Imprisoned

A six-month jail sentence has been passed by a court in Tébessa (460 km east of Algiers) on Rabah Lamouchi, the local correspondent of the national Arabic-language daily Ennahar, on charges of lacking press accreditation and defamation. Lamouchi has been held since his arrest on June 9. “These are trumped-up charges,” Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “In the absence of a national...

With 30 journalists currently in prison, Iran has replaced China as the world's worst jailer of journalists. Research by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows that 24 detained in the aftermath of the elections remain in custody, in addition to six journalists who were in detention prior to the disputed elections. In the past few days three journalists have been freed

Adnan Hassanpour, a Kurdish journalist whose death sentence was quashed in August 2008, was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison by the court in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj that retried his case, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has learnt from his family. The death sentence was passed on Hassanpour on July 16, 2007 by a revolutionary tribunal in Marivan, in Iran’s Kurdish northwestern region...

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) expresses deep dissatisfaction over the increasing frequency of convictions for press misdemeanours in Egypt. The latest occurrence involved the criminal court sentencing of Yasser Barakat, editor-in-chief of the Al-Mogaz newspaper, to six months in prison and a fine of LE 20000 (approx. US$3500) in an insult and libel case filed by MP...

[Updates earlier story] Five-year prison sentences have been handed down by a military court in Cameroon to Jacques Blaise Mvié and Charles René Nwé, respectively deputy managing director and editor of weekly La Nouvelle for publishing “defence secrets," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. To date, neither of the two journalists has actually been arrested. “The sentence...

The Jerusalem District Court sentenced two journalists from East Jerusalem to two months' imprisonment for their report to Iranian television about the start of the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip in January, Haaretz newspaper has reported. The Haaretz report said: [ Link] The two were sentenced as part of a plea bargain to charges that they violated military censorship restrictions by...

A military tribunal in Yaoundé sentenced Jacques Blaise Mvié and Charles René Nwe, general manager and editor-in-chief, respectively, of La Nouvelle newspaper, to five years in prison and a 500,000 FCFA (approx. US$1,066) fine at the end of a closed-door hearing. No appeal was permitted on June 3; the journalists were only informed of the hearing after the fact, Journaliste en Danger (JED) has...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned condemns the detention of journalist Aylin Duruoglu, the editor of the daily Vatan’s website, Gazetevatan.com, for the past five weeks on a charge of collaborating with an outlawed armed organisation. Arrested on April 27, she is now being held in Istanbul’s Bakirköy prison. “Duruoglu is the victim of inexplicable judicial persecution,” RSF said. “If...

North Korea's top court convicted two American journalists and sentenced them to 12 years in a prison Monday, intensifying the communist nation's confrontation with the United States. The sentencing came amid soaring tensions fueled by the North's latest nuclear and missile tests. The Central Court tried American TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee and confirmed their unspecified "grave crime"...

Cuban dissident journalist Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet, a reporter for the Habana Press news agency, was sentenced to three years in prison on May 12, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has learnt. Arrested on April 18 on a charge of “disrespect for authority,” he had been transferred to a prison on May 10. RSF does not expect his appeal to be successful. “Hastily tried just two days...