State Persecution

A group of more than 30 armed pro-government activists riding motorcycles stormed the premises of private broadcaster Globovisión on Monday and set off tear gas, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local reports. A Caracas police agent suffered minor injuries during the 1 p.m. attack, Globovisión reported. No station employee was reported injured, and no extensive...

Two Nigerien editors whose weekly newspapers reported on corruption charges involving the national human rights commission have been in police custody since Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists and news reports. Abdoulaye Tiémogo of the Le Canard Dechainé and Ali Soumana of Le Courrier were being held at the main police station in the capital...

North Korea on Tuesday released two jailed American journalists after a visit from former US President Bill Clinton in the highest-level US contact with North Korea since Clinton was president nearly a decade ago, Reuters has reported. North Korea's KCNA news agency said North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had issued a special pardon to the two journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of US media outlet...

Five journalists have been released in Iran, including one on Monday who had been held for a year. The other four were picked up in the crackdown following the June 12 elections, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Authorities released freelance journalist Massoud Kurdpour on Monday after he completed a one-year jail term in Mahabad Central Prison in northwestern Iran...

Zimbabwe has allowed the BBC and CNN to resume operations in the country. This development is the outcome of meetings held by representatives of the organisations with the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, Webster Shamu and his Permanent Secretary, George Charamba, the Zimbabwe Standard has reported. The details: [ Link] The BBC last officially covered in Zimbabwe in 2001 five weeks...

The Palestinian military intelligence service arrested freelance journalist Mustafa Sabri from his home in Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, on Wednesday morning, the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) has reported. His wife said that military intelligence personnel arrived at their home at 1:00 a.m. (local time) and took her husband to an unknown location. Sabri had...

Three bloggers have been detained with charge in Egypt since last week, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Islamist blogger Abdel Rahman Ayyash, who writes for Al-Ghareeb (The Stranger), was arrested at the Cairo airport on Tuesday on his return from Turkey where he attended a youth conference, according to multiple news reports. Muslim Brotherhood member Magdi Saad, who used...

Two detained Iranian photographers are said to have confessed sending pictures to the "enemy" following the country's disputed June 12 presidential elections, according to the official Iranian News Agency (IRNA). IRNA Wednesday reported that photographers Majid Saeedi and Satyar Emami have confessed to having ties with a movement seeking to topple the Iranian government. IRNA's statement said that...

Death threats have been made against the Al-Jazeera in Yemen. Murad Hashem, Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Sana'a, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that on Sunday morning an unknown caller contacted his office and left a threatening message with his secretary that said: "Tell the bureau chief that his death is imminent. By God, we will get to him [even] at his home," the caller said...

Real progress at the start of King Mohammed’s reign in Morocco has been followed by reverses and tension, especially from 2002 onwards. Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of Mohammed VI’s accession to the throne on July 23, 1999. The priority continues to be a thorough overhaul of the press code, which is much too severe, says Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), which has carried out an evaluation