Gerardo Jarquin Diaz, mayor of the small town of San Pedro Totolapan and member of the PRI (The Institutional Revolutionary Party), was arrested for killing one supporter of the rival political group PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) and...
Fiji: Legislation cements the media censorship
New laws enacted in Fiji permit the state to seize broadcasting equipment, documents, force journalists to reveal their sources and fine media organisations up to $100,000. The media industry development decree enacted on 28 June also requires...
Ecuador: Media legislation threatens to curtail expression
The Ecuadorian government commissioned a series of television adverts which accuse the private media of distorting the truth. Local reports claim that President Rafael Correa was deliberately portraying the private media in a negative light in...
Sudan: Separatist paper shut ahead of independence poll
Opposition newspaper Al Intibaha, was "suspended indefinitely" on Tuesday 6 July, according to the Sudanese Media Centre. The move comes ahead of January’s referendum on whether the north and south regions of Sudan should become independent states....
CNN Middle East editor sacked over tweet
CNN sacked their Middle East editor, Octavia Nasr on July 7, after she expressed her admiration for the late Lebanese Cleric Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on Twittter. On hearing of Ayatollah Fadlallah’s death on Sunday, Nasr tweeted...
China: Author threatened with imprisonment
Best-selling author Yu Jie has been taken into custody and threatened with imprisonment over his plans to publish a book critical of Premier Wen Jiabao. Jie says he was detained by security officers and told that he would face a substantial jail...
Cuban intellectual expelled from Communist party
Cuban authorities have expelled prominent intellectual Esteban Morales from the Communist party after he alleged senior party members were corrupt. Writing on the Cuban National Artists and Writers Union’s website, Morales claimed that party...
Tibetan environmentalists jailed by China
Three prominent environmentalists have been jailed by the Chinese authorities amidst allegations of torture, judicial bias and harassment. Karma Sandrup, one of Tibet's wealthiest businessmen, who used the profits of his antiques business to fund...
Belarus: Demonstrators attack new online legislation
Sir Tom Stoppard grills Belarusian ambassador over the Lukashenko government’s poor record on free speech
Pakistan: Police assault cameraman
A cameraman has been attacked and beaten by police in Pakistan, after filming violent clashes during a protest in Lahore. According to colleagues Farrukh Asif, who works for the Urdu language station Express News, was approached by police officers...
Rwanda: Editor murdered outside his house
Jean Leonard Rugambage, the acting editor of independent newspaper Umuvugizi, was shot dead outside his home in Kigali on 24 June. Local authorities recently suspended the paper but it continued to publish online. Exiled chief editor Jean Bosco...
Google adopt “new approach” in Chinese censorship battle
Google is to adopt a ‘new approach’ in China after officials threatened to revoke its Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence. In January, the internet giant declared that it would no longer censor search engine results as required by Chinese law...