Peru frees journalist jailed for defamation
New York, October 31, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release on Saturday of Peruvian journalist Paul Segundo Garay Ramírez, a television and radio news show host who had been imprisoned for more than six months. Citing flawed evidence, the Supreme Court on Friday overturned Garay’s conviction on charges of defaming a prosecutor in…
Colombian editor given suspended prison term
New York, October 13, 2011–A court in Cundinamarca state handed Luis Agustín González, founder and editor of Colombian monthly newspaper Cundinamarca Democrática, a 20-month suspended sentence and a fine of approximately US$5,500 on charges of criminal libel, news reports said today. The sentence stemmed from an editorial González wrote in 2008 that questioned the candidacy of…
Angolan editor given one-year suspended prison term
New York, October 12, 2011–An Angolan judge handed a suspended prison term and a fine to the editor of an independent newspaper on Monday in connection with stories that alleged corruption and abuse of power by five senior officials close to President José Eduardo Dos Santos, according to news reports and local journalists. Judge Manuel Pereira…
CPJ concerned by politicized trial in Oman
Your Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to bring to your attention reports of an unfair trial of two Omani journalists and a civil servant sentenced to imprisonment on defamation charges. We ask you, in your capacity as head of the Supreme Judicial Council, to instruct the judicial authorities to respect the letter of the law and allow the defendants an opportunity to prove their innocence. This case will be appealed on October 15, and we hope the verdict against the newspaper and the three men will be reversed. We are also alarmed by the October 9 royal decree that amends an article in the Press and Publications Law, further tightening government control over the media, and urge you to consider the negative effect the amendment will have on independent media in Oman.
In Ecuador, CPJ highlights press freedom decline
The turning point in President Rafael Correa’s aggressive campaign against the private media, Ecuadoran journalists say, came in July with the criminal defamation convictions of four managers of the Guayaquil-based daily El Universo. Bad went to worse when the paper’s former opinion editor and three of its executives were sentenced to jail and fined, along…
Rwandan paper calls president a ‘sociopath’, apologizes
Sometimes when a paper produces a defamatory piece, an apology will be published on page two in the next edition along with the day’s news. In Rwanda, it would appear, a paper will use an entire edition to apologize–if the insults were directed at the president. The latest issue of Ishema, at left, is perhaps a…