ATR

Diren Yurtsever, news editor for the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency (MA), was one of 10 journalists detained for alleged terrorist links in various Turkish cities in October 2022. She was taken into custody in Istanbul and is being held without charge in Sincan prison in Ankara. The reason for the mass arrest remains unclear, but lawyers representing…

José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, president of the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico, was sentenced to six years in prison in June 2023 on money laundering charges that were widely condemned as retaliation for his journalism. An appeals court annulled his sentence in October, and Zamora remains behind bars ahead of a retrial scheduled for 2024. He has…

Indian freelance journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh has been detained since July 2022, and faces four investigations under various laws, including the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), for alleged Maoist activities. He was being held at Adarsh Central Jail, Beur in Patna as of late 2023. Ipsa Shatakshi, Singh’s wife, told CPJ by phone that…

Maria Ponomarenko, a correspondent for independent news website RusNews, is serving a six-year prison sentence after being convicted by a Russian court of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army. Russian authorities detained her on April 23, 2022, according to her outlet and multiple news reports.  According to Sibir.Realii, the Siberia-focused project run by the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio…

Sergey Mikhaylov, publisher of Listok, an independent local newspaper in southern Siberia, has been detained in Russia since April 2022 on charges of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army. If convicted, Mikhaylov, who is also a member of the federal political council of Russian opposition party PARNAS, faces 10 years in prison.   On April 13, 2022,…

Hong Kong editor Chung Pui-kuen is charged with conspiracy to publish seditious material. Police arrested him on December 29, 2021, along with several colleagues from Stand News, the independent pro-democracy website where he had recently resigned as editor-in-chief. The arrests put the site out of business. Stand News operated as a nonprofit with private funding from…

Vietnamese journalist Le Manh Ha is serving an eight-year prison sentence on a conviction of propagandizing against the state, a charge the ruling Communist Party frequently uses to stifle independent news reporting. Plainclothes police officers arrested Ha in the city of Tuyen Quang on January 12, 2022. After his early morning arrest, police authorities took Ha to…

Belarusian journalist Siarhei Satsuk is serving a prison sentence of eight years after being convicted in October 2022 on charges of taking a bribe, inciting hatred, and abusing power or authority. Satsuk, the chief editor of the independent Yezhednevnik news website, was first arrested in March 2020 and released the following month. He was detained again in…

Russian authorities have detained freelance journalist Iryna Danilovich since April 2022 on charges of illegally handling explosives. If convicted, she faces up to eight years in jail.  On the morning of April 29, 2022, Danilovich failed to return home from her work at a medical center in the village of Vladyslavivka, in Russian-occupied Crimea. At…