State Persecution

The editor of a Peruvian weekly newspaper in the Amazonian city of Bagua, Utcubamba province, was sentenced on Tuesday to one year in jail on defamation charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. Alejandro Carrascal Carrasco, editor of the Bagua-based weekly Nor Oriente, was convicted of charges that stemmed from a series of articles he wrote in...

Press freedom groups have condemned the detention and imminent expulsion of US journalist Jared Malsin, who has worked for the past two years as an editor with Ma’an, an independent Palestinian news agency based in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Malsin, 26, was arrested and placed in a detention centre on arriving at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on the afternoon of January 12 on a flight from...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) on Thursday urged the Kuwaiti prime minister and parliament not to back amendments to the publications law that it said would pose a threat to freedom of the press. Parliament is due to vote in the next few days, according to the website Alqabas.com, on amendments proposed by the information minister, Sheikh Ahmad Abdallah al-Sabah. “The adoption of these amendments...

Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, continues to be detained illegally in Nouakchott’s Dar Naim prison although he should have been freed on December 24 on completing a six-month sentence on a charge of “offending public decency.” The good news is that, under pressure from his family, he has abandoned the hunger strike that was threatening his health, Reporters sans Frontières...

Pakistani authorities have been urged to explain what has happened to Mohammad Rasheed, a freelance reporter who is probably being held by the army. It is believed he was arrested after being held for several days by a Taliban group in North Waziristan. “I don’t know where he is; his entire family is very worried,” his wife told Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The authorities must quickly say...

Three press freedom activists have been prosecuted for organising a “flash mob” in support of imprisoned journalists in Kazakhstan capital Almaty on January 6. The three activists were charged with holding an illegal demonstration when they appeared before an Almaty court on January 11, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The prosecution of Raushan Esergepova, Rozlana Taukina and...

For the third time in a row, one of jailed blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman's lawyers has been denied the right to visit him in Borg Al Arab prison although he had the required permits from the Alexandria attorney-general’s office, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. He is better known by the pen-name of Kareem Amer. The lawyer, Ahmed Omar, one of the Arabic Network for Human Rights...

Tanzanian Information Minister George Mkuchika announced the suspension of leading investigative weekly Kulikoni on Friday, citing a sales and distribution ban for a period of 90 days beginning January 11, according to local journalists and news reports. The ruling was linked to a November 27, 2009, story that alleged cheating in the national exams for the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces, the...

Syrian reporter Ali Taha and cameraman Ali Ahmed have been detained by the Department of Internal Security since January 2, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The authorities have not said why they were arrested or where they are being held. According to the information available, the security forces arrested Ahmed, who has worked for the TV station Rotana for the past 10 years, while...

Five journalists were summoned to the prosecutor’s office in Tashkent on Thursday for a grilling about their media activities and their sources of income. It has emerged that two other journalists received similar summonses Friday, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The five journalist who were “invited” to the office of assistant prosecutor Bakhrom Nurmatov were Marina Kozlova, Sid...