VOA

By Eva Fortes/CPJ Guest Blogger

Editorial cartoons play a principal role in every newspaper and magazine in Iran, providing news, analysis, and satire in visual form. Since the presidential elections in 2009, when Iranian authorities launched an intense crackdown against journalists, civil society activists, and lawyers, many political cartoonists began to leave Iran. Those who stayed have adjusted their work to be more ambiguous, to communicate their message while attempting to evade government censorship and arrests.

New York, March 3, 2011--A court in Angola's southwestern province of Namibe sent a journalist to prison today without due process over his coverage of a sexual harassment scandal that implicated the province's top judicial official, according to local journalists and news reports.

Judge Manuel Araujo sentenced Armando José Chicoca, a freelancer who reports for U.S. government-funded broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) and private Angolan newspapers such as Folha 8, Agora, and O Apostolado, to one year in prison and a fine of 200,000 kwanza (US$2,100), according to news reports.

Dear President Karimov: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the politicized prosecution of two journalists: Abdumalik Boboyev, a stringer for the U.S. government-funded broadcaster Voice of America (VOA), and Vladimir Berezovsky, an editor for the news website Vesti.

New York, March 19, 2010—Ethiopia is preparing to jam the Amharic-language broadcasts of the U.S. government-funded Voice of America (VOA), Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared Thursday in a press briefing with international media correspondents based in the capital, Addis Ababa. 

New York, March 4, 2010—Voice of America (VOA) reported today that its transmissions to Ethiopia are being electronically jammed. The Ethiopian government denied responsibility.