Lawmakers in the Bosnian Serb-dominated part of Bosnia and Herzegovina passedamendments to the region's Criminal Code on Thursday that reinstate insult and defamation and foresee harsh punishments. Critics say the move will seriously jeopardize freedom of speech and silence critics.

United Kingdom authorities agreed to take a crucial step in cracking down on affluent elites’ exploitation of the legal system in order to silence investigative journalists and campaigners.

The National Assembly of Republika Srpska (RS), one of two Bosnia and Herzegovina’s semi-autonomous regions, passed Thursday a draft law that introduces defamation and insult into the RS Criminal Code.

A court in the authoritarian West African nation of Togo sentenced on Wednesday two investigative journalists to three years in prison after they discussed on YouTube the alleged involvement of two ministers in corruption.

The South African High Court ruled Tuesday that NJ Ayuk, one of Equatorial Guinea’s most influential lawyers, did indeed issue defamatory remarks towards OCCRP and journalist Delfin Mocache Massoko with the intent to cause harm.

New data published byUNESCO highlights what it calls an increased abuse of the judicial system to attack journalists and undermine freedom of expression around the world.

In a historic move, the European Commission issued a Directive designed to better protect public watchdogs from abusive court proceedings often initiated by those with money and power.

The Committee to Protect Journalists urged Pakistan to immediately revoke a law that increases the prison term for defamation on social media from three to five years, arguing that it further criminalizes freedom of expression in the country.

A Nigerien court postponed on Monday the appeal trial of journalist Moussa Aksar, who was in May convicted in a defamation case following his FinCEN Files investigation into military procurement fraud.

Angolan authorities should drop criminal defamation charges against anti-corruption journalists Coque Mukuta and Escrivão José and stop trying to silence those who are exposing corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement on Thursday.

Lebanon’s authorities are employing defamation laws to silence journalists, activists, and other critics of their policies and corruption, as the country’s anti-government protests entered the fifth week,Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Friday.

In its newly-released 2018 code of ethics, FIFA, the world governing body for football, has scrubbed the word “corruption” from the text, put a time limit on prosecuting bribery, and introduced a new charge of “defamation.”