Press Freedom News

VIVA, one of Madagascar's national television stations, has been ordered by the Minister of Telecommunications to stop broadcasting: Following VIVA television station's 8 o clock news broadcast of a recording of a talk by the former president Didier Ratsiraka, now a refugee in France, a talk which may disturb public order and security, the television station is prohibited from broadcasting.

The draft of an amended media law would be finalised by January 2009 for submission to the Cabinet for ratification, said Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, head of the Federal National Council's Committee of Education, Youth, Culture and Media.

The draft law is a revision of the Press and Publications federal law of 1980.

Dr Al Qubaisi declined to disclose details of the amendments being proposed by the FNC in its current session.

The draft law states that there shall not be prior censorship of any media outlets in the country. It incorporates the previous directives of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to prohibit the imprisonment of journalists, resorting instead to fines when there are violations of public law. The draft law states that the owners of all newspapers and their editors-in-chief should be UAE nationals, who do not have a crime record.

In cases of emergencies (or other instances decided by the cabinet) newspapers and other media outlets, will be obligated to publish all information sent to them by government agencies.

All journalists will be invited to attend the FNC's discussion of the new draft law in its upcoming term.

Workers in the media see the decision of Shaikh Mohammad to prohibit the imprisonment of journalists as a step in the right direction for the future of media in the country.

Blogs should not be censored as long as bloggers are responsible in their writing, said former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He said this when answering a question from the public at a book signing session.

Bloggers should make fair comments in their articles and not undermine others, he said after signing copies of his illustrated biography titled Mahathir Mohamad: An illustrated biography and a book based on his blog titled Chedet.com - Blogging to Unblock.

As long as you don't threaten to kill people in your blog, there shouldn't be any censorship, he added.

Several Iranian news sites such as Amir Kabir [fa], a student site, reported Omid Reza MirSyafi, Iranian blogger and journalist, was sentenced to 36 months prison.

He was accused of insulting Iranian religious leaders and doing propaganda against Islamic Republic.

Kyrgyz authorities said today that Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL's popular Kyrgyz-language service, will not be restored to the airwaves unless its programs are submitted to the government for prior approval.

Melis Eshimkanov, the head of Kyrgyzstan's state-controlled radio and TV broadcaster, said the programs are too negative and too critical of the government and claimed that powerful Kyrgyz figures are behind the decision to keep Radio Azattyk off the air.

RFE/RL President Jeffrey Gedmin said the move may force Radio Azattyk to put its broadcasts exclusively on shortwave frequencies for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union: Frankly, we expected more from a country trying to prove its reformist credentials in the region,.

Until October 8, Azattyk's TV and radio programs were heard and seen by nearly half the Kyrgyz population. Azattyk broadcast three hours of radio programming each day and produced two weekly prime-time television news shows, Inconvenient Questions and the youth-oriented Azattyk Plus.

Reporters Without Borders deplores the latest cases of the Sri Lanka government censorship of international and local news media.

In the past few days, the BBC World Service has been jammed by the state-owned Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC) and one of the country's most outspoken newspapers, the Sunday Leader, has been forbidden to refer to the president's brother.

We are worried by the increase in direct and indirect censorship in Sri Lanka, Reporters Without Borders said. Coming after a broadcast media bill reintroducing news censorship, the selective blocking of BBC and Sunday Leader reports is disturbing. The authorities must accept the free flow of news even when it contradicts what officials are saying and irritates certain politicians.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the censorship of parts of the BBC's Sinhala service on 10 December and 27 November. On 10 December, the authorities jammed a report about protests by politicians in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu who objected to being called jokers by the Sri Lankan army chief.

On 27 November, reports on a speech by the leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels and a press conference by representatives of the Defence Watch website were rendered inaudible by the SLBC, which is contractually obliged to retransmit the BBC's Tamil and Sinhala programmes every day.

The SLBC has, since August, been broadcasting a programme immediately after the BBC programming to give the official Sri Lankan government take on what the BBC's journalists have just reported.

