Reporters Borders Quotes (38 Quotes)

The judicial authorities are imposing a grim ordeal on three journalists under pressure from the governor of an unstable state. The Nigerian press is still in the grip of harsh legislation, a brutal police force and authoritarian governors. On this New Year's Eve, we call for their release and we reiterate our commitment to the independent press and, in particular, to the three Port Harcourt prisoners who are exposed to dangerous challenges.

History is repeating itself because the calls for military protection for the state media were not heeded. Cte d'Ivoire's state media have again fallen into the hands of the proponents of violence, and no time should be lost in taking energetic measures. The installations of RTI and RCI should be made secure or, failing that, they should be taken off the air.

The Canadian government is following the bad example set by the U. S. administration if it thinks it can hide the facts from the population. Respect for the grief of the families is of course necessary, but it should not be used as a pretext that is tantamount to censorship.

If nothing is done to ensure the press is free to do its work, these elections will take place in a climate of intimidation. If the government wants the world to say the elections were free, fair and transparent, it should heed our call for a change in attitude. The Media Centre recently set up to monitor and punish the foreign press is utterly illegitimate and should be disbanded.

The firm Yahoo says it simply responds to requests from the authorities for data without ever knowing what it will be used for. But this argument no longer holds water. Yahoo certainly knew it was helping to arrest political dissidents and journalists, not just ordinary criminals.

At an earlier hearing he had been handed down a sentence, since cancelled, of 30 years imprisonment on exactly the same charge.

This murder once again shows that journalists pay a very high price to report in Iraq. It is absolutely appalling that insurgents use this kind of barbaric violence against people whose job is just to observe and report, and who just carry a notebook and pen.

We are very concerned at the accusations against them and the harsh sentence proposed. The circumstances of their arrest are very confused and do not clearly establish their guilt. The legal authorities must make every effort to determine the origin of the firebombs, the only evidence against them. The judge has hastily declared the matter secret and is blocking all openness.

The current serious crisis in Sri Lanka in no way justifies the impunity prevailing in the murders of journalists and human rights activists.

Journalists are continuing to pay the price for the appalling situation in Iraq three years after the start of the war. We yet again call on the Iraqi authorities to carry out thorough investigations into these killings in order to quickly establish the circumstances.

The judicial system must guarantee journalists the right to protect their sources so that they can work freely. The government must include journalists in the list of professions that enjoy the right to professional secrecy under the law.

These arrests are intended to gag dissent and to sow a climate of terror in the country. The independent journalists should be immediately released.

Thai journalists need to work without interference in this period of political crisis.

We condemn the closure of a newspaper, which has only carried out its role of informing the public by dealing with a subject that is high on the news agenda around the world.

All the world's leaders are subject to parody and the Australian prime minister should learn to live with it rather than banning it.

This degree of violence is completely unacceptable from a parliamentarian, but all the more so when he is the vice-president of a commission that is supposed to promote dialogue with the indigenous communities.

The supreme court stirred up trouble with its recent decision supporting a government ordinance cracking down hard on the press, and it is now time for the Nepalese judicial system to put itself at the forefront of the struggle to ensure respect for the constitution and civil liberties.

Thirty to forty thousand people lost their lives in this terrible dirty war. We salute the memory of all those - politicians, social workers, trade unionists, civil society activists and ordinary citizens - who were considered subversive by the military regime and who were said to have disappeared'.

This trial is a disgrace for press freedom and unworthy of a democratic state. Turkey cannot sentence journalists to prison terms because they comment in their columns on judicial decisions.

We deplore the arbitrary nature of this arrest of a young independent journalist who was just doing his job and who is being accused without any evidence of belonging to an extremist group. It will be an outrage if he gets a long prison sentence just for reporting something that displeases the Uzbek authorities.

Once again, the daily Epoch Times is the target of vandalism in very disturbing circumstances.

This imprisonment is shameful for a country like Poland, which has just joined the European Union and which is the sole member state to impose prison sentences on journalists for offences of opinion.

Journalism is based on a code of conduct and professional ethics that clearly exclude telephone espionage but the concept of express permission of the parties could be used unfairly against the media if, for example, a source later retracts.

The charges of high treason and genocide are extremely grave as regards the journalists. We call on the Ethiopian government to show the utmost transparency in these cases. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi should not try to defuse the criticism against him at the expense of the freedom or lives of citizens.

The list of detained journalists is getting longer. The Gambian government does what it likes, without any pretense of legality. How far will it be able to go before it has to face a real protest from the member states of the African Union, whose next summit Gambia is supposed to host

It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government's abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate.

The appeal court did, it is true, reduce the amount of damages awarded by the lower court but it is still exorbitant and more than five times the maximum damages mentioned in the press code for defamation cases.

As a matter of principle, the media should never be subject to constraint by the police or the courts, even when limited to a criminal investigation.

We call on the authorities and the security forces to stop all violence against journalists, who are currently finding it impossible to work.

We regret that the government turned a deaf ear to the many calls for the release of this respected journalist. At least, after 15 months of detention, Zhao is going to be able to defend himself in court against the baseless charges brought against him by the Chinese authorities. We hope, at the very least, that the trial will be fair and that foreign observers and the press will be able to attend.

These comments come under the heading of freedom of expression and we consider that you cannot condemn someone simply on the basis of their statements.

It is not our job to question a news media's internal decision to fire an employee, but if the management fails to defend one if its journalists when she is the target of threats and then fires her as a result of external political pressure, it speaks volumes about its concept of press freedom.

Does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations How far will it go to please Beijing

In the Zhao Yan and Ching Cheong cases, the authorities, and in particular the State Security Department, seem to be having the greatest difficulty in demonstrating the guilt of the accused.

After managing to resolve an impasse in the food insecurity situation, the United Nations should take the issue of civil and political liberties seriously and, right now, should at the very least insist on VOP being allowed to resume broadcasting freely and should demand the immediate release of its three journalists.

We fear this 'obstruction of justice' procedure is a judicial device for the government to yet again settle some scores with the privately-owned media and at the same time subject them to state censorship.

The security services should not be obstructing the work of the independent and opposition media in this fashion, as it is contrary to the pledges which the government gave in its recent road map to democracy.

Any prison sentence for an offence of opinion is unacceptable, even in cases of insult or defamation.