China (5)
The following five journalists were arrested in 1989 and received a sentence of four years in prison. There is therefore reason to believe that they have been released, although CPJ has not obtained information of their release.

Fan Jianping, Jin Naiyi, Beijing Ribao
Imprisoned: 1989
Fan, an editor at Beijing Ribao (Beijing Daily), and Jin, a journalist for the same newspaper, were arrested sometime after the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Li Jian, Wenyi Bao
Imprisoned: July 1989
Li, a journalist with Wenyi Bao (Literature and Arts News), was arrested sometime after the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Yang Hong, Zhongguo Qingnian Bao
Imprisoned: June 13, 1989
Yang, a reporter for Zhongguo Qingnian Bao (China Youth News), was arrested in Kunming and charged with circulating "rumormongering leaflets" and protesting against corruption.

Yu Zhongmin, Fazhi Yuekan
Imprisoned: 1989
Yu, a journalist with Fazhi Yuekan (Law Monthly) in Shanghai, was arrested sometime after the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square crackdown. He was later described in an article in Wenhui Daily as an "agitator" of the Shanghai student demonstrations.

Shang Ziwen, Sun Liyong
Arrested: 1991
Shang, a cadre at Thorough Transport Corporation and a major member of the group producing the underground magazine Zhong Sheng (The Sound of the Bell), was sentenced to six years in prison. Sun, the founder of Zhong Sheng, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. Both were convicted of "counter-revolution" for publishing Zhong Sheng. Shang’s prison term was expected to end in 1997. Sun is expected to be released in 1998, although CPJ was not able to obtain evidence that either had been released.

Democratic Republic of Congo
(formerly Zaire) (4)

Mukalayi Mulongo, OZRT-Shaba
Kabemba wa Yulu, OZRT-Shaba
Imprisoned: May 19, 1995
Lubumbashi security service officers arrested Mulongo, the program director of the state-owned radio station OZRT and wa Yulu, a journalist with the station. Mulongo was arrested for granting the president of the Shaba province branch of the Union of Independent Republicans Party (UFERI) the right to respond to statements made by the national UFERI president. CPJ has been unable to confirm his status since Mobutu’s regime was ousted on May 17, 1997, by Laurent Kabila.
 
Jean Muadianvita, free-lancer
Imprisoned: January 23, 1997
Muadianvita, a free-lance journalist for the independent newspapers La Tempete des Tropiques, Umoja, and L’Example, was arrested at his home in Mont Ngafula, a county of Kinshasa, by soldiers of the Military Action and Intelligence Service (SARM) on the orders of General Bolozei Ngbudu. Muadianvita was transported to SARM headquarters at Kitambo in Kinshasa, where he is being held incommunicado.
    On the same day, SARM soldiers returned with Muadianvita to his home to search for documents. After the search, he was transported back to SARM headquarters, which was controlled by a Major Boyombo.
    Muadianvita’s arrest was in connection with a series of articles published in November 1996 about President Mobutu’s U.S.-based political lobbyists. The articles reported that the lobbyists were paid to maintain a foreign network that was acting to keep then-President Mobutu in power. Muadianvita published a list of these lobbyists, detaling how much Mobutu had paid each for their services.
    Muadianvita’s attorney was denied access to his client after he was taken into custody, and SARM has refused to send the journalist to court because he will not reveal his sources for the articles.
    On January 30, CPJ wrote a letter to then-Prime Minister Kengo wa Dondo, protesting the incommunicado arrest of Muadianvita.
    CPJ has been unable to confirm the journalist’s whereabouts since Mobutu was ousted by Laurent Kabila on May 17.

Nepa Bagili Mutita, La Voix de L’Islam
Imprisoned: February 11, 1997
Mutita was arrested on February 11 on charges of spreading false rumors about the civil war and faced up to three years in jail. The journalist, who was also president of the Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba, had published in his monthly La Voix de l’Islam a list of people wanted by then-rebel leader Laurent Kabila. The list included the names of the president and the prime minister. CPJ has been unable to confirm his whereabouts since Kabila came to power on May 17.

Ethiopia (3)

Melese, Kayete
Imprisoned: September 3, 1997
CPJ has been unable to determine whether Melese is still in prison.

