International Press Institute (IPI)

At least three high-ranking Saint Lucian public officials have announced plans to sue a local radio broadcaster for defamation after the broadcaster read on-air an investigative news article alluding to possible wrongdoing by members of the current governing party.

A radio director was killed and a radio employee wounded after a gunman stormed their station in Brazil’s Rodonia state on 12 October 2013. A lack of effective investigations makes it difficult to determine whether crimes against journalists were motivated by their profession or by a different reason.

President Yahya Jammeh’s former press and public relations chief, Fatou Camara, has been charged with sedition for passing state secrets to a journalist. Camara previously worked as a talk show host for the state-run Gambia Radio and Television Services.

Aruba, Curaçao, and Saint Martin should work to bring their defamation legislation in line with international standards, the International Press Institute says. All three Caribbean jurisdictions now hold equal status with the Netherlands as constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

In a second joint appeal, over 60 IFEX members and partners again call for the release of Moroccan journalist Ali Anouzla, after terrorism-related charges were laid against him.

Francesco Gangemi, editor of monthly magazine The Debate, was sentenced to two years in jail over eight libel convictions that he had accumulated in the last seven years. Gangemi is disabled and has cancer, local reports say.

IFEX members appeal to the King to end restrictions on news websites, nearly five months after Jordanian regulators blocked some 300 sites under a new licensing provision of the Press and Publications Law.

IFEX members call on Brazil’s Congress to promptly pass the Marco Civil bill and on President Roussef to ensure its due implementation, as a measure to protect the right of Brazilians to an Internet that is free and open to all.