State Persecution

Yet another Burmese journalist has been given a long jail term, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and Burma Media Association (BMA). A Rangoon court sentenced video reporter Maung Maung Zeya on February 4 to five years in prison for two violations of the Unlawful Association Act, one year under the Immigration Act (for crossing the border illegally) and...

Influential radio and TV anchor Carmen Aristegui was suddenly fired by the MVS media group on February 6, two days after referring in her weekday news programme on radio MVS and cable channel Canal 52 to claims by opposition legislators that President Felipe Calderón has an alcohol problem, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The speed with which she was...

Gustavo Azócar, a journalist based in the western Venezuelan state of Táchira who has been prosecuted with varying degrees of success in the past, appeared on February 7 before a Táchira court again on a charge of libelling an army officer in 2004, when one of his jobs was correspondent for the national daily El Universal. A new hearing has been set for March 15, according to Paris-based press...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on Tuesday accused Russia of stepping back into the shadows of censorship and political intolerance after The Guardian's Moscow correspondent Luke Harding was expelled from the country, apparently in retaliation for writing a story linked to material provided by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. Harding was refused entry at Moscow airport when...

Military police reportedly detained Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer, the blogger better known as Kareem Amer, together with the filmmaker Samir Eshra on Cairo’s Kasr El-Nil bridge February 6 evening as they were leaving Tahrir Square. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) called for their immediate release. “Kareem Amer owes his prominence to his virulent criticism of the...

As journalists face ongoing attacks and detentions in Cairo, they are increasingly concerned that state broadcasts are creating an atmosphere that is encouraging violence against the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. State television and radio, along with pro-Mubarak private stations, are giving frequent airtime to presenters and guests who claim that foreigners, including...

Members and supporters of the international press freedom NGO Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) demonstrated outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris at midday today to express their outrage at the systematic use of violence against journalists in Egypt since February 2. Chanting “The news is being killed” and “Egypt, stop violence against journalists,” the RSF activists brandished posters showing...

Harsh prison sentences given to two journalists Friday under Rwanda's vague and sweeping laws against "genocide ideology" and "divisionism" will have a chilling effect on the Rwandan press, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. A panel of three High Court judges in the capital, Kigali, sentenced Agnès Uwimana, former editor of the now-defunct private weekly Umurabyo, to 17 years in...

The International Federation of Journalists today mourned the loss of the first journalist to die in the social unrest in Egypt. Journalist Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud died in hospital in Cairo from injuries suffered after he was shot in the eye by a sniper on Monday last week. The journalist, aged 39, worked for the A’wada newspaper, a part of the Al Ahram media group. His death comes after a week of...

Pedro Argüelles Morán, one of four journalists in jailed Cuba, began a hunger strike February 1 to protest against the authorities’ efforts to force him into exile as the price for freeing him. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has appealed to him and another jailed journalist Albert Santiago du Bouchet, who has also started a hunger strike, to call off their action....