Harassed

Journalists Aleksandr Lomashkin and Ales Asiptsu were arrested in separate incidents Thursday, on the eve of “Dzen Voly” (Freedom Day), an event that is traditionally celebrated by the Belarusian opposition, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. A Russian journalist and founder of the human rights website Svoboda, Lomashkin was forced to get off a train from...

Mazen Darwish, the head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, was summoned for questioning by intelligence officials at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Damascus and has not been heard of since. He has almost certainly been arrested, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Darwish was detained for four hours on the evening of March 22 after responding...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed concern at reports that journalists in Chhattisgarh were prevented from visiting the site of a major security operation against Maoist insurgents, to report on its aftermath. According to reports Wednesday in two major English-language dailies, The Hindu and The Times of India, confirmed by IFJ sources, journalists travelling to the...

The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) Malaysia has regretted yet another reprimand was issued by the Home Ministry to the press, this time to The Star newspaper. The Star stated that it was reprimanded for a March 9 article on the impounding of 5,000 Bibles in the national language, Malay. The Star was reportedly reminded by the Home Ministry's chief secretary Zaitun Abdul Samad that...

There has been a steadily worsening climate of harassment and intimidation that the Ethiopian authorities have imposed on the media, especially the private media, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Eskinder Nega, a former journalist jailed along with his wife in 2005 for supporting the protests that followed legislative elections, is again under pressure...

Sudan’s security forces have been waging a campaign of harassment against journalists in an attempt to silence media criticism. At their request, the attorney-general questioned three journalists who drew attention to their mistreatment of human rights activists, including cases of rape, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The collusion between the...

On 10 March, Benin's media regulatory body, the Higher Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAAC) suspended, for one week, nine privately-owned newspapers in the country over what they alleged were false and abusive publications. The newspapers which include Le Clairon, Le Béninois, L'Engagement, Les Scoops du jour, L'Audace Info, La Suite, La Nouvelle Tribune, Actu Express and Le Béninois...

Prince Prah, editor of the Daybreak, an Accra-based weekly newspaper, who was detained on March 16 by Ghana's intelligence agency, the Bureau of National Investigations, (BNI) was released unconditionally at about 21:30 hours GMT on the same day. Prah told the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) that during his six-hour illegal detention, he was interrogated on a wide range of issues including...

Togolese authorities on March 16 closed down Radio Carré Jeunes, a community entertainment station, for an alleged "non-adherence to professional standards". The Media Foundation for West Africa's (MFWA) correspondent reported that the regulatory body, the Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ART&P), which closed the station down, said it had given Radio Carré Jeunes until July 2011...

Mazen Darwich, the founder of the Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression, was arrested Wednesday while he attended a peaceful sit-in outside the interior ministry in Damascus as an observer. Around 30 of the demonstrators were also arrested, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “The Syrian government has been controlling news and information for years...