State Persecution

A “repugnant” defamation conviction has been handed down by a Moscow court to the independent weekly The New Times for a report into police corruption and abuse, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The verdict, obtained through false testimony, nullified the newspaper’s solid, truthful investigation headlined “OMON slaves” – in reference to the OMON riot...

Newspaper editors Serge Sabouang of the bimonthly La Nation and Robert Mintya of the weekly Le Devoir were freed provisionally Wednesday after more than eight months in Yaoundé’s main prison, Kondengui. Sabouang confirmed their release in a phone call last night with the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) correspondent in Cameroon. “We hail the release of these two...

When the fourth hearing in imprisoned journalist Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae’s trial was held before a special state security court in Sanaa Wednesday, prosecutors submitted the contents of his computer as evidence. His lawyer, however, accused them of deception, pointing out that they had produced the computer seized when he was briefly arrested on July 11, not the one seized when he was arrested a...

Zimbabwe authorities Tuesday prevented The Standard newspaper reporter Nqodani Ndlovu from leaving detention, overruling a court decision to grant him bail, media reports said. Ndlovu was arrested in connection with a November 14 report alleging that the police force was allowing former war veterans and retired officers to take up senior posts without sitting for promotional examinations. War...

Alexandria-based journalist and human rights activist Youssef Shaaban being held on a trumped-up drug charge. A reporter for the independent online newspaper Al-Badil, he was arrested during a demonstration on November 20 by residents in the Alexandria neighbourhood of Abu Suleiman, who were protesting against their eviction, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières...

Turkey continues to abuse its anti-terrorism law to censor and punish journalists who raise the issue of its Kurdish minority or quote certain Kurdish leaders. Use of the law to prosecute journalists has increased since it was amended in 2006. Under article 7/2 of the law, propaganda on behalf of a terrorist organisation is punishable by imprisonment. As neither “propaganda” nor “terrorist...

Egyptian authorities should immediately release Youssef Shaaban, a reporter for the online newspaper Al-Badil who was arrested while covering street protests in Alexandria, and drop the criminal charges against him, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Shaaban was arrested Friday during a demonstration against a new construction project in the Abu Suleyman...

Abdou Latif Coulibaly, one of Senegal’s most prominent journalists and writers, and two of the journalists who work with him on his weekly newspaper, La Gazette, have been fined 20 million CFA francs (30,000 euros) and given one-month suspended jail sentences in a libel case about alleged kickbacks in the allocation of a mobile phone licence. The much-awaited sentence – issued on November 16, two...

Reporter Nqobani Ndlovu remained in police custody on Thursday despite expectations that he would appear in court on criminal defamation charges, local journalists told New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Police in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, arrested Ndlovu, a reporter for the private weekly Standard, on Wednesday and charged him with criminal defamation in...

Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer, the Egyptian blogger known as Kareem Amer, was finally set free on the evening of November 15, 10 days after completing a four-year jail sentence, and is now reunited with his family. He has decided for the time being to make no statement, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The blogger was again subjected to physical...