There have been continuing threats against journalists working for the Charter 97 news and opposition website (charter97.org) in Belarus, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). In the latest case, site editor Natallya Radzina received a threatening email message on July 15 that was prompted by a report about a pro-Russian neo-fascist group. The email that Radzina received on...
Eight photographers and cameramen have been arrested in a recent crackdown in Iran, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Following the expulsion of almost all foreign reporters, seven photographers have been jailed since June 12. They include Mehdi Zabouli (arrested on June 20), Tohid Bighi (July 11), Majid Saidi (July 11), Satyar Emami (July 11), Marjan Abdolahian (July 11)...
Distributors blocked the July 4-10 edition of the Economist from entering Thailand over an article that covered the mounting threat of lese majeste complaints to the country's Internet freedom and freedom of expression, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This is the third time since December that distributors have opted not to distribute the British weekly newsmagazine...
A Yemeni court has found journalist Anis Mansour from suspended daily Al-Ayyam guilty of "harming national unity, provoking sedition and rebellion, and inciting people in the streets" and "taking part in unauthorised protests and promoting secessionist slogans." He was sentenced on Wednesday to 14 months imprisonment, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The case was...
Sudanese reporter Lubna Ahmed Al-Hussein is on trial for "dressing in a sensational manner." The "general discipline" police considered Al-Hussein's style of dress to be a threat to Sudanese societal values and virtues, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has reported. This crime is subject to only one punishment, 40 lashes in public, according to article 152 of the Sudanese...
Zambian journalist Chansa Kabwela has been arrested on bogus charges of circulating obscene materials, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Kabwela, news editor for the Post, was arrested on Monday for circulating two photographs of a woman giving birth without medical aid outside the University Teaching Hospital, which was involved in a health care worker strike at the time...
A six-month jail sentence has been passed by a court in Tébessa (460 km east of Algiers) on Rabah Lamouchi, the local correspondent of the national Arabic-language daily Ennahar, on charges of lacking press accreditation and defamation. Lamouchi has been held since his arrest on June 9. “These are trumped-up charges,” Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “In the absence of a national...
Two French government security advisors who were abducted in Mogadishu Tuesday morning had been posing as journalists. Gunmen abducted them from the Sahafi Hotel, located in the safest part of the capital. No group has so far claimed responsibility for their abduction. “Being a journalist is not a cover, it is a profession,” Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reacted. “We hope these two...
A judge in the northern state of Pará ordered prominent Brazilian journalist Lúcio Flávio Pinto on Monday to pay US$15,000 in damages in a civil libel suit. The decision is part of a systematic pattern of legal harassment against Pinto, who faces more than 10 lawsuits from powerful plaintiffs, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. Judge Raimundo das Chagas Filho in the Amazonian city of...
Iranian authorities have arrested six more journalists and sentenced another on Sunday to eight years in prison, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. A revolutionary court in Tehran convicted Saeed Matin-Pour of having "relations with foreigners and propagating against the regime," according to local news reports, and sent him immediately to Evin Prison. Matin-Pour was...
