Harassed

The Azerbaijan police Saturday raided an event organised by the "Che Guevera Fan Club" to mark the 80th birthday of Che Guevera, according to the Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety (IRFS). Of the 25 people present, 20 were detained by police and taken to Nasimi District Police Department #22. Among those detained were IRFS Chairman Emin Huseynov and IRFS researchers Rasim Aliyev and...

Three Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) employees were released on June 11 from detention without charges being laid. Abel Chikomo, Maureen Kademaunga and Abel Kaingidza were arrested and detained for three nights by Binga Police in Zimbabwe's Matabeleland North province before their release, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. The three, together with another 10...

The Chinese police arrested Internet writer Zeng Hongling in Chengdu, the capital of the earthquake-hit province of Sichuan, on Monday for publishing personal accounts of the earthquake on overseas Chinese-language websites, according to news reports and a Chinese press freedom advocate. Three days later, a well-known Internet publisher and human rights advocate, Huang Qi, went missing in Chengdu...

The Iranian government is continuing its persecution of cyber-feminists — women who use online publications to defend their rights. Nine were arrested yesterday for organising a meeting in Tehran to commemorate a big demonstration they staged two years ago. They were all released this morning. “The authorities have tried yet again to intimidate women who are just demanding their rights,” Paris...

Angered by film footage and photographs depicting the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis which have appeared in media outside of Burma, the junta is now undertaking to seize all still photography and video cameras being used by small-scale professionals, and even those that are privately owned by households, Mizzima News has reported. In particular, authorities have targeted smallscale, private...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern over the June 7 arrest of Solidzhon Abdurakhmonov, an independent Uzbek journalist for a number of international news outlets. Police arrested Abdurakhmonov in the city of Nukus for alleged drug possession, independent news website Uznews reported. If convicted, Abdurakhmonov faces up to five years in prison, Uznews editor and CPJ...

The editor-in-chief of the opposition-aligned, Khmer-language daily newspaper Moneakseka Khmer in Cambodia has been arrested. Dam Sith was arrested on Sunday by plainclothes police at a car wash and interrogated for several hours at the national military police headquarters in the capital, Phnom Penh. A criminal court charged Dam Sith the same day with defamation and disinformation in connection...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged the Cameroonian government to end the intimidation of journalists reporting on corruption scandals in the country after five journalists and media industry leaders were interrogated by police in connection with the publication of articles on a defective aircraft bought for President Paul Biya. "Police harassment of our colleagues is...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has condemned the Cuban government for the arrest of and threats made to independent newsman Carlos Serpa Maceira, reminded it to observe tolerance of press freedom and called on it to free 25 journalists still imprisoned. In a telephone call to the IAPA Serpa Maceira, of the Sindical Press news agency and Cuba correspondent of the Sweden-based magazine...

The daily Nezavissimaya Gazeta has been ordered to vacate offices it rents from the city of Moscow within one month, in a move seen by press freedom advocates as worrying for press freedom in Russia. The notice to quit is supposedly to allow for major works in the building, but the paper’s management is convinced the decision is linked to recent articles critical of a speech by the mayor, Yuri...