State Persecution

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the methods being used by the Sudanese government to censor Khartoum-based newspapers. In the latest case early Monday, members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)—the political wing of the former rebel group in the south that is now part of a unity government—participated in a raid on the privately-owned Arabic-language daily Ajras Al...

The daily Nezavissimaya Gazeta has been ordered to vacate offices it rents from the city of Moscow within one month, in a move seen by press freedom advocates as worrying for press freedom in Russia. The notice to quit is supposedly to allow for major works in the building, but the paper’s management is convinced the decision is linked to recent articles critical of a speech by the mayor, Yuri...

The Belarusian foreign ministry’s has refused to issue accreditation to reporter Alyaksey Minchonak of Radio Racyja, a station based in the Polish city of Bialystok that broadcasts to Belarus. This latest obstacle for the station comes a month after the police raided its Minsk bureau and seized equipment, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The authorities are continuing to harass Radio...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Ugandan government to "clearly and publicly" respond to local media reports claiming it has set up a high-level government task force to investigate journalists and control the media. "We call on the government to respond clearly and publicly to these allegations," said Gabriel Baglo, the Director of the IFJ Africa Office. "The...

ARTICLE 19 has welcomed the May 27 decision of Russia's Constitutional Court to uphold the appeal of a former NGO leader against criminal charges which were widely believed to be excessive. Manana Aslamazyan, former director of the Educated Media Foundation, had been charged with smuggling after failing to declare an amount of money she brought into Russia in 2007 which slightly exceeded the legal...

Journalists and the news media have consistently been harassed in the past two months by the Moldovan authorities. The biweekly Moldavskie Vedomosti is threatened with closure by an investigation into alleged corruption while the body that allocates broadcast frequencies has been accused of favouring pro-government radio and TV stations. “With just one year to go to parliamentary elections, it is...

The police in Esigodini in the province of Matabeleland in southern Zimbabwe have arrested three media workers reportedly employed by Sky News, a UK-based cable and satellite channel, which is among the foreign news organisations banned from reporting in Zimbabwe. The journalists were arrested on May 23. They were still in police custody five days later following an application on May 28 for...

Yet another Senegalese journalist has been sentenced on criminal defamation charges within a week. This journalist, according to Afrol News, was found guilty of "publishing false news." Papa Moussa Guèye, director of the private daily L'Exclusif, was handed a six-month suspended prison term by a court in the capital Dakar. His troubles began after his paper published an article on President...

A Tehran revolutionary court's decision to hold Kurdish journalist Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand's trial behind closed doors under article 188 of the criminal code has been condemned by his lawyer, Masomeh Sotoudeh. The trial began on 25 May 2008. "This article can only be used for trials in which the details discussed could offend public morality, such as the trials of rapists," Sotoudeh said. She...

Rehmat Shah Afridi, the editor of Pakistani dailies Frontier Post and Maidan, has been released after nine years in prison on trumped-up drugs charges. He was freed on parole on May 24 on the orders of Punjab’s interior ministry. "Afridi’s release is excellent news for his family and friends and is a first step towards redressing a case that lacked transparency and led to his being given two death...