Harassed

TV presenter José Agustín “Gajo” Silvestre de los Santos, was released on bail of 100,000 pesos (2,600 euros) June 2 after six days in detention in the eastern city of La Romana on charges of insulting and defaming prosecutor José Polanco Ramírez by accusing him on the air of links to drug traffickers. He will have to present himself to the court every 30 days, according to Paris-based press...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed “outrage” at the May 26 invasion by Latvia’s KNAB anti-corruption police of the offices of the daily paper Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze (Independent Morning Press) and its parent firm SIA Mediju Nams and their theft (by copying) of all the data on its computers (including e-mails) and their refusal to allow any photographing or...

Authorities in Uzbekistan have barred Abdumalik Boboyev, a stringer for the US government-funded broadcaster Voice of America, from traveling to Germany by denying him the exit visa required for travel outside Uzbekistan, according to the independent news website Uznews and the Uzbek service of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Boboyev filed his application to travel on...

Ignacio Gómez, the co-producer of the "Noticias Uno" news programme on state-owned TV station Canal Uno, believes that Colombia’s leading intelligence agency, the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), was responsible for the May 24 break-in at his Bogotá apartment, the seventh in the past decade. The break-in, which took place while Gómez was out, was executed by two men and a woman with...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has joined colleagues in India in condemning the arrest of Tarakant Dwivedi, who writes under the pen name Akela, under India's Official Secrets Act. According to local media reports, Dwivedi was arrested Tuesday by the Government Railway Police and charged with criminal trespass. He will be held in police custody until...

There has been a new wave of threats and physical attacks on journalists during the past few weeks in both Bishkek, the capital, and the southern city of Osh, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “Harassment and self-censorship are growing, in an explosive atmosphere of ethnic tension,” RSF said. “No serious investigation has been carried out into any of...

Bui Chat, the head of the independent publishing house Giay Vun (“Recycled Paper), was released on May 2 after being held for three days on his return from Argentina but was briefly detained again on May 3 for more questioning, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The authorities have also kept the “Freedom to Publish Prize” which he received from the...

The Belarus Information ministry on April 25 requested the Supreme Economic Court to shut down two prominent weekly newspapers, Nasha Niva and Narodnaya Volya, under article 51, subsection 2.2, of the mass media law. This article says that any media organization can be closed after receiving two warnings from the information ministry in a single year. “The closure of Nasha Niva and Narodnaya Volya...

An independent daily newspaper critical of Zimbabwe’s president said Wednesday thieves raided its offices and stole computer hard drives and the editor’s laptop, the Associated Press has reported. Raphael Khumalo, chief executive at NewsDay said components and hard drives from 11 reporters’ computers were removed in the raid Monday night, along with the editor’s laptop used to write a weekly...

Belarusian authorities must immediately stop harassing independent media outlets in retaliation for their critical reporting on the recent lethal bombing on the Minsk subway, New York-based press freedom group Community to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Following the blast, authorities--including the Information Ministry, the general prosecutor's office, and the Belarusian security...