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Press Freedom News and Views

Police patrol the streets of the capital, Maputo. (Reuters/Grant Lee Neuenburg)

This week's deadly unrest in Mozambique became a global news story in part because reporters and citizen journalists used new media and social networking tools. Clashes between security forces and people protesting rising prices in the capital, Maputo, left at least seven people dead and more than 200 people injured, according to the latest news reports

Colombian authorities seize a Los Paisas weapons cache in August 2009. (Reuter/Fredy Amariles) My chance encounter last year with Los Paisas, a criminal gang that operates in northern Colombia, began a nightmare that continues today. I was heading to an assignment in a tourist area south of Montería on July 9, 2009, when Los Paisas gang members blocked my car. The gang was meeting with local landowners nearby--and journalists were not welcome.

CPJ had urged King Abdullah II to reconsider online restrictions. (Reuters/Ali Jarekji)

Jordanian journalists succeeded this week in turning back some of the most repressive aspects of a new law on cyber crimes. The initial version of the law, approved by the cabinet of ministers on August 3, included broad restrictions on material deemed by the state to be defamatory or to involve national security. It also allowed law enforcement officials to conduct warrantless searches of online outlets. Facing domestic protests and international pressure from CPJ and others, the cabinet revised the measure on Sunday.

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We're pleased to launch CPJ's official Facebook page in Spanish, CPJ en Español. We hope to engage our followers throughout Latin America in an ongoing conversation about press freedom challenges in the region.

A Blackberry logo is prominently displayed in Ahmadabad, India. (AP)

The discussions between Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, and governments such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and India continue to hit the headlines. In each case, disagreements center on providing customer communications to security and law enforcement services. The rumblings from these nations over monitoring powers aren't just limited to RIM: India has announced its intention to put the same pressure on Google (for Gmail), and Skype (for its IM and telephony services).

The Right2Know campaign opposes the government's secrecy bill. (Ghalib Galant)

Cape Town's St George's Cathedral, a rallying point for civil rights action during apartheid, was the site of the public launch on Tuesday of a mass campaign aimed at stopping a secrecy bill seen as a major threat to South Africans' hard-won freedom.

Clarín, seen here, is locked in a media war with Argentina's president. (AP)
A grave accusation by the administration of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner against Argentina's two leading newspapers, Clarín and La Nación, has prompted claims that the government is attempting to control the press, and stirred up a heated debate on the state of freedom of expression in the country. The administration is alleging that the papers colluded with a military regime more than three decades ago to force the sale of a newsprint supplier.

On Tuesday, Kirchner presented the findings of a government report titled "Papel Prensa: The Truth," a 400-page investigation on the history and economic activities of the newsprint manufacturer, according to local and international news reports. 
Journalists at the Monitor cheer the court's ruling to strike down sedition. (Monitor)
With surprise and relief, Ugandan journalists, who routinely face the police's "media crimes" unit, welcomed a partial victory for press freedom on Wednesday. The country's constitutional court had ruled that criminal sedition was unconstitutional. Even so, there was a consensus that more legal press battles lie ahead.  
Goudarzi (CHRR)

The National Press Club has announced the recipients of the 2010 John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award, which is given each year to individuals who have contributed to the cause of press freedom and open government. This year, the international recipient is Iranian blogger Kouhyar Goudarzi, who is being held in Tehran's Evin Prison--notorious for its torture of detainees. CPJ wrote earlier this month about a hunger strike in Evin in which several political prisoners, including at least five journalists, protested their inhumane treatment. Goudarzi was one of the protesters. Arrested in December 2009, Goudzari, a former editor of Committee of Human Rights Reporters, has been charged with heresy, propagating against the regime, and participating in illegal gatherings.

With another journalist murdered in Honduras on Tuesday, bringing the total killed since March to eight, the country's press is understandably jittery. In a new documentary jointly produced by the Inter-American Press Association and the Video Journalism Movement, Carlos Mauricio Flores, the executive director of Tegucigalpa-based El Heraldo newspaper says, "We journalists are living in uncertainty and fear."

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