State Persecution

Over the past month, military-controlled courts in Burma have sentenced two undercover Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reporters to punitive prison terms over their reporting, according to Committee to Protect Journalists. On January 27, a special court attached to Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison sentenced DVB reporter Ngwe Soe Lin, also known as Tun Kyaw, to 13 years in prison on charges...

An appeal court in Tajikistan has upheld an astronomical damages award against a news weekly and the announcement of new lawsuits against a total of four leading newspapers, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The damages award of 300,000 somoni (49,000 euros) against the weekly Paykon (“Arrowhead”) was confirmed on January 26 by a Dushanbe court. The newspaper had been ordered to pay...

Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police (PNR) arrested Juan Carlos Reyes Ocaña, journalist on the small news agency Holguín Press on January 29 then took him to a police barracks to face charges of “insult”, “disobedience” and “illegal economic activity”. He was released the following day, but has started a hunger strike as he awaits his trial which could mean a prison sentence, Reporters sans...

Liquidators took control of Morocco's most critical publication this week after a Casablanca commercial appeals court declared on Monday that Le Journal Hebdomadaire’s former publishing group, Media Trust, and its current one, Trimedia, were bankrupt, lawyers told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Aboubakr Jamaï, co-founder and former managing director of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, told...

A Vietnamese journalist has been awarded a jail sentence on charges that she spread anti-state propaganda, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Pham Thanh Nghien, a freelance writer, was arrested during a government crackdown on dissidents in September 2008 and originally charged with staging a protest against Vietnamese policy on a maritime dispute with China, according to...

Tthe Supreme Court in Israel on Thuesday overturned prison sentences of eight months, six of them suspended, against Khader Shahin, correspondent for Iranian Arabic-language television al-Alam, and his assistant Mohammed Sarhan, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. After the Israeli army launched operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008, Shahin, living in Jerusalem, was...

The latest series of bombings in Baghdad, Tuesday afternoon, were targeted at the city’s main hotels, which house many Iraqi and foreign news media. The offices of the Al-Hurra TV station were damaged and many journalists suffered minor injuries, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. RSF condemned this indiscriminate violence against Iraqi civilians but pointed out that the situation for...

Sri Lankan journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda went missing Sunday night in Colombo. A senior police official told Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) he was too busy with Tuesday's presidential election to make the case a priority. Eknaligoda, who writes political analyses for the Lankaenews website, left work at about 9 p.m. but did not arrive home and has not contacted any family members or friends. He...

Venezuelan regulators have ordered cable and satellite operators to stop carrying one of the country’s best known broadcasters, RCTV International, along with five other stations, alleging that the broadcasters violated a requirement to air President Hugo Chávez’s speeches., according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On orders from the National Telecommunication Commission (CONATEL)...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Uzbek authorities to immediately drop all charges against Umida Akhmedova, a prominent photojournalist and documentary filmmaker who covers gender, ethnic, and cultural issues, and allow her to continue to do her work without fear of reprisal. On January 13, investigators with the city police department in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent...