State Persecution

There has been a new wave of threats and physical attacks on journalists during the past few weeks in both Bishkek, the capital, and the southern city of Osh, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “Harassment and self-censorship are growing, in an explosive atmosphere of ethnic tension,” RSF said. “No serious investigation has been carried out into any of...

Provincial journalist Jesús Lemus Barajas was released on May 11. The founder and publisher of El Tiempo, a local newspaper in Piedad, in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán, and a former correspondent of the national daily La Jornada, Lemus was arrested on absolutely baseless drug trafficking charges on May 7, 2008 while investigating drug cartel activity in Cuerámaro, in the neighbouring...

Palestinian news photographer Mohammed Othman was badly injured by a shot fired by an Israeli soldier while covering clashes between young Palestinians and Israeli troops at the Beit Hanoun (Erez) border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel on May 15, the anniversary of Israel’s creation, marked as “Nakba Day” (Day of Disaster) by Palestinians. He was taken to Shifa hospital where he...

Online newspaper editor Jean-Claude Kavumbagu was released on May 16 after being acquitted on a charge of treason for questioning in an article whether Burundi would be able to protect itself against a terrorist attack by Somalia’s Islamist militia Al-Shabaab, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Prosecutors had requested a life sentence last month on April...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the conviction and sentencing of Irina Khalip, the Minsk-based correspondent for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and called on Belarusian authorities to acquit her on appeal. The Zavodskoi District Court in Minsk May 16 declared Khalip guilty of "organising and preparing activities severely...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over Mzwandile Ndlovu, a journalist held by the police in the western town of Hwange since his arrest on May 10, and about the constant harassment of employees of two independent newspapers, The Daily News and NewsDay, by police, intelligence officials and members of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. “We...

Ten Ugandan and foreign journalists were physically attacked by soldiers on May 12 while covering opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s return to Uganda from Kenya, where he was treated for injuries received when the security forces used force to disperse an opposition demonstration in Kampala in April, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The violence, which...

Reporter Abdelfattah Belaid was brutally attacked in Tunis Friday by police officers who pursued him into the headquarters of his newspaper, the French-language daily La Presse, after spotting him taking pictures of them dispersing protesters in the street outside. He was the second journalist to be beaten by police in Tunis in the past 24 hours. Belaid was photographing police officers using...

Ernest Vardanean, a journalist who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a charge of spying for Moldova at the end of a sham trial last December, was pardoned on May 5 by the breakaway Republic of Transnistria’s president, Igor Smirnov, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Detained since April 2010, Vardanean was able to return to his home in the...

Chinese authorities should clarify the whereabouts of two Chinese journalists who reported on detained artist and social commentator Ai Weiwei, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Family and colleagues have been unable to reach Caijing magazine journalist Zhang Jialong since the evening of April 28, according to Radio France Internationale. He...