State Persecution

A Cambodian man who shared web articles with two of his colleagues was convicted on incitement charges and sentenced to six months in jail under a new penal code, reports Human Rights Watch, which called the use of the law "a huge step backward for free expression in Cambodia." On December 17, Seng Kunnaka, a Cambodian employee with the United Nations World Food Programme in Phnom Penh, was...

An Ecuadoran provincial radio station known for its criticism of local authorities was denied its license renewal based on bogus administrative violations, New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Ecuadoran regulators must allow the station to report the news freely, CPJ said. "The decision to shut down Voz de la Esmeralda Oriental Canela Radio is clearly arbitrary and...

A prosecutor in Rwanda has requested long prison sentences for two newspaper journalists who, after six months in pre-trial detention, are being tried before a Kigali high court on a range of charges including genocide denial and inciting public disorder, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The prosecution on Wednesday requested 33 years in prison and a...

President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Massoud Barzani has announced in an interview with the pro-KDP daily Khebat that he is to withdraw a complaint made by his party against two columnists on the non partisan newspaper Awene, Marwan Wrya Qani’ and Aras Fatah, over their article that appeared in June 2010, “What did the president of the autonomous region of Kurdistan say?” Paris-based press...

The LambdaIstanbul Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Solidarity Association has protested against a fine issued by the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) to the HabertUrk television station after the station broadcast a discussion on homosexuality. The members of the association called on RTUK president Davut Dursun to apologise for putting forward that the programme on the subject...

The misdemeanors appeals court in Egypt fined Abdel Halim Kandil, former editor of the Sout elUmmah newspaper, EGP 10,000 (approx. US$1,700) and Ahmed Abulkheir, a journalist at the same paper, EGP 15,000 (approx. US$2,600). They were both convicted on December 25 of insult and libel in relation to their coverage of filmmaker Akram elSobky's wedding party, according to the Arabic Network for Human...

Belarusian authorities continued their massive crackdown on critical news media on Tuesday as security agents raided offices shared by the independent weekly Nasha Niva and the Belarusian PEN Center, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). KGB agents confiscated a dozen computers and numerous digital storage devices after producing a search warrant...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the authorities in Burundi to release journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, who has been held in custody for nearly six months at Mpimba prison in the capital Bujumbura. No trial has yet been opened in the case. “Jean-Claude Kavumbagu should be released immediately. He was arrested last July and is about to begin the year...

Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov, a newspaper reporter who has been detained arbitrarily by prosecutors in Khujand, in the northern Tajikistan province of Sughd, is being held since November 23, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Ismoilov was arrested at the behest of the regional prosecutor’s office one day after an article he wrote about its alleged corrupt and...

Sithu Zeya, a 21-year-old Burmese photographer who was arrested on April 16 for taking photos of the damage caused by a bomb in a Rangoon park, has been sentenced to eight years in prison. His father, Maung Maung Zeya, a journalist and painter who was arrested a day later, is to be tried in January, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both worked for the...