State Persecution

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have released five journalists of privately-owned Raga TV, after they were arrested on November 19 and held for 24 hours at an undisclosed location, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “We were all released this evening. We were in trouble over the broadcast of an interview with an opposition figure who made comments seen as offensive...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO) have renewed their call for the release of photographer Ibrahim Jassam of Reuters news agency, who has been detained by the US Army since September 1, 2008. A contingent of US and Iraqi forces took Jassam from his home in Mahmudiyah in the south of the capital, seizing four cameras, his phone and his laptop computer. He...

The supreme court in the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan in the west Uzbekistan has upheld a ten-year jail sentence for drug-trafficking against journalist and human rights activist Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The court in the capital Noukous passed sentence without taking into account defence argument that the authorities targeted him because of...

Moscow prosecutors say they have warned the Russian-language edition of the Newsweek magazine for allegedly insulting Muslims, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. [ Link] The Moscow Prosecutor's Office says the magazine published two stories that could be "insulting or humiliating" to Muslims. It said Tuesday an article also included one of the 2005 Danish cartoons depicting the prophet...

Emmanuel Emeka Asiwe, editor of the Huhuonline ( http://huhuonline.com) website, has been released after a week of interrogation by Nigeria's State Security Service, the domestic intelligence agency, but deplores its refusal to let him to go back to the United States, where he lives. “Irked by websites with political or satirical content, the Nigerian authorities are trying to force online...

A federal appeals court in the US on Monday threw out a contempt order requiring fines of up to $5,000 a day against a former USA Today reporter who refused to identify sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Toni Locy had been ordered by a judge to personally pay the fines unless she identified officials who discussed Steven J Hatfill, who was...

A group of soldiers, accompanied by police agents, a prosecutor and a representative from the transport and communications ministry burst into the headquarters of a Peruvian radio station, cancelled its broadcasting signal and seized all of its equipment. The incident took place on November 12 in Tacna, southern Peru, which was declared to be in a state of emergency on November 4 after the region...

An appeal court in Saida (440 km southwest of Algiers) has imposed a two-month prison sentence on journalist Hassan Bourras in addition to the fine of 40,000 dinars (460 euros) to which he was originally sentenced, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The court on October 28 issued the additional sentence after upholding his conviction on charges of libel and “attacking state institutions...

Authorities in Zimbabwe should halt harassment of media and human rights lawyer Harrison Nkomo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Nkomo is awaiting word on whether he will face criminal charges after a client left Zimbabwe in the midst of a case, said Beatrice Mtetwa, co-founder of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. Nkomo was defending Phillip Taylor, a British national...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Burma Media Association (BMA) have expressed outrage at the two-year sentence passed on Ein Khaing Oo, a 24-year-old journalist with the weekly Ecovision Journal, for taking photos of Cyclone Nargis victims. Ein Khaing Oo was arrested in Rangoon in June 2008 and convicted on November 14. "This unjust sentence comes amid a wave of unprecedented sentences for...