Imprisoned

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called on Belarus’s Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that found Aliaksandar Zdzvizhkou, former deputy editor of Zhoda newspaper guilty of inciting religious hatred for re-printing the Danish caricatures of the prophet Mohammed in 2006. “This prosecution is an attack on press freedom that the government has tried to disguise by claiming...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the Moroccan Supreme Court’s decision to reject an appeal by journalist Mustapha Hurmatallah and to force him to complete a seven-month jail sentence in connection with his story in Al-Watan Al-An newspaper that published extracts from internal government documents on security and terrorism. “We are outraged by this decision from...

The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have called on China to immediately release three journalists who are being held in violation of Chinese laws against lengthy detentions without trial. The journalists — two reporters and a photographer — were arrested in June 2007 after reporting on a case of corruption in the Communist Party. Chinese authorities failed to release them...

The World Association of Newspapers has welcomed the release from prison of Chinese journalist Li Changqing, the laureate of the 2008 WAN Golden Pen of Freedom, and called on Chinese authorities to release all imprisoned journalists before the Olympic Games in Beijing next summer. Li, who was jailed three years ago for alerting the public to an outbreak of dengue fever before the authorities had...

The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors have called on Chinese authorities to release journalist Hu Jia, who was arrested last month, apparently for participating in a European parliamentary hearing. In a lettter to Premier Wen Jiabao, the Paris-based WAN and the WEF said China should immediately release Mr Hu and all other jailed Chinese journalists under reforms it promised in its...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Tuesday condemned as “intolerable and vindictive” the sentence handed down to Tunisian journalist Slim Boukhdir on charges stemming from a search by police on the group taxi he was riding in. It is the latest targeted attack on Boukhdir who has been frequently harassed by Tunisian authorities, IFJ said. “The authorities are using these charges to...

The latest jail terms handed down to journalists in Egypt are making the country being seen as one of the most repressive for media in the world. A court has imposed a sentence of one-month’s forced labour on editor of Al-Wafd, Anwar Al-Hawari and Younes Darwish, the daily’s correspondent in Assyout, 380 km south of Cairo, for “publishing false news” about fraud by two members of the

An Azeri court sentenced a journalist on Tuesday to 8-1/2 years in prison on terrorism charges and for inciting racial hatred, quadrupling his present jail sentence. A lengthy prison sentence handed down Tuesday by an Azerbaijani court to independent editor Eynulla Fatullayev. Fatullayev is already serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term for allegedly defaming Azerbaijanis in an Internet posting

He was an uncompromising journalist, he demanded press freedom in an east African country, and he was imprisoned for six years without any trial. Till today, Dawit Isaak awaits his fate in one of the 314 prison centres scattered throughout Eritrea. An Eritrean with Swedish citizenship, Isaak was arrested in September 2001 in Asmara along with 10 other journalists, including newspaper owners and

Egypt's prosecutor general has reversed a decision to send an outspoken tabloid newspaper editor who questioned President Hosni Mubarak's health to the country's emergency court of no appeal. A judiciary official said Friday that Al-Dustour editor Ibrahim Eissa will instead face a regular criminal court where appeals are possible on October 1. The official did not elaborate on the reasons why the...