Andualem Mohammed, Tame Feker
Imprisoned: September 3, 1997 
CPJ has been unable to determine whether Mohammed is still in prison.

Getachew Teffera, Agere
Imprisoned: September 3, 1997
CPJ has been unable to determine whether Teffera is still in prison.

Guinea (2) 

Ousmane Camara, L’Oeil
Imprisoned: August 1, 1997
L’Oeil publications director Camara, and editor in chief Louis Celestin, were arrested and detained, charged with "spreading false information and defamation" after Justice Minister Maurice Zogbelemou Togba lodged a complaint. The June 25 and July 2 editions of l’Oeil contained criticism of Togba.
    On August 4, the journalists appeared in court for preliminary questioning. Although the court granted them an official release on August 6, Camara and Celestin remained in jail. Celestin was later released and began to work again, but was expelled from Guinea to the Ivory Coast on December 22 after writing an article on an opposition press conference. Camara’s whereabouts are unknown.

Foday Fofana, L’Independant
Imprisoned: October 13, 1997 
Fofana, a reporter with the weekly paper L’Independant, was arrested at the Alpha Yaya military camp in Conakry. Fofana had gone there to interview the camp’s associate commander in connection with reports that the commander was behind several assaults on a civilian. When Fofana stated the reason for his visit, he was charged with "gathering information on behalf of a foreign
power." Police transported Fofana to police headquarters, where he was held for a month, before moving him to the central detention facility. Other charges brought against Fofana include "attempting to threaten the security of the State," "falsehood and use of deception," and "attempting to usurp in name and deed."

Nigeria (1)

Babatunji Wusu, TheNews
Imprisoned: September 17, 1997
Security operatives who presented themselves as Federal Intelligence and Investigation Bureau officers arrested Wusu, an administrator with TheNews, at the magazine’s editorial office in Lagos. The men were unable to find the editors they were seeking, so they arrested Wusu instead and took him to their Ikoyi office. The action appears to have been in connection with an article published in the September 15 issue of TheNews titled, "Panic Over Abacha’s Illness." CPJ has been unable to confirm Wusu’s whereabouts.

Sierra Leone(1)

Suliman Janger, New Tablet
Imprisoned: July 28, 1997
Janger, production manager of the New Tablet newspaper, was arrested while he was distributing the newspaper’s second edition. The soldiers who detained him also seized about 900 copies. Five unidentified newspaper vendors were also arrested along with Janger.

Turkey (13)
(+ = Charges and convictions suspended under the government’s August 14, 1997, limited amnesty for editors.)

Bektas Cansever, Devrimci Çözüm
Imprisoned: December 26, 1993
CPJ believes that Cansever may have been prosecuted and imprisoned as a result of his affiliation with Devrimci Çözüm. He was taken into custody in Istanbul and subsequently charged under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code with membership in the outlawed organization Dev Sol.
    The Ministry of Justice informed CPJ that "Mr. Bektas Cansever, whose alias was Yusuf Yilmaz, was taken into custody on December 26, 1993. During a physical body search, police found an unauthorized pistol on Mr. Cansever. Like the CPJ states, it was also found that Mr. Cansever was also a member of Dev Sol, an outlawed leftist organization categorized as such in the annual U.S. State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism report."
    Prosecution documents show that Cansever was accused of hanging banners in public, throwing Molotov cocktails in Izmir in 1991, and other Molotov cocktail incidents. The prosecution claimed that Dev Sol had sent Cansever to Istanbul in 1992 in order to elude capture, and that he then began working for Devrimici Çözüm. The state alleged that at the time of his arrest, police found in his possession a gun, two counterfeit I.D.s, and a handwritten document outlining Dev Sol’s organizational structure. Three people were said to have made statements incriminating him—but there was no record of their statements in the court documents.
    According to court documents, Cansever admitted throwing a Molotov cocktail in Istanbul.
    Cansever was convicted on April 10, 1997, and sentenced to more than 24 years in jail. He is in Gebze Prison.

