8 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Journalist Gorka Ramos was among the four demonstrators arrested for public disorder last Friday when armed riot police clashed with anti-austerity demonstrators in Madrid. A video of Ramos, who works for Spanish news site La Información, shows him being addressed by the police while he was tweeting the events, he was subsequently beaten. La Información reports that 13 protesters were treated for injuries and that Ramos is being held in a Madrid jail, unable to speak to his family or employer. According to the police, Ramos was arrested for insulting and spitting on them.
8 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Adão Tiago, an Angolan radio journalist for Radio Ecclesia, has been arrested for reporting on an outbreak of mass fainting. The faintings, involving more than 500 school children since April, have been linked, in some report, to criminals allegedly spraying institutions with gas. The Angolan government has rejected this claim, blaming hysteria triggered by “sensational news reporting” instead. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Radio Ecclesia operates under “intense government pressure and self-censorship”.
5 Aug 2011 | Americas, Mexico
The recent murders of three journalists have spread fear throughout the small community of night police reporters in the coastal city of Veracruz, southern Mexico. All three victims worked for Notiver, a tabloid known for its lurid crime reporting. The latest murder, of journalist Yolanda Ordaz, created such collective fear that several journalists from both Notiver and other news outlets have fled the region in fear for their lives.
Causing outrage at Notiver, a statement from local authorities denied Ordaz’s murder was related to her work, claiming instead that there were indications her killing was connected to organised crime in the area.
Notiver itself has also received criticism. Media critic Marco Lara Klhar commented thatin continuing to publish lurid violent pictures and deriding local citizens such newspapers were putting their journalists at risk. He also lamented the government’s claim of the murders being connected to organised crime, predicting that the killings will remain unsolved.
Mexico remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters, with seven journalists being killed in 2011 alone.
5 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
The Ivorian government has suspended a newspaper for twelve days over an opinion piece that criticised a recent White House meeting with African leaders. The column in Les Temps newspaper — which supported former president Laurent Gbagbo — was originally published online by a blogger critical of President Ouattara. It called Obama a “gang boss”, while describing an alleged conspiracy among the recently elected leaders of Benin, Niger, Guinea, and Ivory Coast to seize Africa’s riches. In its ruling, the state-run National Press Council called the writings “unacceptable”. The council previously suspended Le Temps for six editions over an 11 June column by reporter Germain Sehoué that claimed the Ouattara government was dominated ethnic groups from the North. The council suspended Sehoué from writing for two months, accusing him of “inciting tribal hatred and revolt” and “threatening the consolidation of peace in Ivory Coast.”
