A Peruvian court sentenced newspaper editor Alejandro Carrascal Carrasco to one year in prison for “aggravated defamation” yesterday, in a verdict that local media freedom experts have slammed as retaliation for the journalist’s critical reporting. The heavy sentence stemmed from a 2004 complaint brought against Carrasco, director of the Bagua-based weekly Nor Oriente, by the former […]

JS Tissainayagam, a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist who was sentenced to twenty years in prison in September last year after he criticised the government’s handling of an offensive against Tamil Tiger militants, has been granted bail pending appeal. An appeals court on Monday ordered the journalist to surrender his passport and pay bail of $500, […]

One year after the murder of former Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, one of Sri Lanka’s most persistent and authoritative critics of both the government and the militant Tamil Tigers (LTTE), none of the perpetrators has yet been brought to justice. “It is one year and no break-through has been made,” Lasantha’s brother and current Chairman of […]

The arrest on 6 January of the editor and publisher of Yemen’s Al-Ayyam newspaper, Hisham Bashraheel, has reinforced concerns that Yemen’s high-profile clampdown on militants is being used as a pretext to further suppress media freedom. Bashraheel was arrested on 6 January, following clashes between police and armed guards of the daily newspaper, in which a policeman […]