On 5 December, a judge ordered Leader Publications, the publisher of the Sunday Leader, not to print during two weeks any report whatsoever about the president's brother, defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who personally went to the court to accuse the press group of publishing slanderous reports about him. He is demanding 1 billion rupees (7 million euros) in damages.

Four journalists and rights activists from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Tunisia were prevented by their governments from travelling to Beirut to attend a regional forum on Arab press freedom.

Over 160 journalists, bloggers, publishers, editors and press freedom advocates came together for the first session of the two-day Third Annual Free Press Forum in Beirut.

This year's gathering, which was organized by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

The four participants invited to speak at the forum had been prevented from attending by the authorities in their respective countries, WAN CEO Timothy Balding said.

They included Tunisian journalist Litfi Hidouri and human rights lawyer and writer Mohamed Abbou and Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan, who was recently released from prison and has been forbidden to leave Saudi Arabia. For a second time, the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, Mazen Darwish, was also prevented from attending the forum.

WAN has vigorously protested these incidents, Balding said in his opening speech.

Those in the Arab world who dared to investigate government failures or wrongdoings, challenge untenable policies and call for reforms, or express dissenting opinions face charges of criminal defamation, blasphemy or endangering national security and are regularly sentenced to large fines and imprisonment.

In the meantime, we can at least thank the authorities of Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Syria for this eloquent and timely demonstration of their contempt for, and fear of, free expression, as we open this forum. The hostility toward independent and opposition media and critical voices continues to rise and the repression against these voices can be ruthless.

This week's edition of the Economist magazine has been banned in Thailand for articles critical of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, bookstore staff said, although it was unclear who ordered the ban.

Neither the police, Foreign Ministry nor Culture Ministry - home to the official censor - said they knew of a formal ban on the magazine, which acknowledged in the article that many Thais would 'squirm' at its breaching of the taboo on discussion of the king's role in politics.

Free speech activist CJ Hinke, who runs Freedom Against Censorship Thailand, said the most likely explanation was distributors deciding themselves not to sell the edition, which questioned the palace's official position above politics.

This is one of those 'cultural harmony' bans, where the book distributors and stores take it on themselves not to distribute, Hinke said.

The government's concern, as usual, is all about saving face. Thais do not want their dirty laundry aired in foreign languages overseas. They don't want foreigners discussing Thai issues and Thai problems, he said.

The two articles in question remained freely available via Thai Internet servers four days after first being posted.

Update: Official Complaint

13th December 2008. See article from nationmultimedia.com

Ministry spokesman Director General Tharit Charungvat has sent a letter to the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, expressing his concern and disappointment over the contents of two articles, A right royal mess and The king and them published in the 6-12 December 2008 issue.

In the letter, Tharit also pointed out and clarified the inaccuracies in the articles and calling for measures to rectify the situation.

Tharit concludes: By neglecting facts and simple logics like these, your articles blatantly make wrongful accusations regarding the Thai King and inexcusably offend Thais. They deserve our protest in strongest terms.

A court in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region has sentenced a freelance journalist to six months in prison and a fine for writing an article about gay sex, a penalty that media groups say violates the law and underscores the lack of press freedom in Kurdistan.

The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, groups that monitor press freedom across the world, are among the international organizations demanding the release of Adel Hussein, who was arrested Nov. 24 in the Kurdish city of Irbil.

Hussein, whose article appeared in Hawlati in April 2007, is the second Kurdish journalist to land in prison in the past month. On Nov. 8, the editor in chief of the Hawal newspaper, Shwan Dawoody, was given a month in jail and a fine for a series of stories his paper ran that were critical of the judiciary in Sulaymaniya, which is part of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region.

The court that sentenced Hussein, who is a doctor specializing in sexual and reproductive diseases, said he had violated public custom by writing about health issues related to gay sex. Hussein's story was scientific, not prurient, and did not encourage homosexual behavior.

Sudan's intelligence chief says state censorship will not be lifted under pressure.

Sudanese journalists recently held demonstrations protesting state censorship of media.

But the head of Sudan's intelligence, Salah Gosh,  was quoted in most Khartoum-based newspapers as blaming irresponsible journalists for the censorship. He says they have failed to protect national interests.

