Harassed

Two Liberian journalists working for the New Democrat newspaper were arrested and detained for several hours on June 16 by officers of the Liberia National Police in Monrovia. According to the police, news editor Othello Garblah and staff writer Festus Porque were arrested at the request of the Monrovia Transit Authority for "unprofessional photography." The two journalists had gone to the...

Eighty-two journalists fled their native countries under threat or harassment in the last 12 months, with more than half coming from conflict-ridden Iraq and Somalia. The rate of journalists going into exile—about seven per month—is double the average that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has recorded since it began compiling such data in 2001. In the majority of cases, journalists

The police in Unzbekistan has arrested an independent journalist in the city of Nukus for alleged drug possession, independent news website Uznews has reported. If convicted, Solidzhon Abdurakhmonov faces up to five years in prison, Uznews editor and CPJ International Press Freedom awardee Galima Bukharbaeva told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Abdurakhmonov was...

Kwekwe journalist Blessed Mhlanga was acquitted Wednesday last over charges of contravening Section 80 (1)(a)(2) of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which prohibits the publication of falsehoods. However, his colleagues Wycliff Nyarota and James Muonwa are facing trial, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). The state alleges that on March 26...

Fears of attacks on journalists are on the rise in China after a recent string of attacks on media that have ranged from unexplained detentions to violent physical assaults on reporters. Huang Qi, founder of website www.64tianwang.com, was Tuesday charged with illegally obtaining state secrets by the security bureau of Chengdu, Sichuan, after he and two colleagues were reportedly abducted by plain...

A charge of publishing false information, that was brought against Al-Jazeera Rabat bureau chief Hassan Rachidi on June 13, quickly followed by the immediate withdrawal of his press accreditation without waiting for him to be tried, have been described as "excessive" by the Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Rachidi is to be prosecuted for quoting a human rights group's claim that protesters were...

Mohamed Nema Oumar, the publisher of the privately-owned, Arabic-language weekly Al-Houriya, was released on the evening of June 13 after being held for 30 hours in a police station in the Nouakchott district of Tevragh Zeina, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). He was charged two days later with "libel and insult" and was ordered to report to the police twice a week pending trial...

No newspaper hit the stands in Imphal on Monday as the All-Manipur Working Journalists’ Union and the Editors’ Forum, Manipur, are on strike in protest against the threat by a militant group to kill editors and reporters. The banned outfit has been demanding that press releases by a rival group, which it dubbed “imposters,” be not carried. A decision, taken at a meeting held at the Press...

Mohamed Nema Oumar, the Mauritanian publisher of the privately-owned, Arabic-language weekly Al-Houriya, was released on Friday evening after being held for 30 hours in a police station in the Nouakchott district of Tevragh Zeina, according to the Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). He was charged two days later with "libel and insult" and was ordered to report to the police twice a week...

Burmese authorities have arrested a journalist in Magway, and are holding him in Rangoon in what observers say is part of a continuing effort to stifle news and information coming out of Burma's cyclone-ravaged provinces, according to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA). SEAPA Alerts partner Mizzima News says journalist Zaw Thet Htwe, the former editor-in-chief of First Eleven Sports...