State Persecution

Authorities in Malawi should immediately release three journalists arrested today in a police raid on an opposition radio station, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. The country is holding general elections between Wednesday and Thursday. The 4 a.m. raid targetted Joy Radio, a station owned by former president and opposition leader Bakili Muluzi, in the commercial city of...

A freelance Filipino journalist, Carlos Conde, has alleged that that his name appeared on a 2007 official Armed Forces "order of battle" document, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Conde said he is concerned that the official document amounts to a "hitlist" that contains more than a hundred names, mostly and members of anti-government groups. The names, Conde said, are...

Sitta Turay, editor-in-chief of the Freetown-based bi-weekly newspaper New People, was violently attacked on May 14 by two functionaries of the ruling All People's Congress Party (APC) for allegedly defaming President Ernest Bai Koroma, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has reported. An MFWA correspondent said that two men stormed Sitta Turay's office and accused him of using his...

Writer and journalist Michel Kilo, who was released from Adra prison in Damascus at midnight on May 14 on completing a three-year sentence, was immediately taken to the Damascus headquarters of the intelligence services and has been held there ever since, undergoing interrogation, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. His family has told Paris-based RSF its concern is compounded by the...

Sri Lankan authorities have arrested three Tamil doctors - Thangamuttu Sathiyamorthi, Thurairaja Varatharajan and V. Sunmugarajah - for providing the news media with information about the humanitarian situation in Vanni, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The government will be held responsible if the army’s military victory is accompanied by such criminal acts of revenge...

Court proceedings have been initiated against five Moroccan journalists charged with "publicly harming" Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, left, and "hurting his dignity." The brief court hearing Monday, attended by a Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) representative, was adjourned until June 1 at the request of the journalists' lawyers, who learnt that the case was filed by the public prosecutor...

Yemeni security forces raided the Aden compound of the country's most popular independent newspaper on May 13, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. One passerby was killed. Just before noon, a group of security forces clashed with guards at the offices of Al-Ayyam, firing teargas and bullets and wounding at least two guards and killing the passerby, according to local and...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías should refrain from making threatening statements and ensure the press is allowed to work without government interference, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Chávez accused private media outlets of destabilising democracy in comments earlier last week. During his weekly radio and TV programme "Aló, Presidente" on Sunday, Chávez said...

Cuban dissident journalist Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet, a reporter for the Habana Press news agency, was sentenced to three years in prison on May 12, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has learnt. Arrested on April 18 on a charge of “disrespect for authority,” he had been transferred to a prison on May 10. RSF does not expect his appeal to be successful. “Hastily tried just two days...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the immediate release of Cuban independent journalist Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet, who was arrested after a verbal exchange with a policeman in Artemisa (in Havana province) on April 18. Du Bouchet, who is a reporter for Habana Press, an independent news agency, was previously jailed from August 2005 to August 2006 for a similar reason. “The brakes...