Channel 4 News has blocked internet users in China and Zimbabwe from accessing its news reports online for fear of reprisals against those involved in their investigations.

Tim Lambon, the assistant foreign editor of Channel 4 News, told delegates at News Xchange 2008 in Valencia that the broadcaster had adopted self-censorship online to safeguard those involved in its films from persecution and also, in other investigations, to protect itself legally.

During a Q&A session looking into investigative journalism across the globe, Lambon said the broadcaster had blocked servers in countries where there was deemed to be a significant risk of reprisals against local people involved in making Channel 4 News reports.

That is not a foolproof way of doing it, because there are embassies that can record these things and them pass them on. I know that a number of our clients, including CNN and NBC, have been quite annoyed with us when we have put restrictions on whether they can run [online] broadcasts of those pieces, those very strong pieces.

He said his employer, ITN, which supplies Channel 4 News, took active steps to assess the danger faced by those involved in its productions and that the measures it took could even be detrimental to the stories it pursued as it looked to first safeguard those involved: There is self-censorship because you could endanger people if you put it up on the net, if you broadcast it internationally. In terms of taking care of the people that are involved certainly British broadcasting, I think, has a very responsible attitude.

The Russian-language edition of Newsweek magazine has been warned for allegedly insulting Muslims, Moscow prosecutors said.

The magazine published two stories that could be insulting or humiliating to Muslims, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office said, adding that an article also included one of the 2005 Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The magazine published the stories on Muslims in the European Union in late October.

Russian prosecutors will aggressively monitor how media outlets report the financial crisis, authorities said.

The Prosecutor General's office ordered news organizations to be responsible when reporting on financial institutions and not to spread panic, saying inspections may be carried out. No further details were given.

Reports on the Russian stock market's fall or the decline of the ruble have been all but absent on state-run television. Most TV stations are run by the government or private companies loyal to the Kremlin.

Vladimir Varfolomeyev, a top editor at Ekho Moskvy radio, wrote recently that the Kremlin sent an order to all broadcasters banning the words collapse and crisis.

As part of a growing protest against state censorship ten Sudanese newspapers suspended publication on Tuesday, journalists said.

Sudanese reporters said it was the biggest voluntary shut down of the media since the days of British rule in the 1950s.

The protest came a day after 63 journalists and newspaper staff were detained for more than three hours by police after staging a rally outside Sudan's parliament.

This is a real step forward, said Faisal Mohamed Saleh, a columnist for Al-Akhbar newspaper: In the past a few partisan newspapers have staged protests. But most of the people who are taking part today are journalists from independent newspapers.

The 10 papers were planning to shut-down again on Wednesday if other publications agreed to join in, said Saleh.

Journalists complain of nightly visits from security officers who instruct editors to remove sensitive articles from the next day's edition.

China's propaganda officials are experimenting with a revolutionary new policy to manage their message in the age of the internet: reporting the news as it happens.

The move marks an important shift for the ruling Communist Party, which is accustomed to deciding what will be reported and when.

However, far from being a move towards freedom of the press, the aim is to maintain control of the information available to China's 1.3 billion people.

The order came straight from the desk of China's propaganda chief, Li Changchun, one of the nine members of the all-powerful Politburo standing committee.

Let us use the method of providing news as the way to control news, a well-placed source quoted Li as saying in his recently issued directive.

The source said that the propaganda chief had indicated that the new approach to news would reduce wild gossip, particularly on the internet, where rumours and speculation are rife and wildly inaccurate reports gain credence in the absence of an official version, given the low credibility of state-run media.

Li's directive is intended to keep the news in party hands by ensuring the news agenda is set by propaganda organisations rather than investigative reporters.

Police in Sudan have arrested more than 60 journalists during a protest against media censorship, witnesses say.

Riot police armed with canes and shields rounded up the journalists outside parliament and took them to a police station, witnesses say.

Those detained have subsequently been released, officials say.

Demonstrators said they had been protesting against a press crackdown under way despite guarantees of media freedom in a 2005 peace deal.

