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We rejoice at the liberation of Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan. But we still wonder what it would have been like had any of the reportedly numerous attempts to liberate them succeeded. Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali ...
World
Taoufik Ben Brik, one of Tunisian President Ben Ali's most prominent critics, is paying a heavy price for his dissent and courage to confront the de facto dictatorship that rules his country. Ben Brik (above) was arrested and accused of trumped up charges —including assaulting a woman in ...
World
The the Maldives on Monday, Nov. 23, gave 90 percent of the world's nations a lesson to follow. The Maldives Coat of Arms The small archipelago on the Indian Ocean, just south of the Indian Peninsula, decriminalized defamation laws, a crucial step toward full democracy that only 10 ...
World
Maldives
This is a brilliant idea advocated by Africa's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, Pansy Tlakula , as part of her annual report to the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR). Rapporteur Tlakula brought up an issue of critical importance to ...
World
United Nations
And the court that summarily gave him the harshest sentence allowed by the law even refused to provide a copy of the sentence to him or his wife, reports The Washington Post. (AP photo) Huang Qi (above), an activist who has denounced shoddy construction in thousands of buildings that ...
World
China
The World Press Freedom Committee sent a letter to the leaders of the Argentine Congress congratulating them for the final passage of the reform decriminalizing defamation offenses. This final approval took many years of efforts and resources on the part of the international press freedom ...
World
Argentina
The Argentina Senate last night passed a reform that is welcomed but arrives many years late. After the Chamber of Deputies approved it last month, the Senate finally passed the reform of the Criminal Code decriminalizing defamation laws. The bill, submitted by the executive power, reforms ...
World
Argentina
And he was very forceful testifying that he was framed by government agents who successfully pressed concocted assault and other grave charges that could cost him a five-year prison sentence. Taoufik Ben Brik (above) is paying a high price so far for being one of the most vocal critics of ...
World
Bud Day
France
Omar Mestiri, director of private station Radio Kalima and leader of Tunisia's independent journalism, was assaulted, abducted and, after several hours in detention, released in Tunis. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) issued a stern condemnation of the criminal treatment ...
World
Tunisia
As in "Free Internet," a concept as foreign to the Chinese leadership as the president of the United States himself. President Obama conducts a town hall meeting at Shanghai's Museum of Science & Technology (EPA Photo) During a town hall meeting with students in Shanghai, he took ...
World
China
Barack Obama
United States
After a long campaign by the international press freedom forces, the British government today abolished the offenses of seditious libel (insult) and decriminalized defamation laws. Even though these statutes were left dormant in the British books, they still had the power to infuse a chilling ...
World
The latest show of repression by state forces in Azerbaijan leaves no doubt that both journalists and bloggers exercise their right to express themselves freely at their own risk. Emin Abdullayev (left) and Adnan Hajizade The victims this time around are bloggers and youth activists ...
World
Azerbaijan
The threats by Rupert Murdoch against Google and other Internet search indexes are not falling on deaf ears, at least on the news publishers' corner of this intense debate. The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) is organizing its 62nd World Newspaper Congress under the theme, "What do we do ...
World
India
The jousting between media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and the world's most popular website is heating up, with Google News telling the head of the News Corp. a resounding "as you wish." (EPA photo) In recent days Murdoch (above), the head of the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, Fox ...
World
The Iranian regime keeps toying with press freedom like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Iranian riot police charge on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tehran on Nov. 4 (EPA photo) The Tehran bosses decided to free three foreign and one Iranian journalists who were arrested during ...
World
Iran
That headline seems to come straight out of a sci-fi movie. What can you say when a control-obsessed regime measures the level of Internet interaction of any given citizen? And what if the number of citizens reaches 1.3 billion? The whole thing makes you wonder whether you still are in Kansas ...
World
China
Another brave Mexican journalist has fallen victim of the rampage violence that is relentlessly punishing that country. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that El Tiempo de Durango's reporter Bladimir Antuna García was abducted and murdered on Monday in the city of Durango. ...
World
Try to find one single manufactured item in your household that is not made in China. Hard, isn't it? Well, there is one more export that China is trying to flood the international market with: censorship. The BBC reports about how the telescopic tentacles of China's censorship apparatus are ...
World
China
Our friends at IFEX's Tunisia Monitor Group inform us that a court in Tunisia has charged dissident journalist Taoufik Ben Brik with outrageous crimes and put him in prison. The group reports that the trumped-up charges include "damaging other people's property," "violation of public morality ...
World
Tunisia
In a historic decision , the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the use of non-Latin characters from start to finish. ICANN will launch its new International Domain Fast Track Process on Nov. 16, allowing countries and territories from throughout the ...
