2005-2014

The fourth session of the mass trial of more than 100 opposition figures, including journalists, took place in Tehran today. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed dismay at procedural irregularities and the fact that the trial is only open to state-owned media. In the aftermath of the country's disputed June 12 presidential election, Iranian authorities have expelled foreign...

Four journalists from Uganda's largest independent newspaper are facing criminal prosecutions, joining four others already charged since 2007, according to local journalists and news reports. Criminal prosecutions against the Monitor are on the rise against the backdrop of mounting national tensions in the lead-up to general elections in 2011. This month, President Yoweri Museveni, who is expected...

Two Ethiopian journalists were thrown in prison on Monday after a judge convicted them under an obsolete press law in connection with coverage of sensitive topics dating back several years, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists and news reports. Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, editor of the weekly, Muslim-oriented newspaper Salafiyya, and Asrat Wedajo, former...

The Taraz Regional Court in southern Kazakhstan sentenced to jail Ramazan Yesergepov, editor of Almaty-based weekly Alma-Ata Info, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On August 8, the court sentenced Yesergepov to three years in prison on a criminal charge of "collecting information that contains state secrets," the local press said. Rozlana Taukina, head of the Almaty-based...

Two foreign freelance journalists have complete a year in captivity in Somalia. Canadian reporter Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were taken hostage by an armed group as they were returning to Mogadishu from Afgoye refugee camp, 20 km west of the Somali capital, on August 23, 2008. At the time of their abduction, Lindhout and Brennan were being accompanied by Abdifatah

Gunmen shot dead an Afghan television journalist and severely wounded his colleague Monday in northwestern Pakistan. Janullah Hashim Zada was gunned down as he travelled on a public minibus from Torkham on the Afghan border to the main northwestern city of Peshawar, a Khyber Agency official told the Associated Press. Zada's colleague, Ali Khan, was seriously hurt with a gunshot wound to the neck...

Prosecutors in Abakan, the capital of the Republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia, have filed defamation charges against online editor Mikhail Afanasyev, over a blog entry about Monday's explosion at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant that killed dozens of workers, according to news reports. Prosecutors opened a criminal probe against Afanasyev on Wednesday, after he and his two colleagues at...

The Hamas interior ministry has decided to deny Palestinian and foreign journalists access to the southern city of Rafah and to all hospitals in the Gaza Strip until further notice. The ban was issued on August 14, after fighting broke out in Rafah between the Hamas government and a radical Islamist group. "The Hamas-led government's interior ministry has again demonstrated a desire to control...

Former police officers Odin Fernandes da Silva and Davi Liberato de Araújo were convicted for being part of the militia that abducted and tortured a team of journalists from O Dia newspaper in the Batan Favela area, Rio de Janeiro, in May 2008. Judge Alexandre Abrahão sentenced both individuals to 31 years in prison on August 12, according to Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo de Investigação...

Paramilitary police have summarily sealed the studios of Sky One Radio, based in Cameroon capital Yaoundé, the station's president, Joseph Angoula Angoula, has told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The station was accused of "recurring violations of legal and administrative regulations" of media laws, according to a statement on the Web site of Cameroon's Communications...