Outstanding journalists at the forefront of the battle for press freedom in Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela were honored Tuesday evening at the Committee to Protect Journalists' 20th Annual International Press Freedom Awards benefit dinner. The event raised a record of nearly $1.5 million for CPJ's work exposing press freedom violations, providing assistance to targeted journalists, and...
When the fourth hearing in imprisoned journalist Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae’s trial was held before a special state security court in Sanaa Wednesday, prosecutors submitted the contents of his computer as evidence. His lawyer, however, accused them of deception, pointing out that they had produced the computer seized when he was briefly arrested on July 11, not the one seized when he was arrested a...
Zimbabwe authorities Tuesday prevented The Standard newspaper reporter Nqodani Ndlovu from leaving detention, overruling a court decision to grant him bail, media reports said. Ndlovu was arrested in connection with a November 14 report alleging that the police force was allowing former war veterans and retired officers to take up senior posts without sitting for promotional examinations. War...
The body of Abdul Hameed Hayatan, a young Baloch journalist who was abducted in the southwestern port city of Gwadar on October 25, was found beside the River Sami in Turbat, 40 km to the east, on November 18. His reporting critical of the Pakistani authorities and his support for the Baloch national movement were almost certainly the motive for his abduction and murder. “If the local and federal...
Russian and Belgian police are currently searching in the Belgian city of Liège for a man suspecting of being the hitman in the murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow in October 2006. This was confirmed during the weekend by Belgian officials, who – like their Russian counterparts – did not name him. He is also reportedly being sought in his own region in Russia. Sources...
Alexandria-based journalist and human rights activist Youssef Shaaban being held on a trumped-up drug charge. A reporter for the independent online newspaper Al-Badil, he was arrested during a demonstration on November 20 by residents in the Alexandria neighbourhood of Abu Suleiman, who were protesting against their eviction, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières...
Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has revealed to parliament that a government offshoot called the Security Intelligence Agency (SIA) has been operating for the past 15 years without the general public’s knowledge and has been illegally tapping telephones and intercepting emails, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Its targets have included...
Two journalists from the Moscow-based broadcast outlet Russia Today were arrested on November 20 while covering a protest against the US military training centre formerly known as the "School of the Americas" at Fort Benning, Georgia. On-air correspondent Kaelyn Forde and cameraman Jon Conway, both of who are US citizens, were charged with unlawful assembly, demonstrating without a permit, and...
A one-year prison sentence was imposed on Mohammed Abdulqader al-Jassem, a Kuwaiti writer and journalist, on Monday. A criminal court convicted al-Jassem of criminal defamation in connection with an article he published on his personal news blog, Al-Mizan. The case is only one of 18 that the government has filed against the journalist in the past year, the New York-based Committee to Protect...
Turkey continues to abuse its anti-terrorism law to censor and punish journalists who raise the issue of its Kurdish minority or quote certain Kurdish leaders. Use of the law to prosecute journalists has increased since it was amended in 2006. Under article 7/2 of the law, propaganda on behalf of a terrorist organisation is punishable by imprisonment. As neither “propaganda” nor “terrorist...
