State Persecution

A Casablanca court Friday gave Taoufiq Bouachrine, the publisher of the Akhbar al-Youm newspaper, and cartoonist Khalid Gueddar three-year suspended jail sentences and ordered them to pay a colossal 270,000 euros in damages to Prince Moulay Ismaïl, a cousin of the king, for a cartoon of the prince published last month, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The sentences were issued as a...

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPH) has condemned and called for the immediate release of freelance journalist and blogger Pai Soe Oo, who was detained by government authorities on Wednesday for questioning. Pai Soe Oo was arrested by six officials at his apartment complex in the former capital of Rangoon at around 9 p.m., according to a Mizzima News story that quoted one of...

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has surveyed access to websites dedicated to the Uighur community, including sites in the Uighur language, in Mandarin and sometimes in English. These sites, operated by Uyghurs for Uyghurs, are for the most part inaccessible both to Internet users based in Xinjiang and those abroad. More than 85 per cent of the surveyed sites were blocked, censored or otherwise...

One journalist was arrested and another assaulted following the re-election of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali as president for the fifth time on October 24, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Taoufik Ben Brik was arrested Thursday when he answered a summons for an alleged assault on a woman in the street last week. Everything points to the being a case trumped up by the authorities to attack...

In the latest example of official paranoia and harassment of the press, Tashkent-based freelance journalists Vasiliy Markov and Sid Yanyshev were interrogated by police and members of the secret services about their work for more than 10 hours during a recent visit to the eastern border region near the city of Andijan, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The two journalists had gone to...

Abdoulaye Tiémogo, editor of the independent Nigerien weekly Le Canard déchaîné, has been released from prison after his sentence was reduced on appeal, Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The journalist, who is in poor health, had been held in custody since August 1. He had been found guilty of “discrediting a judicial decision”. Tiémogo told RSF after his release on October...

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the civilian and military authorities in Bangladesh to draw the appropriate conclusions from the case of FM Masum, a journalist employed by the English-language daily The New Age, who was arrested and tortured by an elite crime and counter-terrorist force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), on October 22 in Dhaka. Masum told Paris-based RSF from his...

Saudi Arabia King Abdallah has issued a royal decree quashing the sentence of 60 lashes that a court in Jeddah passed last week on journalist Rozanna al-Yami. Responsibility for the Yami case has at the same time been transferred from the courts to the culture and information ministry, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported quoting culture and information ministry spokesman Abdul Rahman al...

A judge in the western Saudi Arabia city of Jeddah has passed a sentence of 60 lashes on journalist Rozanna al-Yami because she worked for the Lebanese Broadcast Corporation (LBC), a satellite TV station that shocked conservative Saudis last July by broadcasting an interview with a Saudi man talking openly about his sex life, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The judge dismissed...

A court in the southern city of Taraz has upheld independent newspaper owner and editor Ramazan Esergepov’s three-year jail term and two-year publishing ban, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The sentence was confirmed at a secret hearing on October 22 which, like his original trial, was marked by irregularities. Except for the first 15 minutes, the appeal hearing was conducted behind...