The decision not to air the last episode of Du Jour au Lendermain and recent budget cuts have critics up in arms over changes to the cultural arm of France Radio. Valeria Costa-Kostritsky reports
CATEGORY: Europe and Central Asia

Index Awards 2014: Catching up with arts nominee Meltem Arikan
The Turkish playwright and author has finished the script of a new play, “Sheep Republic”, about oppression and how easily it is accepted

Germany: Are online user comments protected by press freedom laws?
A local newspaper in the western German city of Darmstadt is at the centre of a legal case that will measure whether readers’ comments are protected by Germany’s press freedom laws. Catherine Stupp reports

Has Ireland reintroduced criminal libel?
An Irish court has created a precedent where damage to a person’s reputation could lead to criminal sanction — and no one seems to have noticed, writes Padraig Reidy

Right to be forgotten: A poor ruling, clumsily implemented
In practice, the Court of Justice of the European Union’s ruling on the “right to be forgotten” was far too blunt, far too broad brush, and gave far too much power to the search engines to be effective.

A message for politicians: Don’t complain when reporters report
The narrative of evil newspaper versus innocent, naive, poor little politician is self-pitying and self-defeating, writes Padraig Reidy
Ukraine: No peace plan without accountability for human rights
President Petro Poroshenko 11 Bankova street 01220 Kyiv Ukraine 26 June 2014 Mr President, We, the undersigned members and partners of the Human Rights House Network (HRHN), condemned in the strongest terms human rights violations which took place...

Padraig Reidy: Ilham Aliyev’s nonexistent connection with reality
In an authoritarian society, with power utterly concentrated to the leader and his cadre, there is no such thing as an isolated failure. As a result, every aspect of life must be spun.
Blunt instruments: Media repression in the Ukraine crisis
The sentencing of journalists for doing their jobs in Egypt has prompted an international outcry. But what happens when journalists are prevented from doing their jobs freely? Nicholas Williams reports

Egypt’s Al Jazeera verdict: London journalists stand together in silent protest
The usually bustling entrance of the New Broadcasting House was silent and still for one minute this morning in protest at the sentencing of three Al Jazeera journalists to seven years in Egyptian prison