Russian authorities arrested Yevgeny Agarkov, a reporter with the Ukrainian television station 1+1, on July 18, 2014, and accused him of working in Russia without a proper accreditation, according to news reports. Agarkov had traveled there to cover the controversial prosecution and trial of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, whom Russia accused of involvement in the…
The state-run Anadolu news agency reported on July 10, 2014, that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asked the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office to launch a criminal investigation against Bülent Keneş, editor-in-chief of the English-language daily newspaper Today’s Zaman, on charges of “insulting a public official.”
Erol Özkoray, Turkish journalist and author, appeared in court for the third time on June 18, 2014, on charges of insulting the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in his book, The Gezi Phenomenon, according to news reports. The book covered the popular anti-government protests that erupted in Turkey in 2013 after the government announced its…
On June 12, 2014, Mehmet Düzenli, a cartoonist, was taken into custody to begin serving a three-month prison term he was given after being convicted of insulting controversial religious leader and TV figure Adnan Oktar (also known as Harun Yahya) in his drawings. The daily pro-opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet reported that Düzenli was convicted by the…
Shi Ping, a Henan-born Time Weekly journalist who wrote under the penname Shi Yu, was arrested on May 26, 2014, in connection with his alleged attendance at small-scale Tiananmen memorial events, the journalist said on his Weibo microblog page. He was accused of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order.”
As in past years, China in 2014 arrested some journalists and activists in the run-up to the anniversary of the massacre of protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. This year, journalists were also arrested in possible connection to an ongoing police probe into prominent human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and for reporting on…
Thanapol Eawsakul, editor and founder of Fah Diew Gahn (Same Sky) news magazine, a tri-monthly Thai-language publication, was arrested on July 5, 2014, in a Bangkok café, according to news reports. He was held on a seven-day detention order, the maximum period allowable without a trial under martial law, and released on July 9, 2014.
Police detained for several hours a reporter for the independent Daily News on July 3, 2014, local journalists told CPJ. Helen Kadirire was held in Mutoko, a town 143 kilometres (89 miles) east of the capital, Harare, after she started to cover a demonstration by the Mutoko North Development Trust, a local community organization, according…