State Persecution

Iranian journalist Yosef Azizi Banitruf has been sentenced to five years in jail after he exposed excessive use of force against demonstrators from the Arab community who clashed with security forces in Khuzestan in south-west Iran, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The trial of Azizi Banitruf, a member of Iran's Arab minority, was held over almost two years. The Tehran revolutionary...

Hasan Abdullah, an anchor and reporter for Pakistan's leading television channel Dawn News, was detained for six hours by officers of an intelligence agency on August 26 and was released after being interrogated, the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) has reported. The agents kept his cellphone and a tape containing an interview with Balach Marri, head of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), who...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has welcomed the release of a Reuters cameraman held by US forces in Iraq for three weeks without charge, and it called on the military to charge or release an Associated Press journalist who has been held since June. Ali al-Mashhadani, 39, was freed thursday, Reuters reported. He had been arrested on July 29 in Baghdad by US military forces while he was...

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has condemned the August 23 abduction of Canadian female journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan at KM13, a western suburb of Mogadishu between Afgoye district and the capital city. These two journalists arrived in Mogadishu on August 20. Lindhout, who is a Baghdad-based journalist, is freelancing for French TV...

Hamas has allowed a Palestinian newspaper to be distributed in Gaza Strip and kept the ban on two others, according to a Xinhua report. Hassan Abu Hashish, director of the Hamas' governmental press office, said the ban on the Jerusalem-based al-Quds daily was lifted "after the newspaper's directors pledged to remain professional and objective in their coverage of the events in Gaza Strip." Abu...

Authorities in Niger summarily suspended a private broadcaster for a month citing unspecified regulatory violations, according to local journalists and news reports. The station has provided sympathetic coverage of the country's former prime minister, now jailed on corruption charges, according to several sources. In a ruling obtained by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)...

The Israeli army raided and closed down three Palestinian radio stations on Wednesday, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). IFJ has demanded a full inquiry into the military crackdown on three radio networks operating out of the city of Hebron which provoked new demonstrations by Palestinian journalists across the West Bank and Gaza. "Sending the army into media houses...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has written to Yemeni interior minister Mutahar Rashad Al-Masri calling for the immediate release of two brothers, Ali Nasser Kaid Al-Bokheiti and Mohammed Ahmed Hassan Al-Bokheiti, who were arrested on July 21 at a military roadblock with a British freelance journalist for whom they working as fixers. The British journalist was deported the same day. They have been...

A government vehicle was used to ransack the offices of two Senegalese independent newspapers on Sunday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has eported. The attacks came just three days after a top official threatened unspecified retaliation against the papers over critical stories. A dozen unidentified men stormed the offices of the daily 24 Heures Chrono at about 8:30 p.m...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the sentence of four years in prison or a fine of 250,000 dalasis (approx. 8,000 euros), which a Banjul court passed on August 18 on Fatou Jaw Manneh, a contributor to the AllGambian.net website, after convicting her of "sedition" for criticising President Yahya Jammeh in a 2005 article. "This verdict was not the outcome of due process, it was the...