Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of Jean Claude Kavumbagu, the editor of the online newspaper Net Press, who appeared in court yesterday for a hearing on the legality of his detention since 17 July on a charge of treason. The court said it would issue its ruling tomorrow.

“We urge the judges to reach an equitable decision,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Kavumbagu has been unjustly held for the past six weeks pending trial on a treason charge that is baseless. Pre-trial detention is supposed to be an exception. He should not be in detention when his trial starts".

Kavumbagu was arrested on 17 July because of article about the possibility of Burundi being the target for a terrorist attack. He could be sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted on the charge of treason. More information.

21.07.2010 - Online newspaper editor arrested on treason charge

Reporters Without Borders is concerned about Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, the editor of the online newspaper Net Press. Arrested while on his way to work on 17 July, he is being held on a charge of treason because of a 12 July article about the possibility of Burundi being the next target for a terrorist attack by the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab. Link to the article.

“We condemn Kavumbagu's latest arrest, which reflects the way the authorities have always hounded this well-known government critic,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This is the fifth time he has been arrested in 14 years of working as a journalist. There is absolutely no justification for the charge in the offending article, which just raises what could be a real problem for Burundi.”

Kavumbagu was arrested by western Burundi's police chief, Col. David Nikiza, who showed him two arrest warrants signed by Bujumbura deputy prosecutor Rénovat Tabu. After being questioned for two hours in Tabu's office, he was placed in detention in Bujumbura's Mpimba prison on a charge of treason.

He was questioned by Tabu again yesterday but no date has so far been set for his trial.

Kavumbagu's lawyer, Gabriel Sinarinzi, told Reporters Without Borders: “What he is alleged to have done does not constitute an act of treason. According to article 570 of the criminal code, an act of treason can only be committed in war time and Burundi is not at war.”

Sinarinzi added: “Our client's arrest and placement in provisional detention are arbitrary and illegal measures that violate the rules of criminal procedure. Provisional detention is meant to be used above all to prevent any disturbance of public order. But there have been no security incidents since the article's publication that could justify such a summary arrest.”

Kavumbagu never received any summons to report to the deputy prosecutor's office for the purposes of an investigation and he was not given any opportunity to be accompanied by a lawyer during the first interrogation. “We call for his release and the withdrawal of the charges against him,” Reporters Without Borders added.

The last time Kavumbagu was jailed was in September 2008, when he was arrested on a charge of defaming the president and spent six months in prison before being acquitted in March 2009.

Reporters Without Borders regrets that Kurdish publications have again been suspended or seized under the Anti-Terrorism Law (Law 3713), which allows the Turkish courts to impose harsh penalties on journalists and media when they allude to Kurdish armed separatists and fosters a repressive climate for the Kurdish media.

Although the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly condemned Turkey because of the Anti-Terrorism Law, the country's constitutional court has refused to consider overturning it.

In the latest case, an Istanbul court suspended the daily Rojev for a month on 28 August under article 6 of the law because an article in that day's issue used a photo of a poster of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and a photo of the PKK flag. The PKK has been waging an armed struggle against the Turkish state since 1984 and is on the Turkish, European Union, US and Canadian lists of terrorist organisations.

The day before, a court in the southern city of Mersin ordered the seizure of the latest issue of the cultural quarterly Güney (issue No. 53) under article 25 of the Press Law on the grounds that an article by Ali Dagdeviren was pro-PKK propaganda. The article criticised the jailing of Kurdish minors under the Anti-Terrorism Law but did not at any time mention the PKK.

On 24 August, an Istanbul court suspended the country's only nationwide Kurdish daily, Azadiya Welat, for a month and ordered the seizure of that day's issue because of offensive content but did not specify which articles, columns or photos it found offensive. The newspaper has repeatedly been prosecuted or had issues seized. This was the eighth time it has been sanctioned since its launch in 2006.

Reporters Without Borders reiterates its support for former Azadiya Welat editors Vedat Kursun and Ozan Kilinç and other journalists with Kurdish media who are serving long jail sentences. The case of Kursun, who has been sentenced to 166 years in prison, is emblematic of the way the Anti-Terrorism Law is being abused.

