Harassed

An Urdu-languge daily Asaap has closed down after it came under “tremendous pressure” from the Pakistan government and the security forces which were controlling its offices both inside and out. Editor, Abid Mir, speaking on the telephone from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan told Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) that he had “published the last edition on August 18” as a result of the...

The government of Somaliland has launched a crackdown on independent journalists in the breakaway country. On Sunday, the Sahil regional court in the costal city of Berbera sentenced the editor-in-chief of the online publication Berberanews, Mohamed Said, in absentia to three years in jail on defamation charges, according to local journalists. Said has been in hiding since mid-August. Judge Osman...

The fourth session of the mass trial of more than 100 opposition figures, including journalists, took place in Tehran today. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed dismay at procedural irregularities and the fact that the trial is only open to state-owned media. In the aftermath of the country's disputed June 12 presidential election, Iranian authorities have expelled foreign...

Russia's Orthodox Church has cursed and excommunicated a journalist for "satanic lies" in accusing the abbess of a monastery of intimidating locals into selling their homes for "peanuts." Says a Reuters report: [ Link] The Russian Orthodox Church used excommunication and the anathema ecclesiastical curse as powerful weapons against its enemies under the tsars, but rarely imposes the sanctions...

More serious charges have been brought against three bloggers and activists who have been held since June 26 in the southwestern China province of Fujian for reporting that a young woman died after being gangraped in February 2008 and that some of the rape participants had links with local officials, according to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF). The three detainees – Fan Yanqiong, Wu Huaying and...

Pro-government journalists have ousted the board of the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (NSTJ), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The syndicate was the only independent organisation of its kind in Tunisia for critical journalists, providing them with syndication services among other benefits. In the latest in a long string of actions meant to eliminate critical...

Kenyan police are attempting to intimidate journalists at private daily, the Star, to reveal their sources for a June 20 article that said the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit had lost crucial files about an accused al-Qaeda member, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. In July, officers of the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit interrogated Investigations Editor Andrew Teyie and...

US immigration officials have detained without explanation Rahman Bunairee, a Pakistani reporter for Voice of America who said he had been targetted for attack in his home country. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on immigration officials to release Bunairee immediately and allow him to resume his work for the US government-funded broadcaster. Bunairee arrived...

A BBC journalist who went undercover to expose failings in care for the elderly has been arrested. Arifa Farooq was detained on Wednesday and held in a police cell in the wake of a Panorama investigation into care providers in South Lanarkshire, a BBC report said. Some details: [ Link] It is believed her arrest is related to an alleged failure to provide accurate personal details to the employer...

Slovenia has charged Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund with two counts of criminal defamation after a documentary he produced quoted unnamed sources as saying that members of the former Slovene government – including former Prime Minister Janez Jansa – accepted bribes in arms deals with Finnish arms maker Patria. Berglund made the allegations in a September 2008 documentary produced by Finland’s...