State Persecution

Iran on Tuesday arrested four journalists at the daily Sharq. There have also been recent news reports that indicate the abusive treatment endured by dozens of imprisoned Iranian prisoners has adversely affected the health of many of them--including Issa Saharkhiz, a founding member of the now-defunct Association of Iranian ‎Journalists, who has reportedly undergone surgery for internal...

A court in Jendouba is expected to rule Wednesday in a criminal case against Mouldi Zouabi, a senior reporter for the online Tunisian news outlet Kalima, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The journalist faces assault charges related to an April 1 episode. Zouabi told CPJ he was assaulted by Khalil Maaroufi, a ruling party member who called the...

Press freedom groups have condemned the blocking, cyber-attacks and political pressure being directed at cablegate.wikileaks.org, the website dedicated to the leaked US diplomatic cables. ARTICLE 19, Index on Censorship, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have come down heavily on the attempts to hound and eventually silence WikiLeaks. Earlier...

Palestinians’ violations against journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories were much more than the Israeli’s violations during the month of November. The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) has monitored a lot of violations against freedom of expression; most of them were committed by the Palestinian security services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The...

Some 40 people – including Radio Nizkor journalist Claudia Julieta Duque – on November 30 filed complaints against former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe linked to his alleged responsibility in the “Dasgate” illegal phone-tapping, threats and sabotage laid at the door of the intelligence services. Uribe is due to appear before a special congressional committee which will allow him to escape more...

Nikol Pashinian, an opposition activist and editor-in-chief of the independent Armenia daily Haykakan Zhamanak, was recently beaten in custody and moved into solitary confinement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On Tuesday, authorities moved Pashinian into the strict-regime Artik prison. Pashinian's lawyer, Vakhe Grigorian, told CPJ that the move was in...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the six-month jail sentence that a military court imposed on blogger Ahmed Hassan Basiouny on November 29 on charges of disseminating defence secrets online and “disclosing information relating to the Egyptian armed forces.” Basiouny was arrested for creating a Facebook page in 2009 that provided advice and information...

Zimbabwean journalist Nqobani Ndlovu was released on November 25, more than a week after he was arrested in connection with a report alleging that the police force was allowing former war veterans and retired officers to take up senior posts without sitting for promotional examinations. His lawyers are now challenging the constitutionality of the law under which Ndlovu was charged. “We feel it...

A talk show host on Trinidad and Tobago’s public broadcaster, Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG), was taken off his programme earlier this month after a challenging interview with Foreign Affairs Minister Suruj Rambachan over Prime Minister Kamla Persad–Bissessar’s handling of aid to Caribbean countries affected by Hurricane Tomas in late October. On November 7, two days after the morning television...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the latest proceedings that Croatian interior minister Tomislav Karamarko has initiated against journalist Zeljko Peratovic, the target of repeated legal actions by the minister during past two years accusing him variously of defamation, violating the confidentiality of a judicial investigation and divulging information...