In another recent case, an American journalist, Jake Hess, was deported on 20 August after being detained for nine days. “The grounds given by the authorities for expelling him and banning him from re-entering the country are the fact that his name is on a list of people accused of links with the PKK,” his lawyer, Serkan Akbas, said.

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey 12 times in cases involving freedom of expression in 2009. Seventeen percent of the rulings issued by the court since 1959 have concerned Turkey.

Reporters Without Borders today voiced its deep distress at the murder yesterday of Abdullahi Omar Gedi, aged 25, a journalist on Radio Daljir in Galkayo, capital of the semi-autonomous Puntland region of Somalia.

Gedi was set on as he was on his way home from work and stabbed six times in the body and legs and died while he was being taken to hospital. His assailants fled with his mobile phone.

“We condemn this attack and the death of this young journalist”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “No motive has so far been put forward and no suspects arrested. We urge the authorities in Puntland to do their utmost to shed light on this case”, it added.

Reporters Without Borders said there has been a serious deterioration in working conditions for journalists in Puntland. At the end of 2009, Mohammed Yasin Isak, correspondent in the region for Voice of America, was first attacked by police and then wounded in a shooting after he was stopped at a checkpoint. Director of Horseed Radio FM, Abdifatah Jama Mire, was on 14 August sentenced to six years in prison for broadcasting an interview with a rebel chief with links to al-Qaeda. For more information.

Abdullahi Omar Gedi is the third journalist to be killed in Somalia since the start of 2010. Barkhat Awale, director of Radio Hurma, was killed by a stray bullet while he and a technician were up on the roof of his radio in Mogadishu on 24 August. For more information. Sheik Nur Mohamed Abkey, a journalist on Radio Mogadiscio, was killed by armed men on 4 May 2010 as he returned to his home in the capital. For more information.

Reporters Without Borders today voiced its deep distress at the murder yesterday of Abdullahi Omar Gedi, aged 25, a journalist on Radio Daljir in Galkayo, capital of the semi-autonomous Puntland region of Somalia.

Gedi was set on as he was on his way home from work and stabbed six times in the body and legs and died while he was being taken to hospital. His assailants fled with his mobile phone.

“We condemn this attack and the death of this young journalist”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “No motive has so far been put forward and no suspects arrested. We urge the authorities in Puntland to do their utmost to shed light on this case”, it added.

Reporters Without Borders said there has been a serious deterioration in working conditions for journalists in Puntland. At the end of 2009, Mohammed Yasin Isak, correspondent in the region for Voice of America, was first attacked by police and then wounded in a shooting after he was stopped at a checkpoint. Director of Horseed Radio FM, Abdifatah Jama Mire, was on 14 August sentenced to six years in prison for broadcasting an interview with a rebel chief with links to al-Qaeda. For more information.

Abdullahi Omar Gedi is the third journalist to be killed in Somalia since the start of 2010. Barkhat Awale, director of Radio Hurma, was killed by a stray bullet while he and a technician were up on the roof of his radio in Mogadishu on 24 August. For more information. Sheik Nur Mohamed Abkey, a journalist on Radio Mogadiscio, was killed by armed men on 4 May 2010 as he returned to his home in the capital. For more information.

A year has gone by since Christian Poveda, a French photojournalist, documentary filmmaker and politically-committed observer, was shot dead in a San Salvador suburb on 2 September 2009, probably by members of a local gang. His death has deprived his profession of one of its best-informed specialists in Central America, a region often ignored by the international press.

After covering the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1970s and 80s, Poveda returned to El Salvador during the 1990s. He was one of the few journalists to cover the country's local gangs from the inside, spending months filming a gang called Mara 18. La Vida Loca, his major documentary based on this experience, was premiered in France two weeks after his death.

Along with those of other journalists killed in the course of their work in 2009, Poveda's name will appear on a commemorative stone that is to be inaugurated on 7 October at the Bayeux Memorial. La Vida Loca will meanwhile be screened at the Biarritz Latin America Festival from 27 September to 3 October (http://www.festivaldebiarritz.com/).

