State Persecution

Nigeria President Umaru Yar’Adua has initiated action against independent daily Leadership after it carried an article on the state of health of Yar’Adua saying he had to cancel official engagements for two days because of ill health. The article also said that doctors had been flown in from Saudi Arabia to treat him, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The publisher of Leadership, Sam...

Freelance journalist Hadis Mohammed Hadis has been released after being held for two weeks at the Criminal Investigation Department in Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland in northern Somalia, Reporters sans Frontières has reported. Hadis Mohammed Hadis has already been arrested on several occasions over the last two years. He told Paris-based RSF after being released on...

With Israel continuing its blockade of the Gaza Strip, news reportage has become a casualty. For almost three weeks now, foreign journalists have been denied entry into the area. The Tel Aviv-based Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents the collective interests of the international media covering the news in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, has now filed a Supreme Court petition

Somali police have arrested the director of a radio station in the south-western town of Baidoa. According to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Hilal Sheikh Shuayb of Warsan Radio was arrested following the orders of the governor of Bay Region, Abdifatah Mohamed Ibrahim. The journalist was accused of airing live the judgment of a Baidoa Court judge who ruled on a Transitional...

Singapore's High Court has found the Wall Street Journal Asia in contempt of court for a commentary it published about the city-state in June and July. The court fined Dow Jones Publishing Co (Asia), a subsidiary of News Corp's Dow Jones & Co unit and publisher of the Wall Street Journal's Asian edition, 25,000 Singapore dollars (US$16,573)—the highest amount ever levied for such a case in...

Joseph Tual, a journalist with the French state-owned TV station France 3, was recently questionedby a court in Lille on suspicion of "violating professional confidentiality" in a report about new developments in the investigation into the 1965 disappearance of Moroccan opposition politician Medhi Ben Barka in Paris. Tual was summoned to a Lille court on November 20 in response to a complaint...

Tamil radio presenter and director of privately-owned radio Vettri FM, ARV Loshan, has been released by Sri Lanka's Terrorist Investigations Department after being held for eight days. His mother told Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) he was not hurt during his imprisonment. The police have for the time being held on to his mobile phones but they will supposedly be returned to him in the...

The Bratislava Regional Court has ordered Slovak broadcaster Radio Viva to pay over EUR 30,000 in libel damages to a Slovak judge, in connection with a 2004 report on fraud charges brought against him. The report—an item in a regular evening news broadcast—was based on comments made by then Interior Minister Vladimír Palko at an official press conference. The court found that a statement made by...

A Burmese court sentenced entertainer, blogger, and activist Maung Thura—known by his stage name, "Zarganar"—to 45 years in prison on November 20 for violations of the Electronics Act, according to Burmese rights groups and international news reports. Sports journalist Zaw Thet Htwe, and two other defendants were also sentenced to at least 15 years each in the same trial. All four still face...

A court in China's southwestern Sichuan province sentenced Chen Daojun, a writer critical of the government, to three years in prison on charges of inciting subversion of state power. His wife Zeng Qirong told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that she was present in the courtroom in the provincial capital, Chengdu, when her husband was sentenced after 30-minute trial...