Case

A journalist in the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland was attacked by police while covering a child custody dispute in a local court on August 4, 2012, according to local journalists and news reports. 

Radio Gbafth, an independent community radio station in Tonkolili district, was attacked by supporters of a local politician on July 19, 2012, according to local journalists and the Media Foundation of West Africa, a Ghana-based press freedom organization. The politician, John Raka Conteh, also known as Potas, had been invited as a panelist on one…

Two Tunisian journalists working for a local TV station were attacked by police officers on July 23, 2012, as they reported on the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to news reports.

Prominent Mexican journalist Sanjuana Martínez was arrested on July 5, 2012, in the state of Nuevo León under unclear circumstances related to a civil custody dispute, and was released from jail the following day, according to news reports. Martínez was detained by armed police, which is unusual in a civil case, the reports said.

Unidentified armed men wearing masks abducted Abdrahmane Keïta, editor of the private bi-weekly L’Aurore, in a public square in Bamako, the capital, at about 8:30 p.m. on July 2, 2012, according to local journalists and news reports. The gunmen dragged Keïta onto their vehicle while repeatedly kicking and beating him with truncheons, the reports said.

Journalist Abdulhamid Adiamoh was convicted on a contempt-of-court charge on June 28, 2012, and was ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 dalasi (US$3,100) or serve six months in jail with hard labor.

Habi Baby, an editor of the weekly Caravane, was arrested by soldiers at his home in Bamako, the capital, on June 12, 2012, after he published a story critical of Mali’s security forces, according to local journalists and news reports.

Police in Lagos, the commercial capital, assaulted at least 10 journalists and confiscated their equipment on April 4, 2012, according to news reports. The journalists were covering a coroner’s inquest into a 2010 traffic accident, the reports said.

Chinese activists Lü Jiaping, his wife Yu Junyi, and an associate, Jin Andi, were imprisoned in 2010 without their families being informed. The full details of their 2011 trial and sentences were not made public until 2012, according to the English-language Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

Throughout December 2011, HAAC, Benin’s state-run media regulatory agency, summoned more than a dozen newspapers to public hearings and handed them sanctions ranging from a public apology to indefinite suspension, according to news reports. HAAC’s president is appointed by Benin’s head of state, and two-thirds of the agency’s members are appointed by the government, CPJ…