Alerts

New York, November 21, 2008–A Burmese court sentenced entertainer, blogger, and activist Maung Thura–known by his stage name, “Zarganar”–to 45 years in prison today for violations of the Electronics Act, according to Burmese rights groups and international news reports. Sports journalist Zaw Thet Htwe, and two other defendants were also sentenced to at least 15…

New York, November 21, 2008–A decision to order the arrest of renowned Colombian journalist Alejandro Santos Rubino is an act of censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A Bogotá judge ordered the arrest of Santos, the director of the national weekly newsmagazine Semana, for failing to follow the court’s instructions in a defamation…

New York, November 21, 2008–A court in China’s southwestern Sichuan province sentenced a writer critical of the government to three years in prison today on charges of inciting subversion of state power, his wife told the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

New York, November 20, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Mexican authorities today to protect journalists in the border town of Ciudad Juárez after one journalist was forced to flee and another was murdered. 

Washington, November 20, 2008–On the day Ugandan editor Andrew Mwenda was introduced here as a recipient of a CPJ International Press Freedom Award, police back home summoned the journalist for questioning over his magazine’s hard-hitting political coverage.

New York, November 19, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the brazen attack on Edik Baghdasarian, the editor of the Yerevan-based online newsmagazine Hetq. Three unidentified men ambushed Baghdasarian on Monday outside his office and badly beat him. 

New York, November 19, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disappointed at today’s decision by the Moscow District Military Court to close the jury trial of three suspects in the October 2006 assassination of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya to the public, only two days after it declared it would be open.

New York, November 19, 2008–The Sudanese government should halt censorship of independent and opposition newspapers, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On Tuesday, 10 newspapers suspended publication for a day to protest government censorship and the detention of journalists a day earlier. 

New York, November 18, 2008–Two Nigerien journalists were sentenced to prison today on criminal libel charges over editorials critically scrutinizing the director of the country’s electricity supplier, according to local journalists. 

New York, November 18, 2008–An Azerbaijani court convicted Ali Hasanov, editor-in-chief of the pro-government daily Ideal, on defamation charges and sentenced him to six months in jail, according to the head of the Baku-based Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), Emin Huseynov.