Those arrested included senior editorial staff and a number of women, witnesses said.

Murtada el-Ghali, editor in chief of the Ajras al-Hurriya newspaper, told AFP news agency that police had taken mobile phones and money from some of those arrested.

There have been weeks of protests against media censorship in Sudan led by Ajras al-Hurriya and two other papers. Editors say that newspapers are now subject to nightly checks by the security forces who routinely remove articles they do not approve of.

China has said it would crack down on 'fake' journalists, a category that appears to include many freelance journalists.

The General Administration of Press and Publications issued a circular asking journalists to register for press cards in order to prove their legal identities to their interviewees. People who forged press cards would be severely punished, it said.

Media organizations should improve their journalists' ethics and skills, and prevent them from seeking money or other advantage for favours, the agency said. The circular banned paid journalism, emphasized the importance of credible reporting and directed journalists not to distort the truth or disseminate false information.

Iran has closed down a prominent reformist weekly which has often criticised the policies of conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran's Press Supervisory Board have sent a letter to the Shahrvand-e Emrouz (Today's Citizen) weekly formally informing it of the decision.

It was banned because of content which was contrary to the previous commitments of the publisher, Kargozaran said, without giving specific details.

Since 2000, the Press Supervisory Board and Iranian courts have closed some 100 publications, condemning many as pawns of the West and accusing them of trying to undermine Iran's system of clerical rule.

The semi-official Fars News Agency said Shahrvand-e Emrouz had 'misrepresented' some of the government's actions.

The Sudanese authorities banned Saturday the publication of two daily newspapers after a three day strike to protest against press censorship and journalists arrest.

The National Security Service barred Ajras Al-Huriya and Ray Al-Shab newspapers from publishing on Saturday because they didn't inform the security apparatus of the strike.

They told us 'you didn't inform us about your strike and... we're taking the measure of stopping you for one day', said Murtada Al-Ghali, the editor in chief of Ajras Al-Hurriya.to sanction sanctioned two daily newspapers that were in a three day strike to

On Tuesday November 4, Sudanese journalists began a 24-hour hunger strike and the Ajras Al-Hurriya, Al-Maidan and Rayal Al-Shab newspapers halted production for three days, saying they could no longer accept government restrictions over editorial content.

Ajras al-Huriya whose name means Freedom Bells in English, had failed to appear more than 20 times since its April 7 launch owing to censors. The daily is closely linked to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the main partner of the National Congress Party and the ruling party in southern Sudan.

In what lawyers described as a landmark ruling, a court in Malaysia ordered the release of one of the country's best-known bloggers, ruling that the government acted beyond its authority in invoking a threat to national security.

Raja Petra Kamarudin, who was arrested September 12 and detained without trial, was expected to be released later Friday.

Lawyers have long complained that Malaysia's mildly authoritarian government uses the Internal Security Act as a tool against the opposition. The act allows for indefinite detention without trial. Raja Petra, one of the most vocal critics of the current government, was detained for comments posted on his Web site that the government said insulted Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad. He was also accused of posting articles that defamed the country's leaders and incited hatred against the government.

The court ruled that these were not sufficient grounds for detention under the Internal Security Act. The government can appeal the decision but the judge, Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad, ordered that Raja Petra be released without delay.

Tommy Thomas, a prominent Malaysian human rights lawyer, estimates that more than 20,000 people have been detained under the act.

Update: Exile

26th April 2009. See article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

Popular Malaysian blogger and editor of the Malaysia Today website, Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK), failed to attend his sedition trial on April 23, 2009. As a result, the Sessions Court in Petaling Jaya issued a warrant of arrest against RPK. News reports state that Sessions Judge, Rozina Ayob, issued the order after prosecutor, DPP Shahidani Abd Aziz, applied for the warrant due to his absence. DPP Shahidani was reported to have said that the prosecution had no choice but to get the order to proceed with the trial.

On his website Kamarudin said that he had gone into  exile over a family dispute arising from comments about the Perak royal family

Two Sudanese daily newspapers said that they would suspend publication for three days and that their journalists would go on a 24-hour hunger strike to protest state censorship.

