Press Releases

“While the City focuses on little piece of land, Occupy is concerned with creating a more just society”. We publish here a Press Release from Occupy London. Ronan McNern, supporter of Occupy London commented: “This is a positive result for Occupy London. Today the Corporation was trying to push for an unreasonable timeframe for court proceedings.”

Reporters Without Borders expresses its grave concern over parliament’s approval yesterday of the first reading of a bill toughening Israel’s libel laws, despite strong objections from Israeli journalists. The bill, provides for a steep rise in the amount of damages payable for articles judged to be defamatory.

“Another Iraq is Possible with Peace and Human Rights,”
agree 250 representatives of civil society organizations who met October 8-9 in Erbil, Iraq.

A final declaration from their work together has been just released in Arabic, French, Italian,
and English and lays out a vision for social activists working to promote national sovereignty
of Iraqi people.

“Zuccotti Park is not Tiananmen Square,” said Scott Stringer, the Borough of Manhattan’s Democratic Party president, criticizing the way the New York police manhandled reporters and kept them at a distance as they evicted Occupy Wall Street protesters from their camp in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park in the early hours of yesterday.

Reporters Without Borders is astonished to learn that Marco Joel Álvarez Barahona, also known as El Unicornio” (The Unicorn), was acquitted by a court in the northern city of La Ceiba on 31 October of being the main perpetrator of last year’s murder of radio journalist David Meza Montesinos.

Reporters Without Borders shares the concern that the Chilean Union of Photographers and Cameramen has expressed about the possibility of more violence against media personnel by the security forces, especially the carabinero militarized police, during the large protests that are expected to take place today and tomorrow in response to calls from the student movement.

Press Release 16/10/11: Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser defends people’s right to protest and addresses the crowd before morning service at St Paul’s cathedral. The Canon calls on the police to leave the occupation at St Paul’s. OccupyLSX reports that 250 people camped overnight, despite initial police use of force, maintaining a calm and engaging occupation.

Between 4000 – 5000 people gather in London’s Square Mile to voice their anger at the social and economic inequality in the UK and beyond, OccupyLSX holds first people’s assembly this afternoon to decide future plans for its occupation, People’s assemblies spring up near St Paul’s despite police refusing to allow protesters onto Paternoster Square [the LSX location]

The often violent response to the Occupy Wall Street campaign that is growing in the United States and elsewhere is affecting the freedom to inform. Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrests of reporters in recent weeks, especially in New York where the police assume the right to decide who are journalists.

The broadcasts of TV and radio stations owned by Norte Visión Satelital, a media company based in the northern city of Salta, have been seriously disrupted by the deliberate destruction of an antenna by persons unknown on 3 October. Other regional broadcast media have been affected by this act of sabotage, the fourth against the company since the start of the year.