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Amnesty International is urging the Greek author
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Amnesty International is calling on the Serbian
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Amnesty International is calling on French law-m
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Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about the impact on press freedom of a proposed Media Industry Development Decree that the military government unveiled yesterday, regarding it as an authoritarian imposition by a regime with no democratic legitimacy.
The press freedom organisation urges Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama to carry out proper consultations on the draft decree, which is unacceptable in its present form.
“Nowhere is press freedom mentioned in this proposed decree, which appears to be designed to enable the military government to tighten its grip on the media – control of media ownership, control of content and control of the dissemination of news within the country,” Reporters Without Borders said.
“The three-day consultation period is also much too short and...
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Reporters Without Borders calls for the withdrawal of all charges against journalist Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of Prachatai.com website, who is facing up to 50 years in prison under the computer crimes and lèse majesté laws for failing to remove comments from her site with sufficient speed. Posted by visitors, the comments are deemed to have insulted the monarchy.
Arrested and charged on 31 March, Chiranuch was released after three and a half hours when her sister stood guarantee for the 300,000 bahts (6,000 euros) in bail demanded by the judicial authorities.
“Once again, the lèse majesté and computer crimes laws are being used politically to control and intimidate people with dissenting views,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Amid the current political tension, the Thai...
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A Kuwait City court today sentenced leading writer and journalist Mohammed Abdel Qader Al-Jassem to six months in prison on a charge of slandering Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, for saying in public gatherings that he was incapable of running the country and calling for his resignation.
Al-Jassem was released on payment of 5,000 dinars (13,000 euros) in bail pending the outcome of an appeal. The court had begun hearing the prime minister's lawsuit on 4 March, before adjourning the case until today. “This is clearly a political verdict,” Al-Jassem told Reporters Without Borders after today's hearing.
Al-Jassem is currently the target of no fewer than five lawsuits by the prime minister and information minister. As a result of one of the prime minister's suits, a...
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Amid a wave of harassment of independent journalists, the authorities have seized tens of thousands of copies of two publications in the eastern city of Vitebsk, in an outrageous development that reverses all of the relative progress made in 2009.
Activists who help with the printing said police confiscated 24,000 copies of the monthly magazine Nash Dom and 10,000 copies of the weekly Vitebsky Kuryer on 25 March. A court ordered their seizure and fined their publisher, Viktar Ramnyu, 1,225,000 roubles (309 euros) for publishing them without naming the company that printed them.
Police previously confiscated 50,000 copies of Nash Dom on 17 March. In all, they have seized nearly half of the copies produced for distribution throughout the country. Nash Dom has no legal status as the...
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Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned by a resolution condemning “defamation of religions” which the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted on 25 March. It was submitted by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
“Under the pretext of trying to reconcile freedom of expression and religious freedom, some member states are establishing a mechanism with the sole aim of forbidding criticism of religions, above all Islam,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This is a dangerous process that needs to be stopped. Respect for freedom of expression is as fundamental as respect for religious freedom. One cannot exist without the other.
“Caricature, artistic freedom, the right of opinion and all other spheres of intellectual activity that constitute...
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Reporters Without Borders joins the Thai Journalists Association and the Thai Broadcasting Journalists Association in condemning grenade attacks on two Bangkok TV stations on the night of 27 March. It is vital that the different political groups abstain from taking revenge on media that do not support their cause, as happened during the violence at the end of 2008.
“This new political crisis is making it harder for certain news media to function properly,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Even if state-owned media opt for pro-governmental editorial polices, that does not in any way justify this kind of violence. The political tension must not be allowed to affect media freedom. If the authorities and opposition get into this appalling habit, the press freedom situation in Thailand will...
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Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the latest sentence to be passed on Haci Bogatekin, an independent journalist based in Gerger, in the southeastern province of Adiyaman. The owner and publisher of the Gerger Firat biweekly and editor of the Gergerfirat.net website, Bogatekin was sentenced by a provincial court on 2 March to five years, one month and seven days in prison.
“This is just the latest stage in the judicial system's harassment of Bogatekin,” Reporters Without Borders said. It is the fourth time he has been convicted by an Adiyaman court and he is still being prosecuted by the local authorities in other cases. The sentences he has received now total 10 years, eight months and 14 days in jail.
The disproportionate sentences permitted by the Turkish criminal code for “...
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