Tony Lule
Ugandan journalist Tony Lule was arrested on November 12, 2020, in response to a cyber-harassment complaint filed on behalf of the president’s son. If convicted, he could face up to three years in jail. Lule is a video editor for the privately owned broadcaster Bukedde Television, and also shares news and political commentary on his…
Shafiqul Islam Kajol
Shafiqul Islam Kajol, a Bangladeshi photographer and editor of the Daily Pakkhakal magazine, was arrested on May 3, 2020, following his disappearance in March. Three separate complaints were filed against him under the Digital Security Act, accusing him of making derogatory posts online. Kajol went missing after leaving his office in Dhaka on March 10,…
Ruhul Amin Gazi
Ruhul Amin Gazi, chief reporter for The Daily Sangram, a Bangla-language newspaper, was arrested on October 21, 2020, on accusations of sedition after his paper published an article praising an executed opposition leader. Police officers in the Hatirjheel neighborhood of Dhaka arrested Gazi after Debdash Chandra Adhikary, the metropolitan magistrate, rejected the journalist’s bail petition…
Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka
Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka, a freelance journalist from Cameroon’s separatist English-speaking Northwest Region, was arrested in 2020 and initially held incommunicado. A military investigating judge charged him with secessionism and complicity in an armed group, for which he could face life imprisonment. His trial has faced multiple delays. In January 2023, his case started afresh, after…
Ilya Dobrotvor
Belarusian freelance journalist Ilya Dobrotvor was detained in late November 2020, while he was covering the “March of wisdom” protest rally in Minsk, the capital. He was one of dozens of journalists detained for documenting widespread demonstrations in the second half of 2020 calling on President Aleksandr Lukashenko to resign. Dobrotvor is a Minsk-based freelance…
Daler Sharifov
Independent Tajik journalist Daler Sharifov was arrested on January 28, 2020, and charged with inciting ethnic, racial, and religious hatred. He was sentenced to one year in prison in April 2020, and is imprisoned in the Yovon Penal Colony No. 6 in southwestern Tajikistan. Sharifov is a freelance reporter who often writes about the lives…
Aigul Utepova
Kazakh journalist Aigul Utepova was arrested on September 17, 2020, and placed under house arrest on accusations of participating in an extremist organization. In April 2021, she was convicted on those charges and her house arrest was extended for another year. From 2015 to 2019, Utepova worked as a correspondent for the Kazakh news website Newtimes.kz,…
Abul Asad
Abul Asad, publisher of The Daily Sangram, a Bangla-language newspaper, was imprisoned on December 13, 2019, on accusations of sedition and violating the Digital Security Act after his paper published an article praising an executed opposition leader. On December 12, 2019, The Daily Sangram published a story marking the anniversary of the 2013 execution of…
Bangladesh High Court directs authorities to “block” journalist’s social media channels
The Bangladesh High Court directed authorities to “block” journalist Kanak Sarwar’s social media pages, including YouTube and Facebook, on December 8, 2020 after he interviewed a politician in Bangladesh on YouTube, according to Sarwar and local news reports. It was not clear if the authorities had contacted YouTube or Facebook regarding Sarwar’s accounts, which he…
Kurdish Iraqi forces arrest NRT reporter Karzan Tariq while covering protests in Sulaymaniyah
New York, December 11, 2020 — Today, security forces affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party arrested Karzan Tariq, a reporter with the local NRT broadcaster, while he was covering protests over economic issues in the northeastern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, according to his employer and NRT General Director Awat Ali, who spoke to CPJ…