A trend continues: in January of this year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered yet another ruling against Portugal in a case involving a journalist sued for defamation. On this occasion, the journalist in question was José Manuel Fernandes, publisher of the online news site Observador. In 2010, the Lisbon Court of Appeal […]

Recent developments in Egypt, including the sentencing of two well-known journalists to prison and claims by supporters that a group of journalists condemned to life imprisonment were being held in inhumane conditions pending appeal, mark a further deterioration in media freedom, the International Press Institute (IPI) said today. In a press release last Wednesday, the […]

Portugal needs to urgently update its defamation laws to meet international standards and the demands of modern democratic society, a report released today by the International Press Institute (IPI) concludes. Defamation and insult remain criminal offences in Portugal punishable by up to two years behind bars despite the fact that a number of international human rights […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday vowed that a journalist would “pay a high price” for reporting on the country’s role in sending weapons to Syrian areas under Islamist rebel control, the latest in an alarming series of attacks by Erdogan and his supporters on critical media ahead of a June 7 parliamentary election. […]