Imprisoned

A one-year jail sentence and a fine of 1000 dirhams (88 euros) has been imposed by a Casablanca court passed June 14 on Rachid Nini, the editor of Al-Massae, one of Morocco’s leading newspapers, at the end of a trial marked by judicial intransigence, repeated adjournments and a refusal to free him on bail. Held since April 28, the newspaper editor was tried on charges of disinformation and...

The Supreme Court of Rwanda sentenced the exiled online editor of Umuvugizi, Jean Bosco Gasasira, on Friday to a two year and six month term in prison. Gasasira received this sentence for allegedly insulting Rwanda's president and inciting civil disobedience, local journalists told New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Gasasira believes the new sentence may...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the conviction and sentencing of Irina Khalip, the Minsk-based correspondent for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and called on Belarusian authorities to acquit her on appeal. The Zavodskoi District Court in Minsk May 16 declared Khalip guilty of "organising and preparing activities severely...

The number of journalists in jail in Peru rose to two when Paul Garay Ramírez, a programme producer for Visión 47 TV and a correspondent for Radio La Exitosa, was sentenced to three years in prison by a court in the east-central region of Ucayali on April 19 for allegedly defaming a prosecutor. The other journalist currently detained is Oswaldo Pereyra Moreno of Radio Macarena, who was sentenced...

Belarusian authorities must drop politicized libel and insult charges against Andrzej Poczobut, a Grodno-based correspondent for Poland's largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, and release him immediately, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Prosecutors in Grodno opened a criminal investigation against Poczobut on March 28 and charged him with insulting...

Despite the government’s denials, the demands of Turkey’s Kurdish minority continue to be off-limits for the country’s media. Six people have been charged or convicted this month under Anti-Terrorist Law No. 3713 for writing about the subject. The Anti-Terrorist Law will be 20 years old on April 12. It quickly became a weapon that could be used relentlessly against journalists who dare to broach...

A court in Cameroon has handed an editor a suspended prison sentence and banned his newspaper for reporting on alleged mismanagement of a transportation company, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. A panel of three magistrates in the commercial city of Douala convicted Editor Jean-Marie Tchatchouang of the weekly Paroles of defamation on Friday...

Internet user Vikas Mavhudzi has been detained for the past month on a charge of advocating the government’s overthrow in a message he posted on Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Facebook page. He is to remain in prison until his trial, for which no date has yet been set, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported Mavhudzi, 39, posted a message...

A 13-year jail sentence has been imposed by a Bangkok court on Thanthawut Taweewarodomkul, the administrator of website linked to the anti-government Red Shirt Movement, for three messages critical of the king that he allegedly posted on the site, called Nor Por Chor USA. Thanthawut, who has been detained since his arrest on April 1, 2010, was given a 10-year sentence under a section of the...

A three-year jail sentence has been imposed by a Damascus military court on writer and journalist Ali Al-Abdallah on a charge of “intending to harm Syria’s relations with another state” under article 278 of the criminal code. The court ruled that he would have to serve 18 months of the sentence, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The charge was based on...