International Press Institute (IPI)

IPI calls on the newly elected prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda to keep to his promise and repeal criminal defamation within the first three months of his administration.

Violence at Gezi Park anniversary protests in Turkey points to the fact that freedom of expression is still under threat one year after anti-government protest swept through the country.

Turkish media reported last week that prosecutors were seeking 26 to 52 years behind bars for daily Taraf journalist Mehmet Baransu and Managing Editor Murat Sevki Coban for publishing classified documents from a 2004 National Security Council meeting.

Almost a year after Ecuador’s Organic Communications Law was passed, many journalists say that the law has hindered press freedom on numerous occasions.

“If you speak your mind, or exercise a right to freedom of speech, you get killed. You get tortured. There’s no law to protect Syrians,” said Leila Nachawati, the editor of Syria Untold.

Investigative TV journalist Mark Bassant was forced to flee Trinidad after learning that someone had ordered a hit on him in early May. Bassant had been reporting on the murder of a high-profile attorney.

All independent television and radio broadcasts in Thailand, including transmissions from foreign stations such as the BBC, Fox and CNN, have been suspended since the military coup, replaced by a military-run TV and radio broadcast that has been playing throughout the country.

IPI’s General Assembly meeting in Cape Town on April 14 unanimously urged Zuma to submit the Protection of State Information Bill, also known as the “secrecy bill”, to the court for a ruling on its constitutionality.