The journalists said they were resisting a mounting crackdown on freedom of expression ahead of elections expected next year.

Salah Kajam, publisher of the independent Ajras al-Hurria, said state agents regularly removed articles critical of the government and reports of violence in Darfur, among other things.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned an Egyption court's recent decision to fine Nader Gohar, the head of the Cairo News Company (CNC), LE 150,000 after his company broadcast images of rioters tearing down portraits of President Hosni Mubarak in April.

The court's decision is a death warrant to CNC, RSF said in a press statement. The Egyptian authorities are not even trying to hide their desire to censor independent media and control the news.

The Egyptian Television and Radio union (ERTU) had filed a complaint against Gohar for airing footage of riots in the Delta region showing citizens protesting high prices and attacking President Mubarak's pictures. The footage dates back to April 6.

Following the complaint, the Egyptian police forces raided CNC's office confiscating several pieces of equipment, accusing him of working without required licenses and permits.

The video recording was later aired by channels such as Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and France 2.

The case is not legitimate as the sole reason behind it is the footage that shows the citizens stepping on President Mubarak's picture, Gamal Eid, head of the Arabic network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) who is also part of Gohar's defense team told Daily News Egypt: Security forces wanted a scapegoat to show the president that they got who's responsible.

According to Eid, ANHRI will appeal the case soon.

It is not economic prosperity but peace that guarantees press freedom. That is the main lesson to be drawn from the world press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders compiles every year and from the 2008 edition, released today. Another conclusion from the index - in which the bottom three rungs are again occupied by the “infernal trio” of Turkmenistan (171st), North Korea (172nd) and Eritrea (173rd) - is that the international community's conduct towards authoritarian regimes such as Cuba (169th) and China (167th) is not effective enough to yield results.

Two aspects stand out in the index, which covers the 12 months to 1 September 2008. One is Europe's preeminence. Aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries.

Bringing up the rear are the dictatorships - some disguised, some not - where dissidents and pro-reform journalists manage to open cracks in the walls that enclose them. The year of the Olympics in the new Asian power, China (167th), was the year that Hu Jia and many other dissidents and journalists were jailed. But it also provided opportunities to those liberal media that are trying gradually to free themselves of the country's still pervasive police control. Being a journalist in Beijing or Shanghai - or in Iran (166th), Uzbekistan (162nd) and Zimbabwe (151st) - is a high risk exercise involving endless frustration and constant police and judicial harassment. In Burma (170th), run by a xenophobic and inflexible junta, journalists and intellectuals, even foreign ones, have for years been viewed as enemies by the regime, and they pay the price.

Finally, North Korea and Turkmenistan are unchanging hells in which the population is cut off from the world and is subjected to propaganda worthy of a bygone age. And in Eritrea (173rd), which has come last for the second year running, President Issaias Afeworki and his small clan of paranoid nationalists continue to run Africa's youngest country like a vast open prison.

Countries in bold are those mentioned on Melon Farmers most often

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Tunisian government's decision to seize the latest issue of an opposition newspaper and to summon an independent editor to appear before a public prosecutor.

The Interior Ministry seized the October 22 issue of Mouatinoun, the weekly newspaper of the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties party, for publishing unlawful allegations, said Tunisian state-controlled papers. The case has been handed to the public prosecutor, state media reported.

Mustapha Ben Jaafar, editor of Mouatinoun, said the seizure was tied to an opinion piece by Neziha Rejiba, editor of the news Web site Kalima. In her piece, Rejiba accused the Tunisian government of being behind the recent destruction of Kalima'sWeb site. She wrote that the government gave instructions to hit our Web site because it is a regime of corsairs and highway men.

Rejiba, one of the country's most critical journalists, has been summoned to appear before the Tunis public prosecutor on Monday. The appearance could be a precursor to criminal charges. Under Article 49 of the press law, Rejiba could face up to three years in prison and a fine for publishing false news.

A US-based Nigerian news blogger is being held without charge by Nigeria's secret service.

