State Persecution

The Russian government has asked the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ), which represents more than 100,000 journalists, to vacate its offices in central Moscow. RUJ Secretary-General Igor Yakovenko said the union received a letter from the Federal Property Management Agency on May 16 saying it would have to hand over its premises to the state-owned Russia Today TV station within a month. RUJ is...

The police fired warning shots at the scene of a double bombing Tuesday, enforcing an order banning news photographers and TV camera operators from filming the aftermath of deadly bombings, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The Iraqi government said it decided last weekend to keep photographers and camera crews away from blast sites to prevent them from damaging forensic evidence. Press...

A court in the Azerbaijani capital Baku has sentenced two journalists to 30 months in prison apiece on charges of defaming President Ilham Aliyev’s uncle. Yasamal District Court Judge Malahat Abdulmanafova Wednesday convicted Editor-in-Chief Rovshan Kebirli and reporter Yashar Agazadeh of the Baku-based opposition daily Muhalifet on charges of defaming Jalal Aliyev under articles 147 and 148 of...

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the recent arrests of four Iranian student editors of Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran following the publication of newsletters carrying articles deemed insulting to Islam. The students say they had no involvement in the publications, calling them a fraud designed to disrupt student elections. All of the university's student publications...

Liberian information minister Laurence Bropleh continues to make a stalwart but surprising defence of his government’s targeting of the Monrovia Independent newspaper for publishing an obscene photograph of another cabinet minister. Disgraced Minister of Presidential Affairs Willis Knuckles tendered his resignation on February 25 after a picture of him in a sex act with two young girls surfaced on...

The Singapore government has banned an independent film about a former top journalist and political activist who was held without trial for 17 years in the island republic, deeming the documentary to be "against public interests". Said Zahari with his wife. Zahari's 17 years by local filmmaker Martyn See is a 49-minute interview with Said Zahari about his arrest and subsequent detention under the...

A military court has acquitted three journalists of publishing a leaked document that was intercepted by the Swiss intelligence service. The case, commonly known as the “CIA fax affair”, had been widely followed both in and outside Switzerland because of its implications for press freedom and the role of military justice. A military tribunal ruled that SonntagsBlick reporters Sandro Brotz, Beat...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on the United States to release Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi photojournalist for The Associated Press, who has been held in a U.S. prison in Iraq for a year without charge. Hussein, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was taken by U.S. forces on April 12 in the western city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province, and held in a U.S. prison in Iraq for...

Punitive judicial sanctions are threatening Morocco’s independent press. Over the last two years, Moroccan courts have levied stiff criminal penalties and civil damages against independent news publications, effectively banishing two of the country’s most outspoken journalists from their profession. In January 2007, a Moroccan court handed down three-year suspended prison sentences to Driss Ksikes...

In a continued effort to suppress reform-minded critics, the Iranian government has sentenced yet another prominent journalist, Ali Farahbakhsh, to three years in jail and slapped him with a huge fine, partly due to a typo in the court documents. Farahbakhsh was convicted of spying in a trial held behind closed doors on Mar. 26. He was first imprisoned five months ago on his return to Iran after...