Kemal Topalak, Devrimci Çözüm
Imprisoned: December 26, 1993
CPJ believes that Topalak may have been prosecuted for his work as a reporter for Devrimci Çözüm.
    Court documents indicate that Topolak was detained in a coffee shop and was found to be carrying a counterfeit I.D., which prosecutors said had been acquired in Switzerland through Dev Sol. He was charged under Article 168 of the Penal Code with membership in the outlawed Dev Sol organization.
    Police searched Topolak’s house, where they found copies of Devrimci Çözüm and sketches of a hammer and sickle as well as documents allegedly handwritten by Topolak, which the prosecution said linked him and his wife to Dev Sol, for which he allegedly served as a courier. Police said they had statements incriminating Topalak as a Dev Sol member. Topalak admitted to the charges while in police custody but denied them in court. The prosecution alleged that Topolak had visited Damascus "for bomb and gun training," and that he had two guns in his possession upon arrest.
    In his defense, Topolak admitted to having false identification, which he said he procured in Switzerland after losing his real one, but denied receiving the I.D. from Dev Sol. His lawyer said the state’s case relied upon testimony coerced from Topolak under torture during an interrogation at police headquarters. He believes that his client was prosecuted because he is a journalist.
    The Ministry of Justice responded to CPJ’s request for information by stating that Topolak had been taken into custody with Bektas Cansever on December 26, 1993: "It was discovered that Mr. Topolak was a member of the illegal leftist organization Dev Sol. Hence, like CPJ reports, he was charged under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code with being a member of an outlawed organization and sentenced to prison. He is in Gebze Prison." Topolak is serving a sentence of 12 years and six months.

Ibrahim Özen, Devrimci Çözüm
Imprisoned: December 28, 1993 
CPJ believes that Özen may have been prosecuted and imprisoned because of a crackdown on Devrimci Çözüm, which he owned. He was taken into custody during a police raid on his home in Istanbul and charged with violating Articles 5 and 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law (aid and propaganda for a terrorist organization) and Article 312/2 of the Penal Code (inciting racial hatred). He is serving a 12-year sentence in Gebze Prison in Istanbul.
    The defense argued that Devrimci Çözüm was a legal publication, and that the authorities would have rejected Özen’s application to publish the magazine had he been affiliated with any outlawed organization. Özen’s lawyer said his client had committed no crime.
    The Ministry of Justice responded to CPJ’s request for information saying: "As a result of exhaustive investigations, certain members of [Dev Sol] and some terrorists acting on its behalf were apprehended. From their testimony, it was discovered that Mr. Ibrahim Özen was a member of the organization and acted on its behalf. In the search of his hideout [sic], an unauthorized arm was found. Like CPJ reports, Mr. Özen, like Bektas Cansever and Kemal Topalak, who were members of the same organization, was arrested by the State Security Court for being a member of an outlawed organization. Ibrahim Özen was convicted under Penal Code Article 168/2 and is currently serving time at Gebze Prison."
    Court documents from Özen’s trial state that he was detained during a police raid on his home—the "hideout" referred to above. He was convicted of membership in Dev Sol and Dev Genc, another outlawed organization, in violation of Article 168 of the Penal Code. Based on witness testimony, the prosecution said that Özen traveled to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon and sent other members there as well. He is also accused of providing written instructions to other alleged Dev Sol members and using the magazine’s office on behalf of the organizations. According to the court documents, he confessed to the charges against him in police custody but later recanted. His lawyers argued in court that he was tortured. They asserted that the prosecution had no concrete evidence to support its claims.

Hanim Harman, Mücadele
Imprisoned: January 19, 1994
Harman, a reporter in Malatya for Mücadele, was detained and accused of membership in the banned organization Dev Sol. CPJ believes that Harman may have been prosecuted for her work as a journalist and as part of a state campaign of harassment against Mücadele. She was sentenced on May 2, 1995, to 12 years and six months in jail.
    Court documents obtained in December 1997 said that the prosecution accused Harman of communicating with members of Dev Sol, providing them with information about the police, and reporting to her superiors. The state said Harman had interrogated a Dev Sol defector.
    In her defense, Harman cited her work as a correspondent for Mücadele in Malatya and denied all the charges against her. She is in Sakarya Prison.