Jonathan Elendu was taken into custody on Saturday when he arrived in the capital, Abuja, on a family visit.

Elendureports.com is one of a number of diaspora-run citizen reporting websites about Nigeria and is known for publishing controversial stories.

The State Security Service (SSS) said he was being investigated for "acts of sedition", but refused to give details.

Elendureports.com operates from Lansing in Michigan and publishes often controversial stories about Nigerian politicians, accusing some of them of corruption and other crimes. Their stories are often based on anonymous sources.

Another US-based Nigerian news website, Saharareporters.com, quotes anonymous sources as saying Mr Elendu may have been arrested because of photographs it published a few months ago showing President Umaru Yar'Adua's son.

The Saharareporters.com pictures, which caused a stir in the local media at the time, showed 13-year-old Musa Yar'Adua waving wads of money around and holding a policeman's gun.

Update: Released

13th November 2008. Based on article from pbs.org

Late on Thursday, October 29, reports began to appear that Elendu had been released and was receiving medical treatment. While this is excellent news for him and his family, the actions of the SSS and the Nigerian government are not what one would expect from a so-called democracy.

Beijing has furiously denounced the award of a major European Union human rights prize to a "criminal" Chinese dissident as a major Europe-Asia summit on the financial crisis begins in China.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has denounced the European Parliament for giving the prestigious Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia, an imprisoned human rights activist.

We express strong dissatisfaction at the decision to issue such an award to a jailed criminal in China, in disregard of our repeated representations, said a foreign ministry spokesman: This is gross interference in China's domestic affairs.

Hu received a three and half year jail sentence last April for subversion, becoming China's best-known human rights campaigner for his work highlighting government abuses, environmental degradation and the plight of China's HIV-Aids sufferers.

Hans-Gert Poettering, the president of the European Parliament, made it clear on Thursday that the prize sent out a signal of clear support to all those who defend human rights in China. Hu Jia is one of the real defenders of human rights, he said.

The Rangoon-based humour magazine, Pyaw Pyaw Shwin Shwin had to postpone publication of its October issue as the censor board rejected one-fourth of its contents.

They cannot publish in time as the censorship on this month's issue is too heavy. Most of the censored sections are from poems and stories. They are likely to suspend publishing for about two months, a person close to the magazine said. But the magazine refused to release any news regarding the censorship for fear of retaliation.

The censor board, popularly known as Literary Kempetai named after the Japanese military intelligence during World War 2 in Burma, did not give any reason for the censorship. But media sources speculated that the authorities censored the contents because they did not understand what the poems meant. To justify their decision, the censor board said the poems were not in accordance with the government's guidelines.

Similarly, many poems from this month's issue of Kalyar, Cherry, Myanmar Thit, Mahaythi and other magazines were also rejected.

Many poems were censored this month. Only four poems appeared in this month's issue of Kalyar. Only five poems were passed by the censor board out of a total of 11 submitted by Mahaythi, while only two poems appeared in Myanmarthit. Earlier, at least seven poems used to appear in these monthly magazines, a writer from one of the magazines said.

An Afghan appeal court yesterday overturned a death sentence for a journalism student accused of blasphemy and instead sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

A three-judge panel jailed 24-year-old Parwez Kambakhsh after a day of arguments between the student's defence lawyer and state witnesses.

Kambakhsh was studying journalism at Balkh University in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and writing for a local newspaper when he was arrested in October 2007.

Prosecutors alleged that Kambakhsh disrupted classes by asking questions about women's rights under Islam. They also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the internet that asks why Islam does not modernise to give women equal rights. He also allegedly scribbled his own comments on the paper.

A lower court sentenced him to death in a trial critics have called flawed in part because Kambakhsh had no lawyer representing him.

The head of Tuesday's panel, Abdul Salaam Qazizada, struck down the lower court's death penalty but said the decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Egyptian court's decision to levy steep fines against an editor and reporter for an independent weekly that published a satirical piece about a prominent cleric.

A criminal court ordered El-Fegr editor Adel Hammouda and writer Mohamed al-Baz to pay fines of 80,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,341) apiece on charges that they had defamed Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed al-Tantawi.

