State Persecution

The Colombian attorney-general’s office Monday directly implicated four senior intelligence officials and the secretary-general of the president’s office, Bernardo Moreno, in the phone-tapping of journalists and other prominent government critics, a scandal that was first exposed in early 2009. This occurred during the trial of Jorge Noguera, the former head of the intelligence agency known as the...

Palestinian journalist Tareq Abu Zayd, the correspondent of Hamas-run TV station Al-Aqsa, has been given an 18-month jail sentence by a court in the West Bank city of Nablus, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The sentence was imposed by a Palestinian Authority military court on February 16. Zayd has been held for more than three months in Nablus, 60 km north of Jerusalem. The supreme...

Investigative journalist Maryna Koktysh, the deputy editor of the Minsk-based independent newspaper Narodnaya Volya, is being continually harassed over her coverage of a case involving senior police officers and interior ministry officials in the southeastern Belarus city of Homyel, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The independent press has just done its duty by reporting...

Syrian reporter Ali Taha was freed on February 7 after 36 days in detention, and cameraman Ali Ahmed a few days later, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The two journalists, who work for the TV station Rotana, were arrested on January 2. “The release of these two journalists is good news, but we condemn that the fact that they were held for a more than month without charge,” Paris...

Eritrean journalist and essayist Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu has been held in solitary confinement for the past few weeks in May Srwa prisons, to the north of Asmara, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. It is not known why she is being given this treatment. Employed by Asmara-based Radio Bana, Yirgalem Fisseha was arrested when the authorities raided the station on February 22, 2009 and...

Zimbabwean authorities are still harassing and intimidating the Zimbabwean, a privately-owned newspaper that is edited in Britain and printed in South Africa. In the latest instance, criminal charges of “publishing falsehoods” have been brought against the directors of Adquest, the company that distributes it inside Zimbabwe. No date has yet been set for their trial, according to Reporters sans...

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez said on Tuesday that those who illegally spy on the press are “enemies of his government” during a meeting with a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Foundation for Freedom of the Press (FLIP). Uribe issued the statement at the urging of the CPJ and FLIP delegation, which met with the president and top government officials...

Four Radio Benghazi journalists who worked on a programme that specialises in covering corruption were arrested Wednesday evening outside the station in Benghazi (650 km east of Tripoli) and were released at midday Thursday, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported. Their arrests come amid a general crackdown by the Libyan authorities on news media, especially independent news websites. “We firmly...

Simon Hervé Nko’o and Serge Sabouang, two journalists who were arrested by members of the General Directorate for External Investigation (DGRE) on February 5 without any reason being given, were finally released on the evening of February 12, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF).

A court in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, has passed a 21-year jail sentence on Ozan Kilinç, the owner and editor of the country’s only Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. After finding Kilinç guilty of criminal propaganda in support of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the court sentenced him in...