An Afghan appeals court has sentenced journalist Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh to 20 years in prison for blasphemy overturning a death sentence ordered by a provincial court. Kambakhsh was accused of printing and distributing an article from the Internet about Islam and women’s rights, on which he had written some comments about the prophet Mohammed’s failings on that issue. "The court has sentenced...
A Hanoi court has convicted two journalists of "abusing democratic freedoms" for their reporting on a corruption scandal in the country's transportation ministry. The court Wednesday sentenced journalists Nguyen Viet Chien, 56, to two years in prison, and Nguyen Van Hai, 33, to one year on probation. Chien was convicted of "abusing freedom and democracy" at the end of a two-day trial at the Hanoi...
Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the "unacceptable silence" of the Israeli authorities about Syrian journalist Ata Farahat, who has been held in custody for more than a year without any explanation. The Israeli media has been banned by court order from publishing news about the trial of the journalist, a correspondent for the Syrian daily Al-Watan and for Syrian public television, who...
An Egyptian appeals court has upheld a guilty verdict against newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa who wrote stories questioning president Hosni Mubarak's health. Eissa, editor of the independent daily Al-Dustour, was sentenced Sunday to two months imprisonment. Eissa was originally convicted in March and sentenced to six months on charges of reporting and publishing "false" information that questioned...
Turkish journalist Cengiz Kapmaz, editor of pro-Kurdish daily Alternatif, has been sentenced under the Anti-Terror Law to ten months in jail for “making propaganda” for the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in an article published in June 2006, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The Court of Assizes in Istanbul also sentenced the paper’s publisher Hasan Bayar and its owner, Ali...
Press freedom organisations have urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to intercede on behalf of former journalist Ahmed Ghous Zalmai and Mullah Qari Mushtaq, who were sentenced Thursday by a Kabul court to 20 years in prison for publishing a Dari translation of the Koran. Dari is the Farsi (Persian) dialect spoken in Afghanistan. "We appeal to the president's spirit of tolerance and ask him to...
An Egyptian court sentenced an editor to one year in jail on Wednesday for publishing a newspaper without a licence, the state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported, Reuters has reported. The ruling permitted Ahmad Baker Seleem, editor of the Cairo Today newspaper, to pay 10,000 Egyptian Pounds ($1,845) in bail pending appeal, MENA reported. The sentence was handed down after the Cairo court...
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned a Vietnamese court decision on Wednesday to imprison blogger Nguyen Van Hai, better known by his penname Dieu Cay, on charges of tax evasion. The court in Ho Chi Minh City, in southern Vietnam, convicted Hai, 55, in a closed-door trial, sentencing him to 30 months in prison, according to news reports. He was first arrested on April 19 and...
Iranian journalist Yosef Azizi Banitruf has been sentenced to five years in jail after he exposed excessive use of force against demonstrators from the Arab community who clashed with security forces in Khuzestan in south-west Iran, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The trial of Azizi Banitruf, a member of Iran's Arab minority, was held over almost two years. The Tehran revolutionary...
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the Colombo high court’s indictment of journalist JS Tissainayagam Monday on terrorism charges for articles he published in 2006. Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division arrested Tissainayagam, the editor of news website OutreachSL, and five of his colleagues within a few days in March 2008. Three of the group were released later that...
