State Persecution

Despite the government’s denials, the demands of Turkey’s Kurdish minority continue to be off-limits for the country’s media. Six people have been charged or convicted this month under Anti-Terrorist Law No. 3713 for writing about the subject. The Anti-Terrorist Law will be 20 years old on April 12. It quickly became a weapon that could be used relentlessly against journalists who dare to broach...

The reported that on 27 March 2011 The Agoza misdemeanours appeals court on Sunday upheld a court of first instance ruling imposing a fine of LE5,000 (approx. US$840) on journalist Ahmed Hosni Wadee, of elShorouk newspaper, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). The decision stems from a lawsuit filed against the journalist by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, based on a...

Radio stations and newspapers in the capital of Togo suspended their normal activities for a day in March in protest against three radio stations having been shut down since December, report the Media Foundation for West Africa and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Following the media group SOS Journaliste en danger's declaration of a "No Media Day", radio stations only played music on 10 March...

Two Guangzhou-based journalists, who advocate for political reform amid tightening restrictions on free expression, have been dismissed. While several bloggers and activists have disappeared or been detained in the last month after anonymous calls for demonstrations in support of political reform were published online, journalists in traditional media are now also being targeted, according to New...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Belarusian authorities to stop the politically motivated prosecution of Andrzej Poczobut, a prominent correspondent for Poland's largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza. On Monday, prosecutors in the western city of Grodno filed criminal charges against Poczobut for allegedly insulting Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in articles printed in...

A CNN crew was detained Wednesday in Manama while interviewing a prominent Bahraini human rights defender, according to a Twitter posting by the network and a CPJ interview. The detentions come amid a recent series of repressive actions by the Bahraini government, which included Wednesday's arrest of a well-known blogger. Anti-press actions were also reported in Egypt, Syria, and Libya, CPJ...

Reuters television producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji were released on March 28 after being held for two days but Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has meanwhile learnt that two other journalists were arrested on March 27. The London-based Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre identified them as Doha Hassan, who works for Orient TV and several websites...

Ross Dunkley, founder and editor of the Myanmar Times weekly newspaper, was released on bail from a Burmese prison Tuesday, according to international news reports. Dunkley, an Australian citizen arrested February 10 amid tense negotiations over the future of the weekly, had been denied several earlier requests for release on bail. Dunkley was released on 10 million kyat (US$11,780) bail because...

Security agents with Somalia's Interim Transitional Government arrested the director and news editor of Radio Shabelle on Sunday after the independent station aired a report saying the president was unable to visit areas recently captured by government and AU forces due to security concerns, according to news reports and CPJ interviews. The Ministry of Information deemed the March 22 report...

There has been no let up in the harassment of journalists that began on the eve of on March 25, which the Belarusian opposition celebrates as Freedom Day. President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s apparently panicked government is deploying all possibly means to silence its critics, with growing success. The country’s independent journalists have more need than ever of support from their colleagues abroad...