The court also ordered al-Baz to pay 5,000 Egyptian pounds ($897) directly to al-Tantawi. Al-Tantawi is the sheikh of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, one of the most prominent educational institutions in the Arab world.

Defense lawyer Nashaat Agha described the size of the fine as unprecedented in press cases. This is a negative message to newspapers, Agha said, noting that he would appeal.

This verdict sends a chilling message to Egyptian journalists that criticism of religious institutions is off-limits, said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. Satirical journalism is a vital component of a healthy democracy. We urge the courts to overturn this conviction on appeal.

The case dates to March 2007 when the newspaper published a satirical piece claiming the sheikh was planning to visit the Vatican. The piece was accompanied by a picture depicting al-Tantawi in papal garb, according to news reports.

Nguyen Viet Chien, a reporter for the Vietnamese daily newspaper Thanh Nien who broke major stories on high-level government corruption in 2006, was sentenced today to two years in prison after being found guilty of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, according to news reports.

Nguyen Van Hai, a reporter with the daily Tuoi Tre, pleaded guilty to the same charge and received a non-custodial, two-year re-education sentence. The Hanoi People's Court also convicted two police officers who had provided information to the press related to the graft scandal. Lt. Col. Dinh Van Huynh was given a one-year sentence for deliberately revealing state secrets. Pham Xuan Quac, a now retired general who headed the government's corruption inquiry, was given an official reprimand.

The sentences handed down today to journalists Nguyen Viet Chien and Nguyen Van Hai are shameful, said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator: By uncovering a major government corruption scandal, these journalists have performed a public service. The court's decision is unfair and vindictive.

The jailing of Raja Petra Kamarudin, a self-described risk-taker who has led Malaysia's lively blogging culture, has come to symbolize the government's new assault on Internet expression. On September 12, police raided Raja Petra's residence, seized documents, and arrested the popular blogger under the draconian Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial.

Two weeks later, Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar ordered the detention extended for two years on charges that Raja Petra published seditious and anti-Islamic articles on his blog, Malaysia Today. The government, signaling a wider crackdown on dissent, detained a newspaper journalist and an opposition politician the same day.

...Read full article

A local newspaper editor said he was being held by southern Sudanese authorities for publishing an article critical of corruption in the semi-autonomous, post-conflict region.

Nhial Bol, editor of The Citizen, said police arrested him on Friday for a story printed October 7, which lay corruption accusations against the ministry of legal affairs and constitutional development in southern Sudan.

This should be a civil case, but I have been told I will be held for three days without bail, Bol told AFP.

Sudan has tightened restrictions on local media in recent months, demanding that newspapers based in the south move their head offices to Khartoum.

Newspaper censorship is practiced daily. In Khartoum, the powerful security apparatus inspects newspaper editions nightly, while editors who refuse to remove articles deemed offensive risk a ban on their publications.

Update: Ajras Al Hurriya Newspaper Censored

31st October 2008. Based on article from allafrica.com

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) condemns outright the removal of seven proofs from Ajras Al Hurriya" newspaper by an intelligence officer responsible for proof censorship. The incident took place on 23 October 2008. This action so outraged the newspaper that it suspended its circulation for the day as a protest against the blatant censorship.

The proofs addressed the issues of abducted Chinese citizens and the crisis in Darfur, and criticized the Sudanese president's statement excluding some Sudanese tribes from holding citizenship, amongst other controversial views.

Tunisian bloggers are rallying for a National Day for Freedom of Blogging on November 4. The day will coincide with a court hearing for a lawsuit filed by the journalist and blogger Zied El Heni against the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI).

It all started when Tunisian internet surfers welcomed with happiness the repeal of a ban placed on video sharing sites YouTube and Dailymotion. Many Tunisian bloggers celebrated this repeal of the ban by posting videos of songs downloaded from those two video websites on their blogs. But their happiness was cut short as the repeal did not last more than 24 hours. The repeal of the ban, which had been welcomed with such enthusiasm, was actually just an accident and a mistake.

