Harassed

Harassment of the Belarusian press has been on the upswing in the run-up to the presidential election that has been scheduled for next spring. What with the information ministry's repeated warnings, police raids, tax inspections and the country's new media law, press freedom is now severely compromised in Belarus. After receiving a series of information ministry warnings, two leading opposition...

Jake Hess, an American freelance journalist who writes for Inter Press Service (IPS), was arrested on August 11 in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey, and is currently being held at the headquarters of the city’s anti-terrorist unit. Accused of links with the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KSK), a new organisation that is alleged to be an offshoot of the outlawed...

The Lebanese army intelligence department detained journalist Hassan Alleik, a reporter for the Al-Akhbar newspaper, and questioned him for six hours on August 11 about an article published in the newspaper the previous day, according to press freedom group Maharat Foundatin. The article was about the escape of an agent named Ghassan El Jed, who was previously accused by Hezbollah secretary...

Cameroonian journalist Charles Atangana has been granted bail in the UK for six weeks. Atangana, who is seeking asylum in the UK, will now be able to prepare his application for permission to seek a judicial review with closer support from his friends and trade union colleagues. UK's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is trying to stop Glasgow-based Atangana from being deported to Cameroon where...

The Russian interior ministry has carried out raids on news media and journalists as part of its investigation into an attack on an administrative building in Khimki, a satellite town on Moscow’s northern outskirts, by hundreds of protesters on the night of July 28, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Representatives of the interior ministry’s Moscow region investigating...

Supporters of President Hugo Chávez's government painted the façade of the Globovisón television station's headquarters with messages backing Chávez and with the logos of Venezuela's United Socialist Party (PSUV). The incident took place in Caracas on July 28, according to delayed reports by Instituto Prensa y Sociedad de Venezuela (IPYS-Venezuela) The individuals responsible for the graffiti...

Burundian police on Tuesday arrested Thierry Ndayishimiye, chief editor of the private weekly Arc-en-Ciel, on defamation charges related to a story about alleged government corruption, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Ndayishimiye is the second Burundian editor to be jailed in less than a month. The state prosecutor summoned Ndayishimiye to a...

There has been a new wave of harassment and violence against journalists in the occupied Palestinian Territories as the political tension between Hamas and Fatah continues to take its toll on the media. In one of the latest cases, Ahmed Fayadh of the Aljazeeranet news website was beaten by police Thursday in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans...

The dramatic arrest of Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika at the newspaper's Johannesburg offices has sparked outrage in South Africa. Wa Afrika was whisked away Tuesday by at least eight members of the police priority crimes unit the Hawks - without an arrest warrant - on charges of fraud and defeating the ends of justice, the newspaper reported on its website. Wa Afrika was driven off...

The Press Guild of Kashmir has condemned the fresh curbs on media in Kashmir in the wake of curfew restrictions. The Guild reminded the government of its commitment made to all the representative bodies of the media groups the other day. With the curfew remaining in place in most of the Valley areas, the police and security forces are not honouring the curfew passes issued to the media persons by...