists have been playing a vital role in informing Guineans and the (...)
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China - Sixty years of news media and censorship
In an affirmation of its authority, the Chinese government is today celebrating the 60th anniversary of the creation of the People's Republic of China with fireworks and military parades but there is also a need to evaluate the past 60 years from the Chinese media's viewpoint and in the name of the Chinese people's right to be informed. Reporters Without Borders would like to participate in this anniversary in its own way, by highlighting some dates that shed light on the media's evolution in (...)
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Somalia - "Media freedom kept within bounds" : NUSOJ report on Somaliland
Reporters Without Borders today wrote to Dahir Riyale Kahin, President of the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland, urging him to pay the closest possible attention to a report entitled “Media freedom kept within bounds”, released by its partner organisation in Somalia, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ). “Among the report's 13 final recommendations, are some addressed directly to you and to your government. We urge you to adopt them because we believe that their application would (...)
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Sri Lanka - Newspaper journalist and media freedom activist threatened at her home
Reporters Without Borders is worried for the safety of Dileesha Abeysundera, a journalist working for the Sinhalese-language weekly Irudina, who may have been the target of a kidnapping attempt when unidentified men tried to force their way into her home in the Colombo suburb of Borella on the night of 28 September. She reported the incident to the police. “The abduction and beating of journalist and press freedom activist Poddala Jayantha in June showed that this kind of threat is to be (...)
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Cameroon - Newspaper editor threatened over corruption coverage
Reporters Without Borders calls on President Paul Biya to publicly condemn a series of attempts to intimidate its Cameroon correspondent, Jules Koum Koum, who edits Le Jeune Observateur, a weekly based in the southwestern city of Douala. “In recent weeks, this respected journalist has published several detailed and well-researched reports on corruption implicating a number of prominent people,” Reporters Without Borders said. “In so doing, he has helped Operation Sparrowhawk, an (...)
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Maldives - Journalist and blogger arrested after they covered opposition demonstration
Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of freelance journalist Mohamed Shaheeb and blogger Hilath Rasheed, who were arrested today for covering an opposition demonstration yesterday against President Mohamed Nasheed. “Mohamed Shaheeb and Hiliath Rasheed are not criminals,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They are both media professional who are recognised in their fields. It would be intolerable if the sole reason for their detention was their presence at a demonstration (...)
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Italy - Reporters Without Borders in Rome as Berlusconi gets closer to being declared a “Predator”
At a news conference today in Rome with Viva Zapatero director Sabina Guzzanti, Reporters Without Borders called on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to put a stop to his attacks and lawsuits against the press and voiced its support for the media the Italian leader has targeted. “Berlusconi is on the verge of being added to our list of Predators of Press Freedom,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “This would be a first for a European leader. We (...)
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Sudan - President al-Bashir announces lifting of censorship but “we wait to see it in practice”
Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the decision of the Sudanese authorities, announced by President Omar al-Bashir, to lift prior censorship on the written press. The worldwide press freedom organisation however called for this announcement to be followed by real change and accompanied by further steps allowing greater press freedom in Sudan. President al-Bashir on 27 September put an end by decree to censorship of all publications before printing that has been carried out by the (...)
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