State Persecution

Burmese exiled media groups are calling for international support in ending cyber attacks that have crippled two news websites over the past week. The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy magazine, which provide independent coverage of current affairs in Burma, have been the target of intense attacks which it is believed originate from the Burmese government. The two websites are...

Turkish reporter Ismail Saymaz faces 79 years in prison due to the publication of critical articles for the Turkish daily newspaper Radikal, IPI's National Committee in Turkey has reported. Saymaz, accused of "violating the secrecy of an investigation" in relation to the Ergenekon trials and events in the city of Erzincan, has previously been charged with no less than eight other criminal cases...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over the unprecedented harassment of Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of the Prachatai news website. Detained at Bangkok airport on September 24, on her return from an international conference, she has been told she was arrested on a warrant issued in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen in September 2009 in...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the authorities to immediately free cartoonist Kamal Sharaf, who is still being held despite a ruling by a special state security court on September 22 ordering his release. The press freedom organisation also calls for the release of reporter Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae although the same state security court ruled that he should...

Radio Kapisa FM director Hojatullah Mujadadi is still being held by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Kabul, although both Afghan officials and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced on September 24 that he had been released. “My son is still being held by the security forces,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) was told by...

Vietnamese authorities have arrested blogger Le Nguyen Huong Tra in the latest episode in a mounting crackdown on bloggers leading up to a crucial Communist Party congress scheduled for January 2011, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Tra, who writes under the penname Do Long Girl, was taken into custody at her Ho Chi Minh City home on October 23, according to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned by cyber-attacks against three exile-run Burma news outlets, Irrawaddy, Mizzima News, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks have shut Irrawaddy's main website while temporarily blocking access to Mizzima's site. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the Internet-based...

Imprisoned Cuban journalist Miguel Galván Gutierrez was released from jail and flown to Madrid on Saturday as part of a July agreement between the Havana government and the Catholic Church. Sixteen journalists jailed in the 2003 Black Spring crackdown have now been freed and exiled as part of the agreement. "Although I am currently fighting with some health issues resulting from a seven year-...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced Algerian authorities' harassment of two Moroccan journalists who were effectively detained for four days in the town of Tindouf in southwestern Algeria. Lahcen Tigbadar and Mohamed Slimani, journalists with the Moroccan weekly Assahra Ousbouiya, returned home on Wednesday, according to news reports. Algerian police had prevented them from...

Thailand authorities have arrested Chiranuch Premchaiporn, editor of the popular Thailand news website Prachatai, on charges of insulting the royal family, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Prachatai said police at Suvarnabhumi Airport detained Chiranuch at 2:30 p.m. as she arrived from Hungary, where she had attended an Internet freedom conference. Police...