Watch history made here Update: Full text here Among other things, I liked this bit: 'To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history.'
President Obama
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Index on Censorship
Reporter held by Fatah
Index on Censorship has received a report that Al-Ahram Weekly's correspondent in the West Bank, Khalid Amayreh, was arrested by the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security Service last night following a interview with Al-Quds TV station in...
No facts please, we're British
This is a guest post by Chris Ames So it turns out that another of the government’s claims about Iraq was baseless. As I revealed last week, it cannot prove a claim that former attorney general Lord Goldsmith decided that the war would be legal...
Journalist Baburova dies in hospital
Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasiya Baburova died in hospital yesterday evening after being shot in the head in central Moscow yesterday. Human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov was also killed in the attack. Read more here
Obama: a fresh start
Barack Obama has promised to run the most transparent administration in history. He could make a good start by opening the government’s files on torture, says Jameel Jaffer In 1971, the US Supreme Court held that the government could not lawfully...
Novaya Gazeta reporter shot
Anastasiya Baburova, a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper funded by Alexander Lebedev, was seriously wounded in a shooting incident in Moscow earlier today. Baburova was travelling with lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was killed in...
Writer sentenced for lèse majesté
Sir John Mortimer, 1923 – 2009
Author and barrister Sir John Mortimer died this morning at the age of 85. Sir John was a great champion of free expression, defending many writers and publishers against obscenity charges in the 1970s. In one of his last interviews, he talked to...
Thailand: academic calls for campaign to abolish lèse majesté
Political scientist Ji Ungpakorn, a professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University and a prominent activist, has called for a campaign to abolish the country’s lèse majesté law. The academic has been charged with insulting the monarchy over a book...
China: CCTV charged with propaganda
In an open letter posted on Chinese-language website Boxun.com, a group of more than 20 Chinese lawyers, writers, and intellectuals accuse state television CCTV of misleading its audience with propaganda and call for viewers to boycott its...
The high art of lowdown slander
Harassment of reporters such as Sihem Bensedrine (right) shows that Tunisia leads the way in suppression of free expression, writes Rohan Jayasekera There's an old proverb that ‘a lie can get halfway round the world before the truth has got its...
BBC Persian TV launches
The BBC’s Persian TV service goes on air today. At the press launch last week, Nigel Chapman of the World Service said the hope was that the BBC’s combined Persian service (TV, radio and web) would attract an audience of 20 million. Currently, the...