"Ordering a police officer to a journalist's home in the middle of the night to demand changes to a story is an attempt at censorship by intimidation," said Executive Director of the First Amendment Coalition Peter Sheer to the Oakland Tribune.
The protesting journalists at Southern Weekend blame Mr. Tuo, a former journalist, for ordering a drastic change in a New Year's editorial that had originally called for greater respect for constitutional rights.
Without specific orders, a journalist who was one of the agency's most important Iranian agents led a crowd toward Parliament, inciting people to set fire to the offices of a newspaper owned by Dr. Mossadegh's foreign minister.
Separately, authorities ordered a Swiss radio journalist to leave Sri Lanka by Monday, after she asked critical questions at a postelection news conference this week, said Andreas Notter, a spokesman for the national broadcaster.
His successor Blackhurst took a different view, suspending the journalist and ordering an internal inquiry headed by Whittam Smith.
On the same tapes, recorded over two years previously, Kuchma is also allegedly heard ordering an official to "deal with" journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
He added that in order for a journalist to be jailed under the new laws he would newly require the authorities to ask him first.
Page A12 PANEL WEIGHS PRESS RIGHTS A federal appeals court panel appeared skeptical about overturning an order protecting a journalist from being forced to identify his sources in the trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency officer.
In January, Egypt's Court of Cassation ordered a retrial for the journalists after reviewing and determining a number of issues with the original hearing, including a lack of evidence.
The highest court in Egypt has ordered a retrial of three television journalists convicted of aiding the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
