State Persecution

Eritrea now has at least 30 journalists and two media workers behind bars, which means that, exactly eight years after the round-ups of September 18, 2001 that put an end to free expression, it has achieved parity with China and Iran in terms of the number of journalists detained. The three most important waves of arrests of the past eight years were in September 2001, November 2006 and February

Press freedom groups have condemned the seizure of the print run of one of the few remaining independent newspapers in Kazakhstan, which is set to take control of a leading security and human rights organization. The country will become chair of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe in 2010. On Friday last, court officers in the financial capital Almaty confiscated the entire...

The government-run Uganda Broadcasting Council effectively shut down four radio stations today and Thursday, and ordered all radio stations to halt political debate programming in the wake of violent clashes in the capital, Kampala, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Violence erupted after the government attempted to block the king of the Buganda ethnic group, Ronald Muwenda...

A Thai criminal court decision has sentenced media owner, television commentator, and political activist Sondhi Limthongkul to two years in prison in connection with criminal libel charges filed by a former government minister. Sondhi posted 200,000 baht (US$5,882) bail and told courtroom reporters last thursday that he would appeal the conviction, according to local news reports. The court also...

Official harassment of Malaysiakini, a widely read online news site in Malaysia that has faced persistent threats from government authorities over its 11-year history, has increased in recent times, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Officials from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) entered Malaysiakini’s offices on September 8 and videotaped its...

A Madrid prosecutor on Monday demanded a three year prison term - and a three year ban on practising journalism - for El Mundo Deputy-Editor Antonio Rubio, who is accused of allegedly "discovering and revealing state secrets." The charges stem from articles published in the Spanish daily on May 31, 2005 detailing confidential reports which an informer codenamed 'Cartagena' supplied to the Spanish...

Turkey’s tax ministry has imposed an unprecedented TL 3.75 billion, or €1.74 billion fine on a media group, Dogan Yayin, a conglomerate of newspapers and television stations that has been extremely critical of the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The huge penalty, handed down earlier this week following examinations of tax reports from 2005, 2006 and 2007, follows a €345 million fine against...

Finnish photojournalist Markus Pentikäinen, convicted in 2007 for ignoring a police order to stop reporting at the scene of a 2006 demonstration in Helsinki, is to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights, according to the International Press Institute (IPI. The move comes after a Finnish Supreme Court decision of September 1 which gave him "no leave to appeal," according to weekly...

An independent Russian journalist who wrote scathing articles after the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric dam disaster last month has been attacked in the city of Abakan, according to the Other Russia website. Mikhail Afanasyev, who works as the editor-in-chief of the Novy Fokus internet newspaper, related the news himself to the Kasparov.ru online newspaper on September 9. Details about the...

The Director of Venezuela's National Commission on Telecommunications (CONATEL), has announced that 29 unidentified radio stations will soon be forced to cease operations. the move, which will bring the number of closures in the last couple of months to 63 radios and TV stations, was announced Saturday last by Minister Diosdado Cabello. CONATEL has said that all the cases involve stations whose...