The investigation into Poveda's murder is being closely followed by President Mauricio Funes, a former journalist, and there have been significant developments in 2010. They are indicative of a real political and judicial will to solve a prominent example of the endemic violence that has made El Salvador one of the most dangerous countries in the hemisphere.

The arrest last April of Daniel “El Black” Cabrera Flores, the gang leader who – according to the police – ordered Poveda's murder, followed a month later by that of Iván Antonio Leiva, the gang member who allegedly carried it out, brought to 33 the number of suspects detained in the case. The police are still searching for two other suspects.

Alain Mingam, a close friend of Poveda and member of the Reporters Without Borders board, cannot forget the conversation they had shortly before his death in which Poveda said: “I am going to a meeting in La Campanera with four furious crazies.” La Campanera is where his body was found.

Mingam hails the progress that has been made in the investigation but points that it will be hard to establish exactly what happened and who did what because there are so many suspects.

Reporters Without Borders shares these concerns and the organisation's secretary-general, Jean-François Julliard, expressed them when he recently met in Paris with Salvadorean chargé d'affaires Dina Mendoza-Christophe.

Reporters Without Borders continues to monitor the case and plans to visit El Salvador towards the end of the year, when it hopes to meet with President Funes.

A year has gone by since Christian Poveda, a French photojournalist, documentary filmmaker and politically-committed observer, was shot dead in a San Salvador suburb on 2 September 2009, probably by members of a local gang. His death has deprived his profession of one of its best-informed specialists in Central America, a region often ignored by the international press.

After covering the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1970s and 80s, Poveda returned to El Salvador during the 1990s. He was one of the few journalists to cover the country's local gangs from the inside, spending months filming a gang called Mara 18. La Vida Loca, his major documentary based on this experience, was premiered in France two weeks after his death.

Along with those of other journalists killed in the course of their work in 2009, Poveda's name will appear on a commemorative stone that is to be inaugurated on 7 October at the Bayeux Memorial. La Vida Loca will meanwhile be screened at the Biarritz Latin America Festival from 27 September to 3 October (http://www.festivaldebiarritz.com/).

The investigation into Poveda's murder is being closely followed by President Mauricio Funes, a former journalist, and there have been significant developments in 2010. They are indicative of a real political and judicial will to solve a prominent example of the endemic violence that has made El Salvador one of the most dangerous countries in the hemisphere.

The arrest last April of Daniel “El Black” Cabrera Flores, the gang leader who – according to the police – ordered Poveda's murder, followed a month later by that of Iván Antonio Leiva, the gang member who allegedly carried it out, brought to 33 the number of suspects detained in the case. The police are still searching for two other suspects.

Alain Mingam, a close friend of Poveda and member of the Reporters Without Borders board, cannot forget the conversation they had shortly before his death in which Poveda said: “I am going to a meeting in La Campanera with four furious crazies.” La Campanera is where his body was found.

Mingam hails the progress that has been made in the investigation but points that it will be hard to establish exactly what happened and who did what because there are so many suspects.

Reporters Without Borders shares these concerns and the organisation's secretary-general, Jean-François Julliard, expressed them when he recently met in Paris with Salvadorean chargé d'affaires Dina Mendoza-Christophe.

Reporters Without Borders continues to monitor the case and plans to visit El Salvador towards the end of the year, when it hopes to meet with President Funes.

Dunya TV reporter Hafiz Muhammad Imran Shehzad has just been the target of an apparent murder attempt in Sialkot, in the northeastern province of Punjab, because his coverage of the lynching of two brothers in the presence of police officers in Sialkot, which shocked Pakistani public opinion.

Aged 27, Imran has been hospitalised with the injuries he received when he was attacked and badly beaten outside his Sialkot home on 29 August by two men who arrived on a motorcycle.

