State Persecution

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Syrian authorities to disclose the whereabouts of a journalist who has been held incommunicado since early April after he was ordered to visit the political security ‎‎office in Aleppo. Faruq Haji Mustafa, a Syrian Kurdish journalist and writer, was arrested on April 5 by political security ‎officers, according to the ‎‏Samir ‎Kassir...

In response to a letter sent on Sunday by Iran's president urging the public prosecutor to ensure justice for Iranian-American ‎journalist Roxana Saberi, the Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday called for Saberi to be released on bail pending her appeal. An Iranian Revolutionary Court found Saberi guilty of espionage and sentenced her to eight years in prison on Saturday in a closed, one...

An Iranian court convicted journalist Roxana Saberi of espionage and sentenced her to eight years in prison Saturday following a closed, one-day trial earlier in the week. Her lawyer said he will appeal. "Roxana Saberi's trial lacked transparency and we are concerned that she may not have been treated fairly," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator. "We...

The Iraqi military should drop a criminal lawsuit it filed Monday against a newspaper and a TV channel for misattributing a quote to its spokesman, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. Iraqi and international press reported Monday that Major General Qassim Atta al-Moussawi, spokesman of the Baghdad Military Command Operations, has said that the military has initiated a lawsuit to shut...

Iranian-American freelancer, Roxana Saberi, who has been charged with espionage after being arrested in late January, appeared in court for the first time on Monday. Iranian judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told a news conference in Tehran Tuesday that Saberi appeared before a Revolutionary Court for a closed, one-day trial, during which she presented a defence, Reuters and the Associated...

Moldovan authorities have been arresting journalists and even using violence against them amid angry protests and rioting about the results of last weekend’s parliamentary elections, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both Moldovan and Romanian journalists have been affected. “We appeal to the authorities to act with care and restraint,” RSF said. “They have a duty to ensure...

Authorities in Republic of Congo should immediately lift their ban on private TV station Canal Bénédiction Plus (CB Plus), the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. The ban was enacted in February in response to political coverage in the lead-up to presidential elections in July. CB Plus was forced off the air on February 12 shortly after it aired footage of a 1991 national political...

Following Thursday's release of independent journalists Sakit Zakhidov and Asif Marzili in Azerbaijan, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Azerbaijani authorities to free the remaining journalists serving jail terms on trumped-up criminal charges. Zakhidov, a prominent satirist and commentator for the pro-opposition daily Azadlyg in Baku, was released early Thuesady morning under...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the conditions in which journalists and cyber-dissidents are being held in Iran and the arbitrary nature of their detention, and has called for their release. The organisation issued its appeal after the US-based parents of a detained American-Iranian journalist were able to visit her in Tehran's Evin prison on April 6, 2009. "It is very good news that...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has written to the king of Bahrain to protest the recent deterioration of press freedom in the country and his government's ongoing campaign against critical or opposition websites and blogs. The crackdown against those sites has resulted in dozens of them being blocked inside the kingdom, according to local and international human rights and press...