New challenges for local and foreign press in Kenya
Kenya has passed peacefully through its election period, but questions still hang over the legitimacy of presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory–as well as over the future of the country’s media coverage. During polling, challenges arose for both local and international media, and they have not subsided. For the foreign press, it is now unclear how…
Egyptian court bans YouTube for one month
The Cairo Administrative Court ordered the government-run National Telecommunication Regulation Authority (NTRA) on February 9, 2013, to ban YouTube for one month after the website failed to remove a video widely considered anti-Islamic, according to news reports. Similar judicial attempts to block websites have been overturned on appeal in the past.
Kuwaiti blogger sentenced for insulting ruler on Twitter
New York, January 9, 2013–A Kuwaiti court sentenced an online journalist to prison on Monday for insulting the ruling family on social media, according to news reports. Ayyad al-Harbi was ordered to begin serving the two-year jail sentence immediately, news reports said.
In China, rebellion grows over Southern Weekly
In the past few days, Chinese journalists and their supporters have launched startlingly direct opposition to Communist Party rule, protesting a heavy-handed move by Guangdong’s provincial propaganda department to unilaterally replace a Southern Weekly editorial on constitutionalism with pro-Party bromides. Defying censors’ directives, media organizations around the country continue to post messages of support of…