14 Sep 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News
Algeria has announced plans for reforming stringent media laws in order to allow for private radio and television stations to operate for the first time since 1962. The cabinet of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika also pledged to stop jailing journalists for libel, and to free those already imprisoned on libel charges. A new commission will be created in order to regulate the press, rather than being under the control of the justice ministry, and the group would also include journalists. Newspapers could still face banning or suspension on the basis of “threatening state security”.
14 Sep 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Egypt’s SCAF announced on Saturday it will enforce the Emergency Law, which allows civilians, including journalists, to be tried in state security courts and detained indefinitely. The announcement came despite the military’s commitment to annul the law by September, a core demand of the revolution. Under the law, security officials would be allowed to take “legal procedures” to suppress acts of “thuggery” and may use “all legal powers to safeguard the country’s security”. Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported that Egyptian police raided the offices of a broadcaster it is affiliated with on Sunday, shutting down their live, round-the-clock broadcasts from Cairo.
14 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Radio Era Baru was on Tuesday forcibly closed by police and frequency monitoring officials. The move comes in spite of the fact that last week’s conviction of its manager on a charge of broadcasting without permission and disrupting neighbouring frequencies is still the subject of an appeal.
13 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
All charges against freelance journalist Elena Bondar in Uzbekistan have been dropped. Bondar was detained at Tashkent airport on 22 August returning from a journalism seminar in Kyrgyzstan, she was told she faced prosecution because she did not declare professional material that was seized from her.
