State Persecution

Saad Al-Awsi, the editor of weekly Al-Shahid Al-Mustaqil (The Independent Witness), was abducted by gunmen on March 25 from Rusafa prison in southeastern Baghdad where he was serving a one-year sentence, according to delayed reports. His family, which has received no news of him since his disappearance, wrote a letter on April 3 to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and to the head of the intelligence...

Bennet Rupesinghe, one of the editors of the Colombo-based online newspaper LankaeNews, was released on bail Friday after a week in pre-trial detention for allegedly making threats, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Arrested when he reported to police in the Colombo suburb of Wellampitiya on March 31, Rupesinghe was freed on payment of 310,000 rupees (2...

The Libyan government has decided to deport 26 foreign journalists on the grounds that their visas had expired. The names of journalists, who had all been invited to Tripoli by the government, were posted last night in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying. They were initially told they would have to leave today. But the authorities announced today that their “departure was postponed...

Severe harassment by Palestinian Authority and Hamas security forces targeting Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza has had a pronounced chilling effect on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. In a new report, Human Rights Watch called on Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza to hold their security forces to account for systematic, severe abuses and...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the closure of a provincial Ecuadoran radio station and called on local regulators to allow the station to resume broadcasting. Voz de la Selva Esmeralda Oriental Canela radio, known for its critical coverage of local authorities, had appealed an order to close the station on bogus administrate violations, according to CPJ research. The...

Beijing’s reach does not stop at China’s borders. The Chinese government successfully pressured the Vietnamese authorities to arrest two people, Vu Duc Trung and Le Van Thanh, for operating an unauthorised short-wave radio station that was broadcasting in Chinese from a farm outside Hanoi, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The organisation is worried by...

The International Press Institute (IPI) has obtained a report from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) indicating that Turkey is currently holding 57 journalists in prison – apparently more than any other country. The report followed an analysis of more than 70 journalists the OSCE conducted in conjunction with Erol Önderoğlu, editor-in-chief of the BIANET Independent...

The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) is protesting over the criminal sentence for libel handed down to Stojan Markovic, owner, director and editor of Radio Ozon, an ANEM member station based in Cacak. The Primary Court in Cacak found Markovic guilty of slandering former minister Velimir Ilic. The decision was based on Markovic's comment "The Time for Settling the Bills has Come...

One of four Al Jazeera journalists detained by Libyan forces has been released after a bizarre turn of events that saw the team being arrested, freed and then rearrested. Lotfi Al Masoudi, a Tunisian national, crossed the border into Tunisia on Sunday night. An Al Jazeera spokesman said that the network is "glad to see the end of the ordeal that Lotfi unnecessarily went through" while calling for...

Bahraini authorities lifted a ban on the main opposition newspaper Sunday after its three top editors resigned to save the paper from a campaign to muzzle anti-government media and crack down on the Shiite opposition in the Sunni-ruled Gulf nation. Al-Wasat, the country's most popular newspaper, did not appear Sunday after Bahrain's Information Ministry ordered it to close down. Al-Wasat's online...