Archive for September, 2010
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
Footballer Wayne Rooney has launched
legal action against the Daily Mirror for breach of privacy. Rooney is suing the newspaper after it published
articles making fresh allegations about his sex life. He is claiming for invasion of privacy and breach of the Data Protection Act.
Last month the England player sued the Sun for libel over the suggestion that he booked a holiday before his team were knocked out of the World Cup.
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
Two independent radio stations were
attacked by Islamist militia in Mogadishu on 19 September. Radio Horn Afrik was vandalised and looted by
Al-Shabaab, while Global Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) was taken over by
Hizbul Islam, who are now using the station to broadcast their own propaganda. Journalists at Horn Afrik were driven from the building by armed men. Cassettes and CDs were then destroyed.
According to the transitional government in Mogadishu, five radio stations in the city have now been attacked or forcibly taken over by Islamist rebels.
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
A Russian gay rights activist who went missing from a Moscow airport last week, said he was
kidnapped by state security agents. Nikolai Alekseyev was told he would have to undergo
further security checks as he prepared for his flight to Geneva on 15 September. He was then driven to a police station in Kashira where he was detained for two days. The men holding him demanded that he withdraw a
complaint from the European Court of Human Rights against Moscow’s ban on gay rights rallies. He refused to sign any documents. News agencies received text messages that appeared to be from the activist saying he was seeking political asylum in Belarus. Alekseyev later confirmed these were sent by his captors. He was released on 18 September.
Monday, September 20th, 2010
The unsolved case of Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze highlights concerns for press freedom in post-Soviet states
(more…)
Friday, September 17th, 2010
On 14 September Luis Galdámez, a radio journalist working for Radio Globo in Honduras, was
targeted by unidentified assassins. He was ambushed as he returned home from work with his children in the car. However he and his son were able to
repel the gunmen using the firearms they had bought after a similar attempt on his life was made in 2005. He is widely known for his
criticism of the new government of President Porfirio Lobo, and regularly reports on government corruption and human rights abuses allegedly committed by law enforcement.
Eight journalists have been killed since March in Honduras.
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Columnist AA Gill has been
censured by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over his “dyke with a bike” comment in reference to the BBC’s Clare Balding. The TV presenter
complained to the PCC after the phrase appeared in the Sunday Times earlier this year. She said that the word “dyke” was too often used as a “pejorative and insulting term”. Gill had previously come under fire for saying the presenter looked “like a big lesbian” and then issuing a mock apology. He has been the subject of
62 PCC complaints in the last five years, which have not been upheld.
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Voice of America correspondent Abdulmalik Boboyev is facing between five and eight years in prison on
four charges in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent, by prosecutors brought against him on 13 September. Three of the charges relate to his work as a journalist: “defamation” , “insult” and “preparing and disseminating material constituting a threat to public order and security”.
Boboyev has also been charged with “illegal entry into the country” and has been banned from going abroad.
Friday, September 17th, 2010
A radio news anchor and opposition political activist in Uganda’s central district Mukono was
beaten to death with metal bars on 13 September. Dickson Ssentongo routinely
read the 7 a.m. news bulletins for Prime Radio station in the Luganda language, but now becomes the second journalist to be killed in the country in three days. On Saturday, the journalist Paul Kiggundu was
beaten to death by taxi-drivers. Both Kiggindu and Ssetongo died in hospital some hours after being attacked. No arrests have been made in either case.
