Expelled

Rodion Marinichev, a special correspondent for the Moscow-based online broadcaster Dozhd (The Rain), has been deported from from Belarus, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Police in Minsk detained Marinichev on Monday, after he interviewed Irina Khalip, a prominent Belarusian journalist who had been handed a suspended two year prison term...

Russian TV reporter Rodion Marinichev was given 24 hours to leave the country after his arrest May 30 in Minsk and was banned from returning for five years. His deportation came just days after President Alexander Lukashenko urged his government to rein in news media which, in his view, have been “creating the panic” that is the cause of the country’s current economic crisis. “We condemn the...

The Libyan government has decided to deport 26 foreign journalists on the grounds that their visas had expired. The names of journalists, who had all been invited to Tripoli by the government, were posted last night in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying. They were initially told they would have to leave today. But the authorities announced today that their “departure was postponed...

Syrian journalist Rana Akbani has been missing in the east of Libya since March 28. In an interview with her that was broadcast by Al-Libya TV, a presenter accused her of spying. A resident in Libya for the past 15 years or so, Akbani works for the arts and culture section of the Libyan newspaper Al-Shams. In the Al-Libya TV interview, which has been posted online, presenter Hala Misrati accused...

Iran has intensified its crackdown on media professionals. Agence France-Presse (AFP)’s bureau chief was expelled at the end of last week. In addition, accreditations for foreign media journalists have been revoked by the Iranian ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Abdolreza Tajik, who was awarded the RSF-FNAC press freedom prize in 2010, was given a six-year jail term for his work with the...

Vietnamese cyber-dissident Vu Quang Thuan’s deportation by Malaysia and his arrest by the Vietnamese authorities on arrival at Ho Chi Minh City airport on February 2 has been condemned by Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). He is now facing a possible 20-year jail sentence of a charge of anti-state propaganda. No date has been set for his trial. Aged 44 and a leader of...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on Tuesday accused Russia of stepping back into the shadows of censorship and political intolerance after The Guardian's Moscow correspondent Luke Harding was expelled from the country, apparently in retaliation for writing a story linked to material provided by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. Harding was refused entry at Moscow airport when...

Journalist Necmettin Çapa was expelled Tuesday by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (a de facto state recognised only by Turkey). A Turkish citizen of Kurdish origin who has lived in Northern Cyprus since 1991, Çapa was deported to Turkey together with his entire family, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The Turkish Cypriot police began by raiding...

Authorities in Ethiopia expelled an American journalist on Thursday who had been reporting near a rebel area in the east of the Horn of Africa country, according to local journalists. Heather Murdock had been reporting with the US international broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) in the eastern region of Harar, near an area where there was reported skirmishes between the army and rebels of the...

Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police (PNR) arrested Juan Carlos Reyes Ocaña, journalist on the small news agency Holguín Press on January 29 then took him to a police barracks to face charges of “insult”, “disobedience” and “illegal economic activity”. He was released the following day, but has started a hunger strike as he awaits his trial which could mean a prison sentence, Reporters sans...