Arrested

Four well-known photo-journalists were arrested on July 7 in Tbilisi on spying charges and calls on the authorities to explain these serious accusations and to provide regular information on the situation of the detainees, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The authorities obviously have a duty to protect national interests but the current fear of spies...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the apparent complicity between the Ethiopian authorities and those in Somalia’s semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland in arresting journalists and trying to gag the media. Two Swedish journalists, reporter Martin Schibbye and photographer Johan Persson, were arrested after crossing from Puntland into Ethiopia...

Nevanji Madanhire, the editor of independent weekly The Standard, was released on bail of 100 dollars (69 euros) on the evening of June 30, 24 hours after the release of his reporter, Patience Nyangove. Their release on bail was confirmed when they appeared in court July 1. The two journalists and Loud Ramakgopola, a senior employee of the company that owns The Standard, were arrested during a...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Ernst Joseph and Wolf “Duralph” François, hosts of the programme “They said it” on Radio Prévention in the southwestern town of Petit-Goâve, who have been detained ever since their arrest during an appearance at the public prosecutor’s office on June 22. According to Petit...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the arrests of two journalists working for privately-owned newspapers in the past few days. The latest victim is Reyot Alemu, a young woman reporter for the Amharic-language weekly Fitih, who was arrested on June 21, two days after the arrest of Woubeshet Taye, the deputy editor of the Amharic-language Awramba Times...

Journalists Saodat Omonova and Malohat Eshonkulova were arrested five minutes after they began protesting and brandishing posters outside the presidential administration building in Tashkent June 27, officially celebrated as Day of the Journalist in Uzbekistan. They were taken to a local police station and then to a municipal court, where they were immediately tried and convicted of staging an...

Urinboy Usmonov, a reporter for the BBC World Service’s Uzbek-language service, is being held in a detention centre in the northwestern city of Khujand for allegedly belonging to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a non-violent Islamist movement that is banned throughout Central Asia, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Usmonov’s family began looking for him when he went...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned a growing number of detentions by the Somali government's security forces against journalists covering weeklong protests in the KM4 area of the capital, Mogadishu. On Monday morning, security agents arrested 20-year-old reporter Mohamed Amin, of the privately owned Radio Kulmiye. He had been covering ongoing...

Local TV presenter Yensi Roberto Ordoñez Galdámez was found murdered May 19 in Nueva Concepción, in the southern department of Escuintla, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The motive is not yet known but he had reportedly been threatened and harassed in connection with his work as journalist. Relatives said unidentified individuals recently extorted 25...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over Mzwandile Ndlovu, a journalist held by the police in the western town of Hwange since his arrest on May 10, and about the constant harassment of employees of two independent newspapers, The Daily News and NewsDay, by police, intelligence officials and members of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. “We...