State Persecution

A Moroccan court decision Thursday overturned a two-year prison sentence and a fine against blogger and journalist Mohamed Erraji. On September 9, the court in Agadir, in southwest Morocco, convicted Erraji in a 10-minute trial¸ sentencing him to prison and a fine of 5,000 dinars (US$626), according to his family and local news reports. Erraji, 29, is a contributor to HesPress, a Moroccan daily...

The Nigerian government should immediately lift its suspension of Channels TV and release four staff members being held by State Security Services, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Security agents closed the Lagos and Abuja offices of Channels TV on Tuesday after the station mistakenly aired a fabricated report that President Umaru Yar’Adua might step down for health reasons...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has welcomed the release of a cameraman held by US forces in Iraq, and called on the military to release a freelance journalist working for Reuters who has been held since Tuesday. Omar Husham, 28‎, a cameraman with Baghdad TV‎, a satellite channel owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, was freed on Friday without charges after one day in custody, according to...

Prosecutors should drop all charges against Iranian journalist Adnan Hassanpour, whose death sentence was overturned Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Friday. A court of appeal overturned the sentence against Adnan Hassanpour, a journalist and former editor for the now-defunct Kurdish-Persian weekly Aso in Iran's northwestern province of Kurdistan, local journalists told...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed alarm at the detention of two Iraqi journalists by the US military in separate incidents and calls on the authorities to make clear any charges against them or release them immediately. Omar Husham, 28, was arrested along with his father and two brothers at his house in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah, the Associated Press...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Iranian authorities to disclose charges against two detained Kurdish journalists or release them immediately. On August 28, security forces arrested Anvar Sa'di Muchashi and his cousin at his home in Sanandaj, the capital of the Kordestan province in northwestern Iran, and took them to an unknown location, local journalists told CPJ. A...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed outrage at the way Amy Goodman, the host of the nationally-syndicated radio and TV programme Democracy Now!, and two of her producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, were manhandled and arrested by police while covering demonstrations Monday outside the Republican Party convention in St Paul, Minnesota, US. Paris-based RSF has called for an...

Iranian authorities expelled Hassan Fahs, the chief of Al Arabiya news television station's Tehran bureau Tuesday after revoking his media accreditation, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has reported. According to Al Arabiya's website, a documentary film about Iran aired under the title "The Road to The Revolution" may be the motive behind this decision. The new Iranian...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reiterated its appeal to Palestinian political leaders to put an end to a wave of arrests of journalists. At least four are currently detained in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the press freedom organisation calls for their release. "The political struggle between Hamas and Fatah has inflicted a great deal of damage on the press in the Palestinian Territories...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on authorities in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan to end their month-long offensive against the opposition weekly Chernovik ("Rough Draft") in the regional capital, Makhachkala. Investigators with the local prosecutor's office and officers with the Criminal Investigation (UR) department of Dagestan's Interior Ministry searched the...