Bulgaria’s media grants over-exposure to those in power, and the industry seems to quickly adapt to a new political situation, says Georgi Kantchev. The country has measures put in place to distinguish editorial content from political advertisements for broadcast media, but not for the press.

Several assailants beat two reporters covering an opposition protest outside Ukrainian Interior Ministry headquarters in Kiev on Saturday in view of police officers who failed to intervene, according to local and international press reports.

The U.S. government has searched a Fox News reporter’s private communications on the ground that his use of flattery to obtain information from a State Department source made him a co-conspirator to espionage.

Tunisian activist Amina Tyler was arrested on Sunday (19 May), after allegedly attempting to stage a topless protest in the central Tunisian city of Kairouan.

Reports say that officials from the Ministry of the Interior tortured blogger and activist Rashad Ramazanov (a.k.a. Hagigat Agaadin) during a custodial interrogation. Police claim to have had found 9 grams of heroin on the blogger when he was detained on 9 May.

The body of Mohammad Hassin Hashemi, an employee of local radio Nadjhrab in Afghanistan's Kapisa Valley, was found near his home 18 days after he disappeared.

Pakistani authorities are urged to dismiss separate complaints filed against newspapers and journalists in Baluchistan for publishing statements made by banned militant groups.

The conference opens with an overview of Southeast Asia – and a chance to hear from some key regional freedom of expression defenders – and closes with a concert Thursday night featuring the band Cambodian Space Project. We've included a variety of themes and formats, so you can tailor your experience to your priorities and interests. Many sessions will be offered more than once to accommodate as many languages and participants as possible so please make sure to check the agenda for the time and language(s) that works best for you.

IFEX’s strategy conference brings together free expression advocates from around the globe to network, exchange skills, forge new alliances, learn first-hand about priority issues in the region, and identify new ways to work together.

Security agencies restricted the entry and exit into the premises of two print publications on 20 May 2013, and later took two radio stations off the air. The security personnel told some of the employees that a court order had declared their offices to be a "scene of crime".

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies published its fifth annual report in which it evaluates the state of human rights in post-revolutionary countries as well as in some Arab states less affected by the uprisings.

There is widespread buy-in for restraints on the power of security forces in the Arab world, but little recognition among citizens that free speech and independent civil society are the bulwarks of freedom from tyranny.

Two unidentified assailants stabbed to death three employees of a Bengali-language Indian daily in Agartala, India; police said they believed contract killers were used in the attack, but have not yet identified a motive.

In a report released by IPI today, the lack of free movement for journalists emerges as the single greatest challenge to local reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

One year after access to information law 12.527/2011 was adopted, a new study conducted by ARTICLE 19 reveals that only 44% of public bodies respond satisfactorily to information requests from individuals and non-governmental organisations.

Samson Folarin, a reporter for The Punch newspaper, was assaulted and detained by police officers after trying to photograph a brawl between a police officer and a commercial tricycle operator. Police also seized Folarin's reporting equipment.

The International Partnership Group for Azerbaijan strongly condemns a series of repressive legislative amendments that Azerbaijan’s National Assembly adopted on 14 May 2013. The existing penalties for criminal defamation and insult have been extended to online content and public demonstrations.

A politician and his aides mauled and attempted to shoot members of a television crew covering an alleged vote-buying incident on the eve of the Philippine midterm elections.

Once the Islamic republic’s biggest cultural event, the Tehran International Book Fair – now in its 26th year — has wilted under President Mahmood Ahmadinejad’s hardline government.

Nineteen regional and international human rights organisations call on the Syrian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release and drop all charges against Mazen Darwish and two of his colleagues from the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).