State Persecution

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed shock at the spate of arbitrary arrests in Iraqi Kurdistan as it prepares to celebrate the 113th anniversary of the creation of the first Kurdish news media on Friday. Media freedom and security, which seemed better in Kurdistan than in neighbouring regions during the darkest years of the war in Iraq, have worsened a...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has obtained information about the charges brought against the journalist and writer Fayez Sara, who arrested on April 11 in Damascus, and the blogger Kamal Hussein Sheikhou, who was arrested during a demonstration outside the interior ministry on March 15. The press freedom organisation called for the withdrawal of the charges...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) continues to be very concerned about the repression to which journalists have been exposed in Yemen since the start of a wave of street protests. In the past few days, journalists have been arrested, media have been attacked and newspapers have been confiscated. Journalist Ali Salah Ahmed was arrested Tuesday evening at Sana'a airport...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the two criminal defamation charges that have been brought against Alberto Loyola, a journalist with radio DxRJ in Iligan City (on the southern island of Mindanao), by local city councillor Chonilo Ruiz. Arrested on April 18, Loyola was released Tuesday on bail of 10,000 pesos (160 euros) after being held for nearly 48...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the way that Hata Wahari, the president of the National Union Of Journalists Malaysia (NUJ), is being treated by his newspaper, the Kuala Lumpur-based daily Utusan Malaysia. The newspaper is owned by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), a political party that has played a dominant role in Malaysia since...

Many opposition and news websites have fallen victim to distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) in the run-up to Saturday’s election in Malaysia’s eastern state of Sarawak (on the island of Borneo), which is posing a challenge to Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud’s 30-year-old rule of the state. “It is sad to see that election campaigns and freedom of information do not go together in Malaysia...

The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Bahraini authorities today to conduct an immediate and transparent investigation into the death in state custody of Karim Fakhrawi, founder and board member of Al-Wasat, the country's premier independent daily. Fakhrawi died Tuesday, a week after he was apparently taken into custody, according to news reports. Human rights defenders told CPJ that...

A Dakar court Thursday gave Abdou Latif Coulibaly, the editor of the weekly La Gazette, a three-month suspended jail sentenced and fined him 10 million CFA francs (15,267 euros) for allegedly defaming a Senegalese businessman close to President Wade by accusing him of acting fraudulently in his dealings with the government. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) condemned...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the Syrian government to free nearly a dozen journalists and netizens it has imprisoned as it battles protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. “The terror and arbitrary rule must end,” the media freedom organisation said, “and all those held, as well as prisoners of conscience, must be released.” Among...

Authorities in the kingdom of Swaziland should allow the news media to report freely on anti-government protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today after security forces harassed at least 10 local and international journalists covering a mass demonstration demanding political and economic reform after more than two decades of rule by King Mswati III. Police stopped reporter Niren...