State Persecution

A Spanish court April 12 acquitted five journalists who ran the Basque-language daily Euskaldunon Egunkaria of all charges of links to the Basque armed separatist group ETA, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The charges were brought against the journalists in 2003 and, as a result, the newspaper had been closed since February 20, 2003 on the orders of a National Court judge, Juan de...

The Moscow police on Wednesday made an abortive attempt to search the premises of the Moscow-based independent weekly The New Times/ Novoye Vremya in execution of a court order that is the subject of an appeal by the weekly, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Moscow’s Tverskoi district court issued the search order on April 5 in response to a libel action by the elite Omon police and...

Sudanese authorities have pressed criminal charges against prominent journalist and opposition party member Al-Haj Ali Warrag, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The National Press Council's lead attorney charged Warrag on Sunday under the Sudanese Penal Code with “waging war against the state,” in connection with an article published on April 6 in the independent daily Ajras...

Uniform and plainclothes Egyptian security forces assaulted and obstructed journalists trying to cover protests in Cairo on Tuesday, according to news accounts and interviews by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Several journalists reported that police prevented them from covering clashes between security forces and protesters calling for constitutional reforms and the end of the state...

Thirty-five journalists were imprisoned in Iran as of April 1 as authorities continued their nearly year-long crackdown on the news media, according to CPJ’s latest monthly census. Another 18 journalists were free on short-term furloughs granted for the Iranian New Year and were expected to report back to prison. Many of the incarcerated journalists are under immense physical and psychological...

The Kiev police interrogated online journalist and blogger Olena Bilozerska and photographer Olexiy Furman of the Photolenta agency and searched their homes in the past few days in a bid to obtain information about participants in protests, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Bilozerska and Furman were summoned to a police station, respectively on March 30 and in early March. They were...

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan should halt their ongoing crackdown on independent and opposition news outlets, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. A Bishkek court suspended a pro-opposition newspaper on Wednesday—the third such suspension in March—while financial police confiscated newsroom computers belonging to an independent Web-based television channel on Thursday, effectively...

A Kuwait City court sentenced journalist Mohammed Abdulqader al-Jassem on Thursday to six months in prison on charges of slandering Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The charges were based on remarks Al-Jassem gave at a February human rights conference in which he said the prime minister was unfit to rule the country and...

Vedat Kursun, the biggest shareholder in Turkey’s only Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat (Free Country), was sentenced to three years in prison by a court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on March 30 on a charge of propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. The newspaper’s managing editor until jailed last year, Kursun is the...

Several Iranian journalists continue to be held in inhumane conditions at the notorious Evin Prison. At least one journalist is reported in deteriorating health, and two are under severe duress to “confess” to charges that could bring execution, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The daughters of Badressadat Mofidi, the prominent Iranian journalist and secretary of the banned...