State Persecution

There has been a sharp decline in relations between the government and the media in Senegal amid a wave of protests against President Abdoulaye Wade, who announced on July 14 in Dakar that he planned to “keep hold of the helm come hell or high water.” Harassment of the Walfadjri media group has intensified in the past month or so. Four journalists with the daily Walfadjri l’Aurore were summoned to...

Authorities in Tajikistan have released BBC correspondent Urinboy Usmonov, although they have placed him under judicial control. He had been held since June 13. His release was announced yesterday by prosecutor general Sherkhan Salimzade. “We are pleased that Usmonov has been freed and is now back with his family after a month in detention, but we reiterate our call for the withdrawal of all the...

The Belarus information ministry has withdrawn two complaints against independent dailies Nasha Niva and Narodnaya Volya under which they had been threatened with closure since April 25. The complaints were withdrawn during hearings before the Supreme Economic Court on July 12 and 13, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The move was a “rare example of good...

Four well-known photo-journalists were arrested on July 7 in Tbilisi on spying charges and calls on the authorities to explain these serious accusations and to provide regular information on the situation of the detainees, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The authorities obviously have a duty to protect national interests but the current fear of spies...

Ross Dunkley, founder and editor of the Myanmar Times newspaper, was convicted of assault and set free for time already spent in detention by a Burmese court on Thursday. The verdict, which carried a 30-day jail term, acquitted Dunkley of other charges viewed by many journalists as trumped up by authorities to put pressure on his news operation. The conviction represented an automatic breach of...

Nevanji Madanhire, the editor of independent weekly The Standard, was released on bail of 100 dollars (69 euros) on the evening of June 30, 24 hours after the release of his reporter, Patience Nyangove. Their release on bail was confirmed when they appeared in court July 1. The two journalists and Loud Ramakgopola, a senior employee of the company that owns The Standard, were arrested during a...

In a new crackdown against the independent press, Belarusian police briefly detained and beat more than a dozen reporters, and broke their equipment at a Wednesday protest rally in Minsk and Brest, according to news reports and CPJ sources in Belarus. According to the Minsk-based Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), among the reporters and photojournalists detained and beaten by police and...

Cuban authorities are waging a campaign to intimidate Hablemos Press, a Havana-based independent news centre, presumably because of its criticism of the government. In the past three months, 14 of its correspondents have been threatened and 10 have been briefly detained on at least one occasion, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). According to Hablemos...

Moroccan information minister Khalid Naciri obtained the dismissal of Dubai TV chief editor Omar Makhfi and his brother, Jalal, the station’s Morocco correspondent, on June 21 because Jalal referred on the air to opposition calls for protests against tomorrow’s referendum in Morocco on a proposed constitutional reform. The journalists were fired two days after the minister gave a televised address...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has joined a renewed call by BBC staff worldwide for the immediate and unconditional release of the BBC’s correspondent in Tajikistan, Urinboy Usmonov, who has been held since June 13 in the northwestern town of Kujand and said it was very concerned about his plight. “The apparent dropping of the charge of belonging to an illegal...