State Persecution

Ramazan Esergepov, editor in chief of the "Alma-Ata Info" newspaper, is continuing his hunger-strike in National Security Committee (KNB) custody and refusing to be interrogated, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has reported. The report said: [ Link] His wife, Raushan Esergepova, told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service that her husband is insisting that a security service other than the KNB conduct...

Gaston Asseko, the technical director of radio Sainte-Marie, and three leading civil society members held in the same case were released provisionally on January 12, as was a police officer who was arrested with them. Tendance Gabon editor Léon Dieudonné Kougou, who was arrested with Asseko on December 30, was released provisionally on January 7, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported....

A number of prominent Israeli human rights groups have slammed local media outlets for muzzling criticism of the army's deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip. "Opinions criticising the decision to launch the offensive or the army's conduct during the war are hardly heard," the heads of eight rights organisations wrote in a letter to the editors of Israeli papers, television news channels, radios and...

A three-year prison sentence has been handed down to Lewis Medjo, managing editor of Cameroonian weekly La Détente libre, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. He has been in Douala central prison in the west of the country since September 22, 2008. Medjo was found guilty on January 7 of “spreading false news” and sentenced by the Douala court to three years in prison and a fine of two...

Two Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondents are being continually harassed in Turkmenistan. Dovletmurat Yazguliev and Osman Hallyev, who report for RFE/RL’s Turkmen service from the provinces, have both been subjected to threats and intimidation by local intelligence officers in the last two weeks, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “Similar situations in the past have ended...

Nsimba Embete Ponte, the editor of biweekly L’Interprète was released on January 7 on completing a 10-month prison sentence for “insulting” DRC President Joseph Kabila by referring to rumours about his health in a series of articles, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Arrested on March 7, 2008 in Kinshasa by members of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR), Ponte was held incommunicado...

Zimbabwean photojournalist Anderson Shadreck Manyere, who was arrested on December 24, was remanded in custody on January 9 by a court in Harare despite allegations that he was tortured while in police detention, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Manyere is expected to return to court on January 23. Defence lawyer Alec Muchadehama had asked...

Albanian authorities on Friday blocked the offices of the daily Tema, which recently published stories alleging official corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Police in capital Tirana surrounded the premises, barring journalists from entering the building, the daily's publisher, Mero Baze, said in a statement posted on Tema's website. Baze said he called Tirana's...

Iranian authorities are using security laws, press laws, and other legislation to arrest and prosecute Iranian Kurds solely for trying to exercise their right to freedom of expression and association. The use of these laws to suppress basic rights, while not new, has greatly intensified since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in August 2005. The findings have been documented in a 42-page

Gunmen on a motorcycle Thursday shot and killed the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper critical of the government, the second violent attack on media this week. Sunday Leader Chief Editor Lasantha Wickramatunga was in a car on his way to work when he was attacked, Wickramatunga's brother Lal told Reuters. "The gunman smashed the window of the vehicle and shot at him," Lal Wickramatunga said. Doctors...