Follow-up

Newspaper editors Serge Sabouang of the bimonthly La Nation and Robert Mintya of the weekly Le Devoir were freed provisionally Wednesday after more than eight months in Yaoundé’s main prison, Kondengui. Sabouang confirmed their release in a phone call last night with the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) correspondent in Cameroon. “We hail the release of these two...

When the fourth hearing in imprisoned journalist Abdul Ilah Haydar Shae’s trial was held before a special state security court in Sanaa Wednesday, prosecutors submitted the contents of his computer as evidence. His lawyer, however, accused them of deception, pointing out that they had produced the computer seized when he was briefly arrested on July 11, not the one seized when he was arrested a...

Russian and Belgian police are currently searching in the Belgian city of Liège for a man suspecting of being the hitman in the murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow in October 2006. This was confirmed during the weekend by Belgian officials, who – like their Russian counterparts – did not name him. He is also reportedly being sought in his own region in Russia. Sources...

Four journalists are still missing in the southwestern state of Michoacán, one of the epicentres of the federal offensive against the drug cartels that President Felipe Calderón launched on taking office in December 2006, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). José Antonio García Apac, the editor of the local weekly Ecos de la Cuenca, has been missing the...

Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer, the Egyptian blogger known as Kareem Amer, was finally set free on the evening of November 15, 10 days after completing a four-year jail sentence, and is now reunited with his family. He has decided for the time being to make no statement, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The blogger was again subjected to physical...

Journalist Tumba Lumembu was freed on November 15, exactly two months after he was arrested on a Kinshasa street, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. A reporter for the newspaper La Tempête des Tropiques, he was abducted on a street in the capital on September 14 by members of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR). When President Joseph Kabila attended a...

While the Azerbaijani Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the country will uphold the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights decision to immediately release editor Eynulla Fatullayev, he remains in jail. The Committee to Protect Journalists called today for his immediate release. A November 5 decision by the Baku Appeals Court said the editor must remain in custody while he appeals an...

Azerbaijan’s supreme court Thursday partially complied with a European Court of Human Rights ruling from last April by quashing jailed newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev’s 2007 convictions on charges of terrorism and inciting hatred, thereby recognising that his rights were violated. But it upheld a third 2007 conviction on a charge of tax evasion and a July 2010 conviction on a charge of...

Azerbaijan’s highest court on Thursday upheld a April 22 decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), ordering the immediate release of Eynulla Fatullayev, an Azeri journalist who was sentenced in 2007 to eight-and-a-half years in prison for defamation and “fomenting terrorism” through his articles. As IPI reported at the time, the Court voted six to one that Azerbaijan had violated...

Egyptian authorities must immediately release blogger Abdel Karim Suleiman, known online as Karim Amer, who completed his four-year prison sentence on November 5, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. CPJ also called on authorities to investigate and punish a security officer who reportedly assaulted Amer on Tuesday. The government's continued imprisonment of Amer...