“I did an exclusive report showing the brutality reigning in Sialkot but now I am under threat from those who have been implicated in this case,” he told Reporters Without Borders. “My attackers have just done what they had been threatening to do for days (...) I call on all the organisations that fight for press freedom to protect me against the people who want to kill me because of my report.”

Reporters Without Borders urges the Pakistani government, especially federal interior ministry Rehman Malik, to react quickly and give Imran the necessary protection. The organisation also calls on Pakistani TV station executives to discuss how they could protect their reporters, who are increasingly the target of violence.

Imran's report on the lynching of two teenagers by a mob in Sialkot on 15 August included exclusive footage of the incident. The youths were accused of a theft, but Imran showed that the lynching was the result of dispute over a cricket match. The report of the incident, and especially the fact that the police looked on without taking any action, had such an impact that the supreme court has been forced to intervene. Seventeen people, including police officers, have been arrested on murder charges.

Speaking by telephone, Imran told Reporters Without Borders he suspected that local police officers were involved in the beating he received, which happened shortly after his report was shown at a supreme court hearing. Following the hearing, Imran was threatened by a man who had just alighted from a police car. Imran had managed to film him giving money to police officers in an attempt to influence their investigation.

Most cases of violence against journalists in recent months have involved the employees of privately-owned TV stations, whose influence is growing steadily. Imran Khan of Din News TV, Anwar Kamal of Geo News, Zafarullah Banori of Ary One, Ejazul Haq of City-42 TV, Azmat Ali Bangash of Samaa TV, Malik Arif of Samaa TV and Ashiq Ali Mangi of Mehran TV have all been the targets of violence.

The government censored two of the leading TV stations, Geo News and Ary One, last month until a court intervened: http://en.rsf.org/pakistan-broadcas...

Reporters Without Borders hails the withdrawal of some of the most repressive provisions in the temporary law on cyber crimes in an amendment approved by the government on 29 August but continues to call for its repeal as it still grants the authorities arbitrary restrictive powers, above all because of its vague wording.

The most welcome changes were to provisions concerning defamation and to provisions granting too much discretionary power to the attorney-general's office.

Adopted on 3 August, the so-called Information Systems Crimes Law imposed a legal framework on news and information websites but the penalties for violations, ranging from fines to forced labour, continue to be disproportionate (articles 8, 10 and 11).

Freedom of information continues to be limited by article 12's ban on posting information previously unavailable to the public that concerns Jordan's national security, foreign relations, public order or the economy. This provision is liable to restrict investigative journalism and encourage self-censorship.

Article 9 prohibiting immoral content – an extremely vague concept that is not defined – also remains unchanged. It is likely to threaten freedom of expression by being applied to innocuous content.

Article 8 on the posting of any defamatory or insulting comment has been withdrawn. It had been widely criticised by journalists, who had feared it would lead to more defamation prosecutions. There was also a great deal of criticism of article 13, which has been amended.

In its original form, article 13 gave the attorney-general unlimited power to issue the police with a warrant to search the office or home of anyone suspected of violating this law. Now the authorities will have to request a court's permission and will have to produce some evidence that a crime is being committed.

Reporters Without Borders hails the withdrawal of some of the most repressive provisions in the temporary law on cyber crimes in an amendment approved by the government on 29 August but continues to call for its repeal as it still grants the authorities arbitrary restrictive powers, above all because of its vague wording.

The most welcome changes were to provisions concerning defamation and to provisions granting too much discretionary power to the attorney-general's office.

Adopted on 3 August, the so-called Information Systems Crimes Law imposed a legal framework on news and information websites but the penalties for violations, ranging from fines to forced labour, continue to be disproportionate (articles 8, 10 and 11).

Freedom of information continues to be limited by article 12's ban on posting information previously unavailable to the public that concerns Jordan's national security, foreign relations, public order or the economy. This provision is liable to restrict investigative journalism and encourage self-censorship.

Article 9 prohibiting immoral content – an extremely vague concept that is not defined – also remains unchanged. It is likely to threaten freedom of expression by being applied to innocuous content.

