A court has imposed a 20-year jail sentence on Hla Hla Win, a freelance video reporter who provided material to the Burmese exile broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma. Detained since September, she was already given a seven-year sentence in October, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and Burma Media Association (BMA) have reported. “People had been expecting signs of an opening and goodwill gestures...
A new defamation law has been enacted in Ireland that establishes blasphemy as an offence punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros. The law took effect on January 1. Article 36 defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering “matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that...
Unidentified intruders broke into the offices of the Riga-based daily Neatkariga Rita Avize and its publishing house SIA Mediju Nams on the night of January 1 in which windows were broken, the offices of editors and leading reporters were badly damaged, and many files were destroyed or defaced, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “They tried to make us think it was an ordinary burglary...
A Somali Islamist attempted on Saturday to murder Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons that caused such a controversy in 2005. Westergaard escaped unhurt but the attack could have been fatal. “Some Muslims may have been shocked by Westergaard’s cartoons, but there is no justification for such violence and intolerance,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said....
A new criminal charge has been filed against imprisoned Azerbaijani editor Eynulla Fatullayev, a 2009 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award. Based on Fatullayev’s account and the government’s long record of persecuting the editor, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) believes the charge to be fabricated. On Tuesday, guards at Prison Colony No 12 in Baku claimed...
The Iranian government, struggling to silence the many critical voices in the country, has arrested 11 journalists since Sunday, including former International Press Freedom Award recipient Mashallah Shamsolvaezin and the prominent writer Emadeddin Baghi, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. CPJ condemned the arrests and called for the release of all detained...
A Cameroonian newspaper editor, jailed this month after publishing a book excerpt that alleged sexual activities by President Paul Biya, was convicted on Monday of “insulting the head of state.” Judge Ibrahim Ba sentenced Jean-Bosco Talla, managing editor of the weekly Germinal, to a one-year suspended term and a fine of 3.15 million CFA francs (US$6,800), the paper’s editor-in-chief, Duke...
The weekly Semana has just revealed the existence of an instruction manual for employees of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), Colombia’s leading intelligence agency, that explains how they should spy on, threaten, intimidate and discredit NGOs, judges and journalists who create problems for the government. The revelation is the latest in a series of scandals implicating the DAS...
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the immediate release of Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, who should have been freed 10 days ago on completing a six-month jail sentence on a charge of “offending public decency.” Arrested on June 18 and convicted on August 19, Dehah began a hungerstrike on December 25 in protest against his continuing detention. “We urge the...
Iranian authorities censored coverage of the death of a leading reformist cleric, shut down yet another reformist newspaper this week, and continued to arrest journalists in recent days, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The BBC reported on Monday that the Iranian Labor News Agency was warned by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance to report less on...
