State Persecution

Four journalists from Uganda's largest independent newspaper are facing criminal prosecutions, joining four others already charged since 2007, according to local journalists and news reports. Criminal prosecutions against the Monitor are on the rise against the backdrop of mounting national tensions in the lead-up to general elections in 2011. This month, President Yoweri Museveni, who is expected...

Two Ethiopian journalists were thrown in prison on Monday after a judge convicted them under an obsolete press law in connection with coverage of sensitive topics dating back several years, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists and news reports. Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, editor of the weekly, Muslim-oriented newspaper Salafiyya, and Asrat Wedajo, former...

The Taraz Regional Court in southern Kazakhstan sentenced to jail Ramazan Yesergepov, editor of Almaty-based weekly Alma-Ata Info, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On August 8, the court sentenced Yesergepov to three years in prison on a criminal charge of "collecting information that contains state secrets," the local press said. Rozlana Taukina, head of the Almaty-based...

Prosecutors in Abakan, the capital of the Republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia, have filed defamation charges against online editor Mikhail Afanasyev, over a blog entry about Monday's explosion at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant that killed dozens of workers, according to news reports. Prosecutors opened a criminal probe against Afanasyev on Wednesday, after he and his two colleagues at...

Paramilitary police have summarily sealed the studios of Sky One Radio, based in Cameroon capital Yaoundé, the station's president, Joseph Angoula Angoula, has told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The station was accused of "recurring violations of legal and administrative regulations" of media laws, according to a statement on the Web site of Cameroon's Communications...

More serious charges have been brought against three bloggers and activists who have been held since June 26 in the southwestern China province of Fujian for reporting that a young woman died after being gangraped in February 2008 and that some of the rape participants had links with local officials, according to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF). The three detainees – Fan Yanqiong, Wu Huaying and...

A new wave of violence hit the media in Honduras last week, even as the country appeared to be farther than ever from resolving the crisis resulting from President Manuel Zelaya’s removal in a coup on June 28. “The de facto government has again illustrated its concept of press freedom by pitting soldiers and police against news media that are critical of the coup,” Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF)...

A three-month jail sentence has been passed by a Niamey court on Abdoulaye Tiémogo, the publisher of the independent weekly Le Canard Déchaîné, on a charge of “discrediting a judicial decision.” “It is the decision (on Tuesday) to sentence a journalist to imprisonment that discredits Niger’s judicial system,” Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said. “This comes just two weeks after eight newspaper...

Kenyan police are attempting to intimidate journalists at private daily, the Star, to reveal their sources for a June 20 article that said the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit had lost crucial files about an accused al-Qaeda member, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. In July, officers of the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit interrogated Investigations Editor Andrew Teyie and...

Iranian newspaper Itmad e Milli, which is owned by defeated presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, was banned from newsstands on Monday, the daily reported on its website. It was not clear how long the ban would be in place. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), government agents prevented copies of the paper from leaving the printing press apparently because of an article by...