Posts Tagged ‘free expression’
February 3rd, 2012
The United Nations Human Rights Committee have found that the defamation conviction of a
Philippines journalist violated the journalist’s
right to free expression. In the landmark ruling, the UN committee said that the prison sentence handed to journalist
Alexander Adonis of Bombo Radyo, following his reporting on an alleged affair between a Philippine congressman and a married woman, was “incompatible” with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UNHRC has given the Philippine government 180 days to provide “information about the measures taken to give effect to the Committee’s views”.
January 31st, 2012
A
Cuban journalist is facing more than
ten years in prison for alleged corruption offences. José Antonio Torres, a correspondent for Granma, the party newspaper, in Santiago de Cuba, was detained on 11 March, 2011 after writing two articles criticising a major government infrastructure project. In the articles, Torres said experts undertaking the rebuilding of a key aqueduct intended to supply water to the city’s inhabitants, had claimed that “ineptitude” and “poor workmanship” had caused parts of the aqueduct wall’s veneer to fall off. The journalist also wrote that the project should have been “better planned.” Torres was
initially charged with being an “agent of the CIA” and leaking confidential information abroad.
January 31st, 2012
The publisher of an independent
Sudanese newspaper has
withheld an edition of the paper to protest censorship. National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS)
raided the offices of independent newspaper Al-Jaridah on Sunday, seizing all copies of the first edition of the paper since it was forced to close in 2011. Before the closure, the government had warned the publisher against columns by journalists who previously worked with Ahjras Al Hurriya, another independent newspaper that was banned. As a result of the confiscation, the newspaper’s publisher withheld the Monday edition of the paper in protest against the censorship.
January 31st, 2012
The director of a media group has become the
first journalist to be killed in
Somalia in 2012. Shabelle Media Network director Hassan Osman Abdi was shot outside his home in Mogadishu at 6.30pm on Saturday. Five gunmen shot the father of three in the
head and chest as he returned from work. The shooting is believed to be connected to the network’s recent radio coverage of government corruption. Abdi is the first journalist to be killed in 2012 in Somalia, and the third Shabelle Media Network director to be murdered, following Bashir Nur Gedi in 2007 and Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe in 2009.
January 31st, 2012
The offices of an
Indian media group have
been attacked by a group of right-wing Hindu nationalists in Mumbai. Dozens of supporters of right-wing nationalist group
Shiv Sena attacked the building Times of India on Saturday, protesting against a local newspaper’s coverage of their internal politics. The article, which ran in the Maharashtra Times, a Marathi-language daily that is part of the news group, said Sena politician Anandrao Adsul was going to change allegiances and join the rival National Congress Party (NCP). Seventeen Sena activists
were arrested, following the attack.
January 27th, 2012
After a year of political unrest following the Arab Spring, Iona Craig reports on the current situation in Yemen.
(more…)
January 23rd, 2012
Three Muslim men have
been convicted of inciting hatred on the grounds of sexuality, in the first conviction of its type in the
UK. Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed were found guilty of breaching
hate crime legislation after handing out a series of leaflets calling for gay people to be killed. The leaflets saying Death Penalty? God Abhors You, and Turn or Burn, were distributed outside a mosque in Derby in 2010, and were also posted through letterboxes nearby. The CPS said it had established that the leaflets were not only insulting and abusive, but also that they had been distributed with intent to stir up hatred.
January 23rd, 2012
Campaign staffers for
Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq
confiscated tapes from the BBC on Saturday. The broadcasters had conducted a 40 minute interview with Shafiq, but the presidential candidate objected to some of the questions he was asked. Staff refused to let BBC reporters leave his house until the tapes had been handed over. According BBC journalist Mahmoud Abou Bakr, Shafiq said he was the only one who could decide whether the interview should be aired, whilst his campaigners insisted on editing out footage which affected their candidate “negatively.”
