Follow-up

The Iraqi journalist jailed for throwing his shoes at former US president George W. Bush has arrived in Greece following his release, Iraqi diplomats said Thursday, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report. TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi went to Greece for medical treatment after suffering torture while in prison, his family said. He was released on Tuesday after being jailed for one year...

The released Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former US President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was tortured during the first days of being in custody. "I have been tortured by electric shocks, beatings and whipped by cords," Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who was freed earlier in the day after nine months of imprisonment, told in the news conference at the TV station where he works in Baghdad's...

Four suspects, including a policeman, have been arrested over Franco-Spanish journalist Christian Poveda's murder in El Salvador, police said, indicating the killing was ordered by a jailed gang member, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. "After an investigation, four people have been detained for involvement in the murder of Mr Poveda," assistant police director Mauricio Ramirez said. Poveda...

A woman journalist convicted of public indecency for wearing trousers outdoors was freed Tuesday, despite her own desire to serve a month in prison as protest against Sudan's draconian morality laws, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The judge who convicted Lubna Hussein had imposed a $200 fine as her sentence, avoiding the maximum sentence of 40 lashes in an apparent attempt to put an end...

Vietnam has freed a detained blogger and a journalist who were critical of government policies towards China and involved in a plan to distribute anti-China T-shirts, the blogger and a lawyer said on Sunday, according to Reuters. The releases came ahead of a Sept 6-9 visit by Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh to Australia and New Zealand, where he is sure to face protests and pressure over human...

Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh, the young Afghan journalist who was sentenced to death and then to 20 years in prison for downloading an article about the rights of women in Islam, was secretly pardoned and released several weeks ago and left the country for fear of reprisals. Kambakhsh’s lawyer confirmed to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) on Monday that his client was released several weeks ago after...

Six prominent Gambian journalists were released on Thursday after President Yahya Jammeh pardoned them. The six journalists—Gambian Press Union Vice President Sarata Jabbi-Dibba, Secretary-General Emil Touray, and Treasurer Pa Modou Faal; Pap Saine and Ebou Sawaneh, publisher and editor of the Point newspaper; and Sam Sarr, at right, editor of Foroyaa newspaper—were convicted on August 6 on six...

The US is still refusing to release Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam, who has begun his second year of detention by the US military in Iraq although he has never been formally charged. Jassam is currently the only journalist held in Iraq by the US forces. Jassam was arrested by US and Iraqi soldiers in the south Baghdad district of Mahmoudiyah on September 1, 2008. The Iraqi central criminal...

Ukrainian forensic experts have concluded that the skull that was found with the help of Gen Olexy Pukach, a former interior ministry intelligence officer who was arrested on July 21, is that of Heorhiy Gongadze, a journalist who was murdered in September 2000. This was announced at a news conference recently by Valentyna Telychenko, the lawyer of Gongadze’s widow, Myroslava Gongadze. “We take...

The interior ministry of the Republic of Khakassia (in southwestern Siberia) has withdrawn the charges of spreading false rumours that were brought against Mikhail Afanasyev, the editor the Novy Focus news website, on August 20 in connection with his coverage of an explosion at a hydro-electric plant. “We welcome this decision but we nonetheless regard this case as indicative of the hostility that...