Nuray Gezici, Yoksul Halkin Gücü
Imprisoned: April 16, 1994
Gezici, a reporter for Yoksul Halkin Gücü, was arrested and is currently serving a 15-year prison term in Ankara Closed Prison. Transcripts of her trial show she was charged with membership in the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front.
    Gezici was detained in Ankara while exiting a taxi with two other people. Police claimed she was on her way to the meeting house of an illegal organization. Police said Gezici was carrying copies of Kurtulus and unspecified "left wing books."
    The state asserted that Gezici’s presence at a ceremony commemorating Turkish revolutionaries who had been killed by security forces in the 1960s and 1970s was evidence of membership in the outlawed group. Gezici said that she had attended the ceremony in her capacity as a journalist. She was also accused of having thrown two Molotov cocktails at an Ankara bank on March 29, 1993, and of having hung two Dev Sol flags in public on April 16, 1993. The prosecution claimed that Gezici had previously confessed to throwing Molotov cocktails, but Gezici testified that her confession had been extracted under torture by police and subsequently denied participating in the attack.

Mustafa Çoskun, Partizan Sesi
Imprisoned: May 25, 1994, Released: October 25, 1994 [?]
CPJ first reported this case in March 1996, stating that Çoskun, Elazig bureau chief of the leftist monthly Partizan Sesi, was arrested and charged with being a member of an outlawed organization and was being held in Elazig Prison. Çoskun was said to have been convicted under Article 168 of the Penal Code for membership in an outlawed organization and was sentenced to prison.
    Çoskun’s lawyer told CPJ that his client had been convicted of membership in the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party and was in Bursa Prison. According to the lawyer, Çoskun was accused of distributing copies of Partizan Sesi, which the prosecution deemed as evidence of his membership in the organization.
    CPJ read court documents stating that Çoskun had been detained on May 25, 1994, and accused of membership in the outlawed Marxist-Leninist Communist Party under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code and formally arrested on June 3, 1994. The documents indicated that the State Security Court dropped the charge on June 16, 1994, and instead charged him under Article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law (propagandizing on behalf of an outlawed organization). Çoskun was said to have been convicted of the Article 7/2 charge on an unspecified date, sentenced to 10 months in prison, and fined 333 million TL. He was released prior to the expiration of his term on October 25, 1994, according to the documents.
    In the fall of 1997, Çoskun’s lawyer told CPJ that his client was in prison. CPJ is attempting to determine if he was in fact released on October 25, 1994, or if he was released and subsequently arrested and imprisoned on an additional charge or charges.

Ali Sinan Çaglar, Mücadele
Imprisoned: August 6, 1994
Çaglar, Mücadele’s Ankara correspondent, was arrested at the funeral of a political activist and charged with membership in an illegal organization. He has been in prison since his arrest. On January 23, 1995, he was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for alleged membership in the outlawed Dev Sol organization. CPJ believes Çaglar’s work as a journalist may have led to his prosecution.
    The state based its case on Çaglar’s testimony and the statements of two people who said that Çaglar was a member of Dev Sol. The prosecution said that Çaglar had admitted to hanging posters with leftist slogans around the city, and stated that Çaglar had burned a U.S. flag at Ankara University and shouted leftist slogans during the funeral at which he was arrested. He was also accused of resisting arrest on that occasion.
    In his defense, Çaglar recanted the testimony he gave while in police custody. He denied all charges, saying that he had attended the funeral in his capacity as a journalist. Upon conviction he was sent to Konya Prison. He is now in Ankara Closed Prison.

Bülent Ecevit Özdemir, Kurtulus
Imprisoned: December 7, 1995, Released: October 1997 [?]
Özdemir, a reporter for Kurtulus, was charged with membership in an illegal organization under Article 168 of the Penal Code. He was last known to be held in Konya Prison.
    CPJ has been unable to obtain any court documents in the case. In December 1997, the editor of Kurtulus told CPJ that Özdemir had been released from prison in October 1997 pending the outcome of his trial. CPJ has been unable to verify this report or determine his status.

Semiha Topal, Kurtulus
Imprisoned: December 12, 1995
Topal, a reporter for the Antakya bureau of Kurtulus, was arrested, charged, and convicted under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code. She was sentenced to 12 years and six months in Malatya Prison.
    Court documents obtained by CPJ state that Topal was detained on December 12, 1995, in an apartment along with two other suspects, for membership in the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C). She was accused of taking part in throwing a Molotov cocktail into a car showroom. Topal denied the allegation and denied being at the scene of the crime. The prosecution presented four witnesses who said she was there, a photo negative that they claimed showed her standing behind the showroom’s broken windows, and footprints from the crime scene which they said were Topal’s. She was also accused of hanging leftist banners around the city.
    CPJ is still investigating this case out of concern that Topal’s prosecution is part of a pattern of state harassment of Kurtulus.

