Jailed

Nairobi, July 7, 2017–Authorities in Puntland should immediately release journalist Ahmed Ali Kilwe, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Security forces in Garowe, the administrative capital of the semi-autonomous region of Somalia, have detained Ahmed, the founder of the news website Puntlandone.com, since July 2, according to media reports.

New York, July 7, 2017–Algerian authorities should immediately release independent journalist and fixer Said Chitour and should drop all charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Washington, D.C., July 6, 2017–Chinese authorities should drop all charges and immediately free Yang Xiuqiong, a contributor to the banned human rights news website 64 Tianwang, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Turkish president tells German newspaper jailed correspondent is a terrorist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in an interview published yesterday, told the German newspaper Die Zeit that Die Welt Turkey correspondent, Turkish-German dual national Deniz Yücel, is a terrorist because he interviewed a leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist…

New York, June 29, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the 10-year prison sentence a Vietnamese court today imposed on blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known as Mother Mushroom.

Prosecutor asks to reopen investigation into journalist for interview Public prosecutor Umut Tepe petitioned a Turkish court to allow him to reopen his investigation into jailed Cumhuriyet reporter Ahmet Şık on charges of producing propaganda for a terrorist organization, Cumhuriyet reported yesterday. Tepe had previously dropped charges against the journalist for publishing an interview with…

Moroccan security forces on June 6, 2017, arrested Mohamed al-Asrihi, a video journalist and the director of the opposition news website Rif24, from the home of activist Mohsen Athari in the northern town of Trogout, where he was hiding, according to news reports and a statement from Rif24.

The Specialized Court of Appeals in Riyadh in April 2017 upheld a Riyadh criminal court’s conviction of Saudi journalist Nadhir al-Majid on charges of “slandering the ruler” and sending electronic messages to TV channels and human rights organizations, according to Agence France-Presse and the Gulf Center for Human Rights. Al-Majid was initially convicted on January…

Twelve witnesses against journalist say testimony extracted under torture Twelve out of 13 witnesses prosecutors called yesterday to testify that Nedim Türfent, a former reporter for the shuttered, pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), was a member of a terrorist organization recanted their written testimony, saying police extracted it under torture, the daily Evrensel reported. Police…

News websites blocked for 25th, 44th time, respectively The Turkish telecommunications regulator BTK blocked access to the website of the pro-Kurdish daily newspaper Özgürlükçü Demokrasi–for the 25th time–and to the leftist news website sendika.org–for the 44th time, the press freedom collective Ben Gazeteciyim (“I am a journalist”) reported yesterday. Özgürlükçü Demokrasi continues to publish at…