State Persecution

Flouting a January 15 supreme court ruling, state-owned TV stations Rupavahini and ITN continue to openly favour President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s campaign to win another term in the presidential election to be held on January 26 with a total of 21 candidates taking part. Detailed monitoring by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has established that 98.5 per cent of the news and current affairs air-time...

There has been an increase in press freedom violations and violence against independent journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan since the July 25 regional elections, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Both of the two political parties that control the region have had a hand in these violations, of which there have been several recent cases. The most recent is that of freelance journalist Sabah...

Freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda, a contributor to the private weekly the Zimbabwean, fled the country on Friday after he said he received a telephone threat from a high-ranking police officer, according to the paper’s editor, Wilf Mbanga. The reporter identified the caller as Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge, Mbanga said. The caller allegedly said that Kwenda would be dead by the...

An appeals court in the city of Nabeul refused Wednesday to release Tunisian Zuhair Makhlouf despite his completion of a three-month prison term imposed in October, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Makhlouf, a contributor to news website Assabil Online and the opposition weekly Al-Mawkif, remains in prison following his lawyer’s motion for a provisional release, according...

US journalist, Jared Malsin, editor for the English service of the Palestinian press agency Ma’an, was expelled from Israel under suspicious circumstances, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. “The journalist was expelled after giving up his right of appeal. This decision was taken in dubious circumstances in that the journalist’s lawyer was not present,” Paris-based RSF said. "Did the...

Yemeni journalist Moaz Ashhabi was sentenced on January 16 to one year in prison by a court in Sana’a dealing with press matters which also banned him from working as journalist for one year for “falsification" of the Koran, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The charge related to his column that was carried by the weekly al-Thaqafa (Culture) on October 7, 2009. Ashhabi was taken to the...

A three-month jail sentence has been slapped by a Sana’a special court for press matters on Anissa Mohammed Ali Othman for “insulting the president” in two articles for the weekly Al-Wassat in July 2007. The court on Saturday also banned her from working as a journalist for a year and fined her editor, Jamal Amer 10,000 rials (34 euros), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Published in...

US journalist Jared Malsin is still being held in a detention centre at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion international airport, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). He was arrested on arrival at the airport on January 12 and questioned for eight hours about his work as a journalist for Ma’an, an independent Palestinian news agency based in Bethlehem. He was due to be taken before a judge on Sunday...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Friday called on Uzbek authorities to immediately cease their campaign of intimidation against the handful of independent journalists remaining in the Central Asian country. From January 7-9, at least six journalists were called in for “an informal talk” at the Tashkent prosecutor’s office, and at least four of them were interrogated about their work...

Jean-Bosco Talla, the editor of the privately-owned weekly Germinal, was released from Yaoundé’s Kondengui prison on January 13 after paying the fine imposed by a court on December 28 on a charge of insulting the president, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Talla, who described himself as “calm,” told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Germinal would continue to be published “without any...