Tekin Aygün, Kurtulus
Imprisoned: 1996 [?], Released: ?
Aygün, a reporter for the leftist weekly Kurtulus, was reportedly arrested and jailed in Umraniye Prison. Kurtulus staffers told CPJ that Aygün had been convicted of membership in an outlawed organization under Article 168 of the Penal Code and sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison. CPJ has obtained court documents stating that prosecutors had dropped all charges against Aygün on November 30, 1995. But CPJ has been unable to determine if Aygün was facing trial on other charges, or his whereabouts.
 

Özgür Öktem, Devrimci Emek
Imprisoned: February 19, 1996
CPJ believes that Öktem may have been imprisoned because of his work as a reporter for the leftist magazine Devrimci Emek, which we believe to have been the target of a state harassment campaign.
    Öktem was arrested for alleged membership in the Turkish Communist Labor Party-Leninist and tried under Articles 146/1, 168/2, and 169 of the Penal Code. Prosecution documents state that Öktem was accused of participating in throwing Molotov cocktails, burning a city bus, hanging leftist banners in Istanbul, and organizing illegal demonstrations. He is said to be held in Bayrampasa Prison.

Aysel Sarica, Demokratik Universite Bulteni
Imprisoned: September 7, 1996
CPJ believes that Sarica’s imprisonment may be related to her work as editor of the youth magazine Demokratik Universite Bulteni (published by Alinteri). She was detained in Izmir on September 7, 1996, along with Serpil Günes, Alinteri’s editor, when police raided a vacation apartment where she and several of their Alinteri colleagues were staying. Her colleagues said Sarica faced charges under Articles 6, 7, and 8 of the Anti-Terror Law and Article 312 and 155 of the Penal Code in connection with numerous stories that appeared in the magazine. Sarica’s lawyer told CPJ that she had been charged in nine separate cases stemming from articles published in Demokratik Universite Bulteni, but that the government’s August 14 amnesty for editors had suspended those prosecutions.
    Sarica was also charged, and ultimately jailed, for membership in an outlawed organization, the Turkish Revolutionary Communist Union (TIKB), a violation of Article 168 of the Penal Code.
    According to court documents, the prosecution stated that Sarica had given police a counterfeit identification card on September 7. Upon determining her true identity, the police learned that she was wanted for allegedly attacking a police officer during a May Day demonstration in Istanbul in 1996.
    At the time of the raid, a photograph alleged to show Sarica beating the officer had been published across the country and a warrant had already been issued for her arrest. The prosecution offered the photograph as evidence.
    CPJ is concerned that the circumstances of her arrest—albeit on outstanding charges ostensibly unconnected to her work—contribute to and follow from a pattern of harassment of Alinteri. No explanation has been given for the police raid on the meeting at which Sarica was detained. Furthermore, CPJ has not been able to verify that the allegedly incriminating photograph is in fact a photograph of Sarica. CPJ continues to investigate the extent to which Sarica’s Alinteri affiliation was a factor in her prosecution.

Özden Özbay, Özgür Ülke
Imprisoned: November 1996, Released: 1997 [?]
Özbay, a former editor of the now-defunct pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Ülke, was arrested and charged with violating Article 312 of the Penal Code and Articles 6, 7, and 8 of the Anti-Terror Law.
    Former staffers of Özgür Ülke told CPJ that Özbay had been released, although they provided no information on the date or circumstances.
    CPJ has been unable to verify Özbay’s status or whereabouts.

Zambia (1) 

Gerard Gatare, Rwandan National Television
Imprisoned: October 10, 1995 
Gatare, a former editor at Rwandan National Television, was arrested and later imprisoned in Kabwata Central Prison in Lusaka. Early in 1995, Gatare, fearing for his life, had fled to Zambia from a refugee camp outside Rwanda. No charges have been brought against him. His arrest came after a Rwandan government minister visited Zambia, reportedly bringing a list of "wanted" Rwandan intellectuals with him. He had been awarded the 1994-95 Fulbright Hubert Humphrey Fellowship for International Journalists.