Meanwhile, journalist and blogger El Heni is suing the ATI for the censorship of Facebook, which had lasted for 16 days. The trial will take place on November 4 and as a sign of solidarity with his action, a group of bloggers decided that this date will henceforth be baptized as a national day for blogging freedom.

To support the initiative, Facebook user Bassem Bouguerra created a Facebook group entitled: November 4th: A National Day for Blogging Freedom.  Members on the Facebook group are exchanging ideas about the best methods to overcome censorship and limits on freedom of expression.

Update: Robbed

15th April 2009. See article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

The house of the Tunisian journalist and blogger Zied el-Heni has been raided last night (April 10, 2009). In a blog post published today, Zied wrote that his laptop and CDs which contain all his work have been robbed.

Internet users in Kazakhstan have complained of censorship after being unable to access the popular blogging service Livejournal.

Associates of Rakhat Aliyev, the former son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev who fell out with the veteran leader last year, started their own blog on Livejournal in June which often contains critical comments about the government.

This is outrageous. They used to shut down papers and television channels, now they are shutting down the internet, a Livejournal blogger wrote in a posting.

Modern Egypt has been compared to a surrealist painting: difficult to decipher and comprehend, dominated by dark, abrasive lines at the centre yet giving way to softer, more hopeful brush strokes at the periphery.

The big news has been the presidential pardon of the controversial editor and outspoken regime critic Ibrahim Eissa, who sits at the helm of al-Dostour newspaper. This phenomenally popular daily has been a constant thorn in the government's side since it reopened in 2005 – seven years after being shut down for publishing an Islamist statement. In August last year, as whispers regarding Hosni Mubarak's health swirled through the streets, Eissa had the mendacity to write:

The president in Egypt is a god and gods don't get sick. Thus, President Mubarak, those surrounding him, and the hypocrites hide his illness and leave the country prey to rumours. It is not a serious illness. It's just old age. But the Egyptian people are entitled to know if the president is down with something as minor as the flu.

In an Orwellian doublespeak world where the president declares his belief in press freedom to be "unshakeable" and promises that no journalist will go to jail for doing their job, that paragraph was enough to land Eissa in court, where he was accused of single-handedly undermining international confidence in Egypt's stability and wiping $350m off the stock market.

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Syria is blocking distribution of the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, the paper's Beirut bureau chief Zuhair Qusaybati told AFP.

The censorship authorities at the information ministry in Damascus asked Al-Hayat's bureau in the Syrian capital on Monday to stop sending its issues to the country until further notice, Qusaybati told AFP.

The daily is published in London and printed in a number of Arab capitals including Beirut, Cairo, and Riyadh.

In Syria, its distribution has long been subject to advance censorship and a number of issues have been withheld from newsstands because of their contents.

The ban on Al-Hayat's distribution in Syria came hot on the heels of a bomb blast which killed 17 people in Damascus on Saturday, the deadliest attack in the Syrian capital in more than a decade. The Syrian official media have since repeatedly complained that the Saudi authorities did not condemn the bombing more vocally.

The publishing license of two Rangoon based weekly journals has been suspended by the Press Scrutiny Board (Censor Board) because of supposed violation of its policy and regulations.

The censor board suspended publishing of True News for two months and The Action Times for a month respectively.

The Action Times published every Monday was suspended for one month after the news of the release of Win Tin from prison appeared. It mentioned him as Sayagyi (Great Master) Win Tin, contrary to the permitted copy by the censor board.

In the draft copy passed by the censor board, it simply said 'U Win Tin'. However, it appeared in the journal as 'Sayagyi U Win Tin'. The journal was banned for this, an editor of a weekly journal said on condition of anonymity.

Similarly, in the True News weekly journal, a photograph of a child labour in a construction site appeared on the front page with the caption, A child working in a construction site near Phuket seaside resort, Thailand. The publication of the journal was suspended for two months.

The censor board had permitted this photograph but it was without a caption when submitted. The caption was written before publishing. So they banned publication on account of 'inadequate page layout design, an editor said on condition of anonymity.