State Persecution

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called for the immediate release of Ramazan Yesergepov, editor of the independent Almaty-based weekly Alma-Ata Info, who was seized by security agents from his hospital bed a month ago. The Kazakhstan Security Committee (KNB) took Yesergepov on January 6 from an Almaty hospital where he was being treated for high blood pressure, and put him in a KNB...

Eritrean authorities must disclose the medical condition and care being provided to jailed journalist Dawit Isaak, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded following unofficial reports saying that he was hospitalised. CPJ pointed out that the well-being of the long-jailed Isaak, an Eritrean with Swedish citizenship, is the responsibility of the government, which has yet to provide...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Israel to return confiscated news footage of its navy allegedly firing on and boarding a ship on Thursday. Journalists who were on board say they filmed Israeli soldiers assaulting a passenger, and that they were later beaten after their equipment had been confiscated, a reporter who was there told CPJ. According to Al-Jazeera English...

A Cairo appeals court has struck down a one-year jail term against four editors. On January 31, appellate court judge Mohamed Samir struck down a one-year jail-term given in September 2007 to four editors for "publishing false information likely to disturb public order." However, the court upheld a 20,000 Egyptian pound (US$3,540) fine against Ibrahim Eissa of the daily Al-Dustour, Adel Hamouda of...

A South Korean blogger in custody since January 7, charged with spreading false information online, should be set free, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. Park Dae-sung, described in international news reports as an unemployed, self-taught economist, anonymously posted predictions about the global financial climate in online bulletin boards under the pen name "Minerva," to public...

Fiji deported Fiji Times publisher Rex Gardner on January 27, five days after he and the newspaper were fined 100,000 Fiji dollars (40,000 euros) for publishing a reader’s letter criticising a court decision. Gardner is the third newspaper publisher with Australian nationality to be expelled by Fiji’s military-backed government in the past year. His predecessor at the Fiji Times, Evan Hannah, was...

A wave of censorship has hit many Iranian and foreign Farsi-language websites since January 24. Most of the sites contain articles critical of the government and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose term expires on June 12. International news media websites have also been blocked since January 26, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “After directly targeting human rights activists, the...

The editor of an independent newspaper in the West African nation of Niger was jailed Monday in connection with an investigative story alleging corruption in the finance ministry, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Boussada Ben Ali, managing editor of the weekly L'Action, was jailed at Niamey's main prison after a public prosecutor...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has detained at least three journalists in the West Bank since Saturday, according to local news reports and journalists who spoke to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On Monday, security forces detained Ahmad Dikkawi, correspondent for the London-based al-Quds TV station in Jenin. They also detained Samer Khuaira, the Nablus correspondent...

Plainclothes police surrounded the offices of a newly launched satellite radio station in Tunisia and detained one of its journalists on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Police continued their siege of the station Wednesday. The journalist, Dhafer Otay of Radio Kalima, said he was held for four hours and then released without charge...