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Four years ago, a furious Lucy Kibaki, Kenya’s First Lady, marked World Press Freedom Day by storming the offices of leading independent publisher the Nation Group with her entourage. She was outraged by the group’s portrayal of her dispute with a neighbour and seized phones and laptops in a demonstration of the low respect one powerful figure has for a free press.

The international seven-day festival “Build bridges, not walls” had its grand opening on the 17th of April in the city of Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina. The festival promoted understanding between societal divides through concerts, theatrical performances and seminars.

In honor of World Press Freedom Day May 3, 2009, the South Caucasus Network of Human Rights Defenders expresses its concern about the press freedom situation in Georgia, Republic of Armenia and Republic of Azerbaijan. Bans on independent and opposition media outlets, censorship, and harassment of journalists remain serious concerns in all three countries. In addition, in the Republic of Azerbaijan, unlike Georgia and Republic of Armenia, defamation is a criminal offence.

Another Russian journalist has become the victim of unknown criminals’ violent attack. Several days after the attack, Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor-in-chief of the newspaper ‘Corruption and Crime,’ is still in a coma. While the police has so far refused to register the crime, colleagues of Yaroshenko believe the attack is related to his professional activities.

On World Press Freedom Day, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, right, urge all states to live up to their commitments to protect journalists from political interference and physical threat.

In relation to the forthcoming local elections in the Republic of Croatia, Centre for Peace Studies – Zagreb, CMS, wants to focus attention on cases of threats and violence towards activists on the local level, for their engagement and public action on local subjects and issues. For that purpose, CMS has developed a questionnaire to archive and track cases of violence and threats against human rights activists in the Republic of Croatia.

-We, members of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFJA) in exile all over the world, observe today, 3 May 2009, with highly charged emotions. Thus begins an official EFJA statement issued today, on World Press Freedom Day. -We are very disturbed over the persistent authoritarian and brutal behavior of the government of Meles Zenawi, which succeeded in effectively putting all the financial, material, manpower and institutional services and resources of the state bureaucracy under its monopolistic hold to suppress and finally silence the independent press, the only formal outlet of the people in the country.

The DR Congo is experiencing, in many of its provinces, conflicts or continued ethnic tensions that could erupt at any time. Whether in Kivu, Oriental province (especially in Ituri), the two Kasai provinces, Katanga or Equateur, cultural differences, which are symbols of national wealth, are stirred up and often exacerbated by politicians to satisfy their ambitions.

To mark World Press Freedom Day 2009, Index on Censorship asked a panel of experts what needs to be done to protect the press in the year ahead.