State Persecution

The Belarusian security service, known as the KGB, continues to relentlessly raid newsrooms, confiscate reporting equipment from publications and journalists' homes, imprison independent and pro-opposition journalists, and harass their families, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). At around 4 p.m. on Saturday, three local police officers detained...

A pregnant reporter with al-Jazeera TV channel was barred from an annual event for foreign journalists addressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing to remove her bra during security check. Najwan Simri Diab told news portal Ynetnews that she was asked to stand in the queue with colleagues and journalists on her arrival to the event venue. She noticed that the guards had...

Singapore plans to impose restrictions on a liberal, popular news website ahead of general elections Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong may call this year, according to Reuters. The Prime Minister's Office plans to designate "The Online Citizen" ( www.onlinecitizen.com) as a "political association," which means the website is banned from accepting donations from abroad. The office said the website was...

Yemeni journalist Fouad Rashid has been arbitrarily arrested in Al-Mukalla, a city 500 km east of Sanaa that is the capital of Hadramaut provinceaccording to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The editor of the Arabic-language news website Al-Mukalla Press, Rashid was arrested on the street on the morning of January 10 and was taken to the headquarters of the city’s...

Assadolah Vahidi, editor of daily Sarnewesht, was arrested Sunday on the orders of Afghanistan’s chief prosecutor based on a complaint from President Hamid Karzai’s national security advisor, without any consultation with the Commission for Media Complaints, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). This arrest was illegal, in terms of the way it was carried out...

US-Nigerian professor and journalist Okey Ndibe was on January 8 questioned for several hours by the internal intelligence agency, the State Security Service (SSS), after arriving at Muritala Muhammed international airport in Lagos, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both his American and Nigerian passports were confiscated without any explanation and...

Hungary's newly-instituted media council (NMHH) took over an inquiry into Tilos radio station launched in September, according to a letter from the council on the station's website. The inquiry relates to the station's broadcast of two songs by American rapper Ice-T in its 17:30 programme. According to the letter from the NMHH, the songs' lyrics were objectionable, and violated sections 5/B. (3)...

The former editorial manager and concessionaire of the Kurdish newspaper Azadiya Welat, Emine Demir, received a prison sentence of 138 years on charges of "spreading propaganda for the PKK", the militant Kurdistan Workers Party. The sentence is based on articles Demir accepted for publication in the paper, according to IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET). The 24-year-old journalist was convicted...

The Broadcasting Council (BC) of Uganda has blocked privately-owned radio stations from live broadcasting a conference organised by the Buganda Kingdom, according to the Human Rights Network for Journalists. The Ttabamiruka is an annual conference organised by the Buganda Kingdom to review and discuss the social, cultural, economic and developmental issues of the kingdom. The theme for the 2010...

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has welcomed the release of journalist Yusuf Ali Adan, an online reporter for Somalifans news website, whose whereabouts remained unknown until December 2010, when Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS) produced him at the Criminal Court in Bossasso town of Puntland. Adan, who was released on December 30, was first brought to the Criminal Court in...