ARCHIVES: State Persecution
The Supreme Court of Rwanda sentenced the exiled online editor of Umuvugizi , Jean Bosco Gasasira, on Friday to a two year and six month term in prison. Gasasira received this sentence for allegedly insulting Rwanda's president and inciting civil disobedience, local journalists told New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Gasasira believes the new sentence may stem from an online article he wrote that compared Rwanda's President Paul Kagame to Zimbabwe's... MORE
Sudan has pressed criminal charges against 10 journalists who have reported on the alleged rape and torture of a youth activist, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The activist said she was raped after participating in a demonstration in January. "Rather than address the systematic failures that enable torture and rape, the Sudanese government has chosen to subject journalists who cover them to politicised legal proceedings," said CPJ Middle... MORE
TV presenter José Agustín “Gajo” Silvestre de los Santos , was released on bail of 100,000 pesos (2,600 euros) June 2 after six days in detention in the eastern city of La Romana on charges of insulting and defaming prosecutor José Polanco Ramírez by accusing him on the air of links to drug traffickers. He will have to present himself to the court every 30 days, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). When he appeared in court at the start of the trial on... MORE
Rodion Marinichev , a special correspondent for the Moscow-based online broadcaster Dozhd (The Rain), has been deported from from Belarus, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Police in Minsk detained Marinichev on Monday, after he interviewed Irina Khalip, a prominent Belarusian journalist who had been handed a suspended two year prison term. Following his detention, Marinichev was deported from Belarus that same day, local and international... MORE
Russian TV reporter Rodion Marinichev was given 24 hours to leave the country after his arrest May 30 in Minsk and was banned from returning for five years. His deportation came just days after President Alexander Lukashenko urged his government to rein in news media which, in his view, have been “creating the panic” that is the cause of the country’s current economic crisis. “We condemn the government’s tendency to blame the media for every crisis,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters... MORE
Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed “outrage” at the May 26 invasion by Latvia’s KNAB anti-corruption police of the offices of the daily paper Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze (Independent Morning Press) and its parent firm SIA Mediju Nams and their theft (by copying) of all the data on its computers (including e-mails) and their refusal to allow any photographing or filming of the incident It was a “serious attack on the privacy of sources and data” and it called... MORE
Realny Azerbaijan editor Eynulla Fatullayev was finally released May 26 on a presidential pardon after four years in prison. “We share the joy of Eynulla Fatullayev’s family and colleagues,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said after confirming that he arrived at his home at around 6 p.m. May 26. “He had become the symbol of abuse of authority by a regime that used every kind of ploy to keep him in prison as long as possible. The pardon is just one more act by an... MORE
Authorities in Uzbekistan have barred Abdumalik Boboyev , a stringer for the US government-funded broadcaster Voice of America, from traveling to Germany by denying him the exit visa required for travel outside Uzbekistan, according to the independent news website Uznews and the Uzbek service of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Boboyev filed his application to travel on March 2 and was denied it in early April. He is barred from travelling because he was prosecuted last... MORE
Ignacio Gómez , the co-producer of the "Noticias Uno" news programme on state-owned TV station Canal Uno, believes that Colombia’s leading intelligence agency, the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), was responsible for the May 24 break-in at his Bogotá apartment, the seventh in the past decade. The break-in, which took place while Gómez was out, was executed by two men and a woman with sophisticated apparatus. They were in the process of forcing the front door but fled when they... MORE
There has been a new wave of threats and physical attacks on journalists during the past few weeks in both Bishkek, the capital, and the southern city of Osh, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “Harassment and self-censorship are growing, in an explosive atmosphere of ethnic tension,” RSF said. “No serious investigation has been carried out into any of these attacks on journalists. We remind the authorities that they have a duty to ensure the safety of... MORE
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