State Persecution

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Samarkand Regional Court in central Uzbekistan to overturn on appeal a 12 and a half year jail sentence given to independent journalist Dilmurod Saiid. His appeal is scheduled for review September 8. On July 30, the Tailak District Court in Samarkand sentenced Saiid on charges of extortion and forgery, regional news website Ferghana...

A Ugandan newspaper's critical caricature of President Yoweri Museveni led police to interrogate three journalists on allegations of sedition, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting a defence attorney and local journalists. For four hours, 10 officers of the Media Crimes Department of Uganda's Criminal Investigations Directorate questioned the editorial decisions of...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has deplored the conditions in which dozens of Iranian journalists are being held and is concerned about the health of many of them, particularly that of Ahmad Zaid-Abadi. The columnist, who worked for Rooz Online, a Farsi and English-language reformist news website, was arrested in mid-June after the contested presidential election. Mahdieh Mohammadi, Zaid...

An Istanbul criminal court has ordered the closure, for one month, of Günlük newspaper – which is known for raising issues related to Turkey’s Kurdish minority - over an article considered by the court to constitute propaganda for a terrorist organisation. The article was published earlier this month. The verdict, handed down on August 22, did not specify why the article was deemed to be of a...

Radio Bethlehem 2000, a radio station located near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, was shut down Tuesday evening by Israeli soldiers, who seized its equipment, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The summary closure of an independent Palestinian radio station and the arbitrary seizure of its equipment constitute outright censorship,” RSF said. “The station’s management was given no...

Georgian authorities on Wednesday released journalist Shalva Ramishvili from prison, after he served a full four-year term for alleged blackmail, according to the International Press Institute (IPI). Ramishvili, a former reporter for - and part owner of - TV broadcaster ‘202’, has always protested his innocence, claiming his conviction was punishment for his criticism of Georgian President Mikhail...

An Urdu-languge daily Asaap has closed down after it came under “tremendous pressure” from the Pakistan government and the security forces which were controlling its offices both inside and out. Editor, Abid Mir, speaking on the telephone from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan told Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) that he had “published the last edition on August 18” as a result of the...

A Mauritanian court has sentenced an online editor to six months in prison, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). A court in capital Nouakchott found Hanevy Ould Dehah, editor of the online publication Taqadoumy, guilty of acts "contrary to Islam and decent behavior" after he published an article about sex education, his lawyer Brahim Ould Ebetty told Agence France-Presse (AFP)...

The government of Somaliland has launched a crackdown on independent journalists in the breakaway country. On Sunday, the Sahil regional court in the costal city of Berbera sentenced the editor-in-chief of the online publication Berberanews, Mohamed Said, in absentia to three years in jail on defamation charges, according to local journalists. Said has been in hiding since mid-August. Judge Osman...

The fourth session of the mass trial of more than 100 opposition figures, including journalists, took place in Tehran today. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed dismay at procedural irregularities and the fact that the trial is only open to state-owned media. In the aftermath of the country's disputed June 12 presidential election, Iranian authorities have expelled foreign...