[Update from the AP: The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, has now waived the flogging sentence, 'the second such pardoning of such a high profile case by the monarch in recent years'. Full article at this link...]

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released a statement condemning the sentence of 60 lashes passed by a judge in Jeddah, on journalist Rozanna al-Yami, ‘because she worked for the Lebanese Broadcast Corporation (LBC), a satellite TV station that shocked conservative Saudis last July by broadcasting an interview with a Saudi man talking openly about his sex life’.

It is understood that the judge dropped the charges that she had directly worked on the programme, but imposed a sentence nonetheless.

RSF release at this link…

More from the Associated Press at this link.

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A sobering Where’s Wally style cartoon on the front of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) homepage, asking:

A reminder of the ‘Press Freedom Barometer 2009′:

• 26 journalists killed

• 0 media assistants killed

• 177 journalists imprisoned

• 10 media assistants imprisoned

• 82 cyberdissidents imprisoned

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Disappointing (if somewhat predicted) news from Doha’s Centre for Media Freedom: founder of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and director-general of the centre, Robert Menard, has left with his team (heads of the assistance, research and communications departments), according to a release from the organisation.

“For several months we have made an independent voice heard, one that has exposed violence with concern for nothing but the truth. We have helped more than 250 endangered journalists and media all over the world, and I think we can be proud of that,” said Menard in the statement.

“But some Qatari officials never wanted an independent Centre, free to speak out without concern for politics or diplomacy, free to criticise even Qatar. How can we have any credibility if we keep quiet about problems in the country that is our host? Now the Centre has been suffocated. We no longer have either the freedom or the resources to do our work. This cannot go on. I was willing to make any necessary compromises as long as the foundations of our work – assistance grants, statements of opinion – were safeguarded. But that is no longer the case.”

The Financial Times reported last month on clashes between Menard and Qatari officials.

In his departing statement, Menard criticised the local authorities for hampering the centre’s efforts. He claimed that staff from the centre were being prevented from leaving the country and that payment of the centre’s budget, scheduled for April 1, had been repeatedly delayed.

“Sheikh Hamad refused to sign administrative documents that would have enabled the Centre to take in journalists under threat in their own countries, as originally planned. His office told us recently that giving shelter to journalists from countries such as Iran might go against Qatar’s diplomatic interests. This confirmed that the Centre’s independence was, in his eyes, a myth,” said Menard.

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In December 2008, Journalism.co.uk launched a new Dipity Timeline to track international media and we watched it attract a considerable amount of interest. The idea is to bring together international journalism news and comment, focusing on issues which affect journalists’ freedom of speech. We’ve played around with it a bit and re-launched the timeline (so please make sure you update your bookmarks).

• Twitter: now, as well as following the timeline, you can now follow @press_freedom on Twitter to get all the same updates you would find through the timeline.

• News updates: by following @press_freedom, you will be able to keep up with Journalism.co.uk news and blog items related to media freedom and ethics, as well as links through to the main stories from Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Frontline Club Blog, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists.

• Conversation: it would be great to get some conversation going too through Twitter and perhaps via the International Journalists group on Wired Journalists. We’re also experimenting with a Publish2 ‘International Journalists’ group – if you’re a user of Publish2, please do join and we’ll see where it takes us.

It would be interesting to see if we (media and journalism reporters) could collaboratively track a breaking press freedom news story some point in the future, as the journalists did with the floods in Washington.

Please contact Judith (@jtownend on Twitter) or Laura (@lauraoliver on Twitter) at Journalism.co.uk with ideas for how to improve the service, or with suggestions for your own involvement.

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A court in Nazran, the old capital of the Russian republic of Ingushetia, has declared the arrest of opposition website owner, Magomed Yevloyev, as illegal, according to the Yevloyev family lawyer Mussa Pliyev.

Yevloyev, the owner of Ingush Independent news website Ingushetiyra.ru, was shot dead in police custody on August 31 2008.

The court’s declaration was reported on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

“This is a first step towards recognising the political nature of the behaviour of the Ingush security forces in this case. We hope that a thorough and impartial investigation will soon be carried out into the exact circumstances of Yevloyev’s death,” said the RSF statement.

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