His Excellency José Manuel Barroso President of the European Commission European Commission 200 rue de la Loi 1049 Brussels Belgium Fax: (+ 322) 295 01 38 Vienna, 16 June 2005 Your Excellency, The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in over 120 countries, is writing to express […]

According to information before IPI, Nikolay Goshko, the deputy editor-in-chief of Odintsovskaya Nedelya in Smolensk, Russia, was sentenced to five years and one month in a penal colony for defaming three Smolensk city officials in a July 2000 broadcast on the independent station, Radio Vesna. On 27 July 2000, Goshko made statements during a programme on Radio […]

According to information before the International Press Institute (IPI), hundreds of journalists have been arrested and detained this week as protests against the state’s current restrictions on reporting continue. In the most recent development, on 13 June, police in the Kavre district postponed diffusing a bomb in order to intervene in a peaceful protest to […]

According to information provided to IPI, on the evening of 8 June, newspaper distributor Fikre Gudu was arrested at his home. The authorities have given no official explanation for Gudu’s arrest and it is not known whether he has been charged with an offence. Gudu, who is a well-known distributor of large numbers of newspapers […]