State Persecution

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reiterated its support for LankaeNews, a Colombo-based online newspaper that has made a major contribution to media pluralism and independently reported news and information in Sri Lanka, and for its journalists, who are unable to work normally because of the many threats and attacks against them. Their safety is no longer assured...

Syrian journalist Rana Akbani has been missing in the east of Libya since March 28. In an interview with her that was broadcast by Al-Libya TV, a presenter accused her of spying. A resident in Libya for the past 15 years or so, Akbani works for the arts and culture section of the Libyan newspaper Al-Shams. In the Al-Libya TV interview, which has been posted online, presenter Hala Misrati accused...

A mayor who was named and shamed in a free expression report by the Centre for Media Studies and Peace Building (CEMESP) is threatening to sue the organisation for libel. CEMESP's annual report, "Strengthening Freedom to Further Democracy in Liberia: Attacks on Freedom of Expression 2010", released last week, singled out Monrovia Mayor Mary Broh as the only high government official that unleashed...

New York-based press freedom group The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned ongoing attacks, threats, and intimidation against journalists and news outlets covering the bloody political standoff in Ivory Coast. The government and supporters of incumbent ruler Laurent Gbagbo have been targeting newspapers critical of Gbagbo while rebel fighters backing his UN-backed rival Alassane...

Two members of privately-owned Radio Shabelle were arrested Sunday in Mogadishu, while two other journalists have been held in the northeastern region of Puntland and the northwestern region of Somaliland for more than a week, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. RSF called for the immediately release of all four journalists and a halt to their persecution...

Yemeni authorities on Thursday ordered Al-Jazeera's offices shut and its journalists stripped of accreditation, escalating a week-long series of reprisals against the station that has included beatings, expulsions, raids, and death threats. New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the government's decision to shut Al-Jazeera and urged authorities to reverse the...

Journalists Aleksandr Lomashkin and Ales Asiptsu were arrested in separate incidents Thursday, on the eve of “Dzen Voly” (Freedom Day), an event that is traditionally celebrated by the Belarusian opposition, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. A Russian journalist and founder of the human rights website Svoboda, Lomashkin was forced to get off a train from...

Syrian authorities have imposed censorship on national and foreign news media seeking to cover events in the southern city of Deraa. The security forces have blocked access to the city so that there is no one to witness their ruthless crackdown on the protests that have been taking place there during the past few days, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF)...

Internet user Vikas Mavhudzi has been detained for the past month on a charge of advocating the government’s overthrow in a message he posted on Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Facebook page. He is to remain in prison until his trial, for which no date has yet been set, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported Mavhudzi, 39, posted a message...

Mazen Darwish, the head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, was summoned for questioning by intelligence officials at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Damascus and has not been heard of since. He has almost certainly been arrested, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Darwish was detained for four hours on the evening of March 22 after responding...