Harassed

The government today said a Chinese woman, reportedly deported last month, was a journalist and there was no evidence about her being a spy as some media reports had suggested, according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. "There was indeed a case of a Chinese lady who had met some of these (Naga) leaders. But on investigation, we were not able to establish that she was a spy," home minister P...

Spanish journalist Paco Gomez Nadal was arrested in Panama City in one of the protests staged around the country, mainly by Indian groups, against the reform of the mining law, the government said, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. “The National Police arrested foreigner Francisco Gomez Nadal at a time when he was instigating and organizing a group of citizens who were preparing to...

The offices of the "People's Daily" ( Halkin Gunlugu) newspaper, the Democratic Peoples Association and the home of members of the Democratic Peoples Federation (DHF) in seven provinces and counties were raided by the police. Twenty-three people were taken into custody, among them two journalists - the paper's editor-in-chief, Hidir Gurz, and the paper's representative in Mersin, Deniz Kismetli...

Newspaper editor Raphaël Nkamtcheun has been detained for the past week for receiving allegedly confidential government documents from former finance minister Polycarpe Abah Abah when he visited Abah in Yaoundé prison on February 17. Abah has been jailed since 2008 on an embezzlement charge. “This is an arbitrary act designed to silence the press,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans...

The Kazakhstan government is keeping journalist Ramazan Esergepov in prison in violation of the law and endangering his health. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said it was “a new attack on his rights” and showed he was being held for “political reasons.” Prison authorities refused for a third time, on January 27 this year, to free him despite his serious health...

The Managua-based daily El Nuevo Diario has been under pressure since the start of the year. One of its reporters, Luis Galeano, has received death threats over two sensational corruption stories he wrote for the newspaper, one in January and the other in February. At the same time, its management accuses the authorities of obstructing importation of the inputs it needs to print, Paris-based press...

Ivorian police in the economic capital, Abidjan, interrogated and issued summonses for questioning last week for editors of newspapers favourable to former presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara, according to local journalists. The UN has recognised Ouattara as the president-elect since disputed November 2010 runoff elections against President Laurent Gbagbo. Police and an assistant prosecutor...

Authorities have detained Ross Dunkley, editor-in-chief and chief executive officer of the Myanmar Times newspaper, on immigration-related charges in Burma, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Dunkley, an Australian citizen, was arrested on February 10 on returning to Burma from a business trip in Japan, according to a statement released by his publishing group. He is being...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged Florida’s new Governor, Rick Scott, to explain his handling of the media since he has been brought into office on January 4, 2011. RSF is worried that his media policy has been skirting with press freedoms. For example, during his post-inauguration ceremony, on the 22nd Floor of The Capitol, Scott carefully “cherry-picked”...

A far-right wing group in Uruguay has mounted an Internet attack of intimidation on a journalist who specialises in investigations into the crimes of the dictatorship that ran the country between 1973 and 1985, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The group, calling itself “Freedom and Concord Forum” (Foro Libertad y Concordia), to be found on the social...