State Persecution

Several journalists attempting to report on clashes this week and last between government forces and protesters were detained and beaten up in Khartoum and the nearby city of Omdurman. Police detained more than 100 people during the clashes, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. On Monday, police arrested Lucia John Abui, a journalist...

Syrenius Cephus, the publisher of the Plain Truth daily newspaper, and Michael Makinde, the general manager of the Seamarco Printing Press, are being held in connection with a report claiming that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government supplied arms to dissident forces in neighbouring Guinea. “If the report that appeared in Plain Truth is baseless and defamatory, we think the...

The managing editor of a private newspaper in Cameroon has been held in police custody since Thursday, accused of insulting President Paul Biya, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists and news reports. Managing Editor Jean-Bosco Talla of the weekly Germinal was picked up by police in the capital, Yaoundé, on Thursday and taken to the State...

A Russian police officer who fatally shot an online publisher in government custody in 2008 was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in a low-security prison settlement Friday, Reuters and other news agencies reported. The family of the victim, Magomed Yevloyev, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) they would appeal the verdict because their own...

The NewYork-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern about the health and detention conditions of Tunisian journalist Taoufik Ben Brik and the flagrant and recurrent violations of his right to see his wife and lawyers. The health and detention conditions of Ben Brik, one of the most critical journalists of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who is currently serving a six...

On the 100th day after the sentencing of journalist JS Tissainayagam, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to use his constitutional powers to release him from the 20-year prison sentence that was given to him on August 31. Tissainayagam, also known as Tissa, was one of dozens of ethnic Tamil journalists who were swept up...

The time that Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak has spent in a jail in Eritrea, without a trial and without any visits from his family or lawyers, on Thursday reached 3,000 days. “It is a disgrace that he remains in prison and it is remarkable that the Swedish government does not try harder to get him released,” said Jesper Bengtsson, president of the Swedish section of Reporters Sans...

A court in the Amazonian state of Acre released Antônio Muniz, a local TV commentator and columnist for the daily newspaper O Rio Branco, on December 4, two days after he was jailed in connection with a 2002 conviction on a charge of defaming a senator. “The court’s decision was necessary because press offences have been decriminalised,” Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said. “We are...

Iranian authorities decided on Monday to shut the reformist daily Hayate No. The Press Supervisory Board revoked the licence of the Tehran-based daily Hayate No “for working outside the regulations,” the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. The agency provided no details of the alleged violations. Hayate No is considered supportive of...

There is a climate of fear to which Ethiopia’s independent media are currently exposed. The Addis Ababa-based weekly Addis Neger suspended publication Friday after several of its editors fled the country in the past few days because they were afraid they would be arrested. “The spectre of the 2005 crackdown on the opposition and on the independent press is resurfacing in the run-up to the May 2010...