Follow-up

Four Azeri minority journalists who were arrested on September 10 while meeting at a political activist’s home in Tehran were released on November 8 after paying bail of 50 million toumen (45,000 euros) but they are still charged with “conspiracy” and “offence against national security.” They spent nearly two months in solitary confinement in section 209 of Tehran’s Evin prison where, according to...

The shooting down of a Pakistani journalist by security forces in a case of mistake identity in the country's Swat Valley region has come in for widespread comdemnation. Pakistani security forces shot Qari Muhammad Shoib, a Mingora-based print journalist on Saturday night when e failed to stop his car for a military convoy enforcing a curfew at Nishat Chowk of Mingora city in the restive Swat...

Malaysian blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, editor and founder of the Malaysia Today news and commentary website, has been released. High Court Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad ruled on November 7 that Raja Petra's detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA) was illegal and that the Home Minister had acted beyond his authority when he sentenced the blogger to two years in prison, the Committee...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has hailed the arrests of suspects in the fatal shootings of two provincial correspondents of the Bangkok-based daily Matichon—Jaruek Rangcharoen on September 27 in the central province of Suphan Buri and Ahiwat Chainurat on August 1 in the southern city of Nakhon Si Thammarat. “The arrests of two suspects in each of these murders suggest that the police are making...

A Dutch journalist abducted by suspected Taliban rebels in Afghanistan a week ago was freed Friday and is in good health, her employer said. Joanie de Rijke, 43, was captured on Saturday last week while she was en route to do a story about a group of Taliban who had killed 10 French soldiers in August, an editor at the Belgian P-magazine told agence France-Presse (AFP). Michael Lescroart...

A Belgian journalist who was held captive for three days by Mai-Mai militiamen in Congo has been free, the German newspaper he works for said on Friday. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said on its website that the journalist, Thomas Scheen, and two Congolese co-workers who were seized in east Congo earlier this week were now under the care of United Nations peacekeepers and doing well. Some details...

It has been called one of the most serious attacks on press freedom in years in the entire South East European region, one that could seriously damage Croatia’s bid to join the European Union: two journalists were killed in a car bombing in Croatia. Ivo Pukanic, journalist and owner of the NCL Media Group in Zagreb, and Niko Franjic, marketing director of the leading investigative weekly newspaper

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the state security court to withdraw its case against Fayez al-Ajrashi, editor-in-chief of privately-owned weekly El-Ekhbariya. Al-Ajrashi, who was released from Al-Juweida prison (15 km south of Amman) on November 2 after paying 3,000 dinars (approx 3,300 euros) in bail. Al-Ajrashi is still facing charges of "inflaming sectarian strife" and "sowing...

A Damascus appeal court judge on Sunday overturned a criminal court's refusal in August to release imprisoned writer and journalist Michel Kilo on completion of three-quarters of a three-year sentence, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. However, Kilo has not been freed and the attorney general of the Damascus prosecutor's office on Tuesday appealed against the decision "in the interests...

The police on Friday arrested Vanita Ghag, a Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) corporator from the Malad are, and six other party workers for assaulting a journalist in the presence of the police in Mumbai in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Times of India has reported. A mob of around 100 MNS supporters, who were shouting slogans in favour of party chief Raj Thackeray at the premises of...