State Persecution

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern over the June 7 arrest of Solidzhon Abdurakhmonov, an independent Uzbek journalist for a number of international news outlets. Police arrested Abdurakhmonov in the city of Nukus for alleged drug possession, independent news website Uznews reported. If convicted, Abdurakhmonov faces up to five years in prison, Uznews editor and CPJ...

Hudson Samarasinghe, recently appointed the chairperson of the state-controlled Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC), called for the death of senior journalist Poddala Jayantha. This outrageous incitement to murder and violence by Samarasinghe was made 8 June 2008 during a breakfast radio talk show called "Isira". Jayantha is the general secretary of Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association...

In yet another move that will worsen the flow of—and lack of access to—information in Zimbabwe, the government has slapped an import duty on all newspapers, magazines and periodicals coming into the country. On June 8, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported that all "foreign newspapers sold in Zimbabwe will now have to pay import duty, as the government moves to protect Zimbabwean media space"...

Prison authorities have seized the 300-page manuscript of a book Azadlig newspaper editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahid was trying to write while in Bayil prison #1, where he remains a prisoner, the Baku-based Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety (IRFS) has reported. The public relations coordinator of the Justice Ministry's Penitentiary Service, Mehman Sadigov, claims the confiscation is legal. "I...

Suspended prison sentences have been passed on Iranian journalists Said Matinpour and Yaghoub Salaki Nia in separate cases. Matinpour's jail term was eight years. Nia's was one year. In each case, the sentences were handed down in closed door hearings without their lawyers being present, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both plan to appeal. At the same time, RSF has...

The editor-in-chief of the opposition-aligned, Khmer-language daily newspaper Moneakseka Khmer in Cambodia has been arrested. Dam Sith was arrested on Sunday by plainclothes police at a car wash and interrogated for several hours at the national military police headquarters in the capital, Phnom Penh. A criminal court charged Dam Sith the same day with defamation and disinformation in connection...

A new 90-day extension of a detention order has been issued against Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam, who has been held without charge since his arrest on March 8. Tissainayagam is being detained under the Emergency Regulations (2005) Act. The latest detention order was issued by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lankan police force on June 5. TID has refused to provide...

Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of the privately-owned twice-weekly newspaper "L'interprète", and his assistant, Davin Ntondo Nzovuangu, were transferred June 6 from the National Intelligence Agency (ANR), on the bank of the Congo River, near the prime minister's office, to the court of Matete, in Kinshasa, according to Journaliste en danger (JED). The two journalists were held incommunicado, for 90...

The Sri Lankan defence ministry has initiated a campaign against independent news media, especially journalists who cover military affairs. The ministry’s website is carrying virulent attacks on journalists critical of the government, accusing them of being in cahoots with the “terrorist enemy,” the Tamil Tiger rebels. Two long articles—headlined “Stop media treachery against armed forces members...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has condemned the Cuban government for the arrest of and threats made to independent newsman Carlos Serpa Maceira, reminded it to observe tolerance of press freedom and called on it to free 25 journalists still imprisoned. In a telephone call to the IAPA Serpa Maceira, of the Sindical Press news agency and Cuba correspondent of the Sweden-based magazine...