Rustam Makhmudov, the suspected hit-man in the October 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, was arrested May 31 in Chechnya, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The arrest of the man suspected of carrying out the Politkovskaya shooting is a major advance but many questions remain unanswered,” RSF said. “Nearly five years have gone by...
Realny Azerbaijan editor Eynulla Fatullayev was finally released May 26 on a presidential pardon after four years in prison. “We share the joy of Eynulla Fatullayev’s family and colleagues,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said after confirming that he arrived at his home at around 6 p.m. May 26. “He had become the symbol of abuse of authority by a regime that used...
The Libyan government should immediately release the body of South African photographer Anton Hammerl, and investigate the role of the armed forces in his death, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Hammerl, 41, was shot and killed by government forces near Brega in eastern Libya on April 5. Three journalists traveling with him were detained by Libyan authorities...
A court in Makhachkala, the capital of the southern republic of Dagestan, has ended a three-year legal battle by acquitting the weekly Chernovik on charges of extremism, inciting hatred and defaming the security forces, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The charges were brought against editor Nadira Isayeva and four of her journalists – Biakay Magomedov...
Provincial journalist Jesús Lemus Barajas was released on May 11. The founder and publisher of El Tiempo, a local newspaper in Piedad, in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán, and a former correspondent of the national daily La Jornada, Lemus was arrested on absolutely baseless drug trafficking charges on May 7, 2008 while investigating drug cartel activity in Cuerámaro, in the neighbouring...
Online newspaper editor Jean-Claude Kavumbagu was released on May 16 after being acquitted on a charge of treason for questioning in an article whether Burundi would be able to protect itself against a terrorist attack by Somalia’s Islamist militia Al-Shabaab, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Prosecutors had requested a life sentence last month on April...
The conviction and sentencing of two defendants in the 2009 double murder of freelance journalist Anastasiya Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov is a landmark victory in the fight against impunity in press killings in Russia, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Moscow City Court Judge Aleksandr Zamashnyuk gave defendant Nikita Tikhonov life in a strict-regime penal colony...
Ernest Vardanean, a journalist who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a charge of spying for Moldova at the end of a sham trial last December, was pardoned on May 5 by the breakaway Republic of Transnistria’s president, Igor Smirnov, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Detained since April 2010, Vardanean was able to return to his home in the...
New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has welcomed the guilty verdict in the 2009 murder of Anastasiya Baburova, freelance reporter with the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, who was shot and killed in Moscow along with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov. Markelov had represented Novaya Gazeta journalists in various legal cases. On Thursday, a jury at the...
A court in the Colombo suburb of Pugoda refused to release Shantha Wijesuriya, a journalist with the Lanka E-news online newspaper, on bail pending trial on a contempt of court charge for an erroneous news report. Access to the website was also blocked on an order from the court pending the outcome of the trial, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF)...
