State Persecution

A judge in the southern Honduran town of Amapala has decided to try community radio reporters Elia Xiomara Hernández and Elba Yolibeth Rubio on charges of disobeying the authorities and “taking part in demonstrations that obstruct public services.” The trial is to take place on January 11, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Hernández and Rubio, who work...

Robert Shemahamba, director of Radio-Télévision Communautaire Mitumba (RTCM) and correspondent for the Syfia Grands Lacs news agency, has been arbitrarily detained since Dececmber 17 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The journalist is being held in a cell at the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) in Uvira, Sud...

Two Uzbekistan journalists working for public television Yoshlar, Saodat Omonova and Malohat Eshankulova, were dismissed on December 9, three days after they demonstrated against censorship and corruption at the TV station, in a square in central Tashkent, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). It expressed concern over their safety, since following their...

Iranian journalist Abdolreza Tajik, winner of the RSF 2010 press freedom award, has been freed after his family put up bail for a third time in the sum of 500,000,000 tomans (about 370,000 euros), Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. RSF said it was delighted at the release on Wednesday of the emblematic figure in the struggle for freedom and journalism in...

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace Mugabe, has brought about a libel suite against independent weekly The Standard for quoting a US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks accusing her of involvement in diamond trafficking. She is demanding $15 million in damages, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The First Lady’s libel suit aims to undermine...

Authorities should immediately release Congolese radio journalist Robert Shemahamba, who has been held in the eastern city of Uvira since Friday in connection with a political program critical of local officials, the New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Shemahamba, director of the community station Radio Télé Mitumba, was taken into custody by the...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on Thai authorities to release Sun Shucai, an 87-year-old refugee activist and journalist who was arrested in Bangkok on December 8. He is now in a Bangkok immigration detention centre after a judge fined him 3,000 Baht (75 euros) on December 9 and ordered the authorities to examine the possibility of deporting him. “We are...

Around 20 journalists were arrested and a similar number the victims of police violence during the demonstrations that followed Sunday’s announcement of President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection victory. The protesters and journalists arrested were being tried Monday. Ilya Kuzniatsu, for example, was sentenced to 15 days in prison on a charge of “participating in an illegal demonstration.” Paris...

Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) voiced clear support for media freedom during his party’s congress on December 13 but in recent months more and more lawsuits have been brought against the Kurdish media, and not just the independent ones. Newspaper editors nowadays seem to be spending their time in the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has accused authorities in Belarus of "violent bullying and intimidation" of journalists covering a peaceful protest in central Minsk yesterday, saying the brutality exposed the country's fragile attachment to democracy following presidential elections. "The sheer violence and blatant regard of journalists' right to cover a public event were...