Article 8 on the posting of any defamatory or insulting comment has been withdrawn. It had been widely criticised by journalists, who had feared it would lead to more defamation prosecutions. There was also a great deal of criticism of article 13, which has been amended.

In its original form, article 13 gave the attorney-general unlimited power to issue the police with a warrant to search the office or home of anyone suspected of violating this law. Now the authorities will have to request a court's permission and will have to produce some evidence that a crime is being committed.

Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the condition of the former editor of the weekly Le Devoir, Robert Mintya, who was taken from Yaoundé's Kondengui prison to a hospital on 25 August, more than two weeks after being seriously injured in an attack by a fellow inmate in his cell.

The press freedom organisation has rushed emergency funds to Mintya, who was incarcerated in Kondengui prison on 10 March along with two other journalists, one of whom, Ngota Ngota Germain, also known as Bibi Ngota, subsequently died there

“The authorities have clearly not learned the lesson from Bibi Ngota's tragic death in April in circumstances that have yet to be explained,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Now it is Mintya's turn to be in a critical condition. We reiterate our call for the release of him and the third journalist, Serge Sabouang. They have been held for too long in pre-trial detention.”

The Reporters Without Borders Cameroon correspondent is due to visit Mintya today in Yaoundé central hospital's department of neurology and physical medicine, to which he was admitted on 25 August. The funds being provided by Reporters Without Borders are to pay for a specialist to examine him and determine what treatment he needs.

His medical file, which Agence France-Presse has seen, states that he needs “hospitalisation in an appropriate hospital centre.” He has not, however, not been given access to free medical care.

Describing the attack that he received in prison on the night of 8 August to Agence France-Presse, Mintya said: “I was clubbed over the head and lost consciousness (...) I was admitted to the prison infirmary and spent 10 days there before being taken to hospital.”

Mintya and the other two journalists were arrested as a result of a complaint by Laurent Esso, the secretary-general of the president's office, accusing them of forging his signature to a document and then using it in an attempt to discredit him. Mintya denies that he had any role in the forgery.

Reporters Without Borders has been told that individuals close to Esso promised Mintya that he would be freed if he signed a statement saying he was led astray. Mintya wrote many letters to Esso – some of which were published in L'Anecdote, a newspaper that supports Esso – begging forgiveness for the fact that the document was forged.

After failing to obtain his release, Mintya then wrote many letters accusing other leading Cameroonian personalities of being responsible. The attack on him could have been carried out at the behest of one the people he incriminated.

Sabouang, the editor of the fortnightly La Nation, will also receive an emergency grant of money from Reporters Without Borders. For more information about Cameroun Express editor Bibi Ngota's death on 22 April.

Sabouang and Mintya are facing the possibility of 20 years in prison if convicted on the forgery charges. Bebela journalist Simon Hervé Nko'o, the alleged author of the forgery, cannot be found.

Photo : Journalists demonstrate in Yaoundé on 3 May 2010 following Bibi Ngota's death (AFP / Reinnier Kase)

Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the condition of the former editor of the weekly Le Devoir, Robert Mintya, who was taken from Yaoundé's Kondengui prison to a hospital on 25 August, more than two weeks after being seriously injured in an attack by a fellow inmate in his cell.

The press freedom organisation has rushed emergency funds to Mintya, who was incarcerated in Kondengui prison on 10 March along with two other journalists, one of whom, Ngota Ngota Germain, also known as Bibi Ngota, subsequently died there

“The authorities have clearly not learned the lesson from Bibi Ngota's tragic death in April in circumstances that have yet to be explained,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Now it is Mintya's turn to be in a critical condition. We reiterate our call for the release of him and the third journalist, Serge Sabouang. They have been held for too long in pre-trial detention.”

The Reporters Without Borders Cameroon correspondent is due to visit Mintya today in Yaoundé central hospital's department of neurology and physical medicine, to which he was admitted on 25 August. The funds being provided by Reporters Without Borders are to pay for a specialist to examine him and determine what treatment he needs.

His medical file, which Agence France-Presse has seen, states that he needs “hospitalisation in an appropriate hospital centre.” He has not, however, not been given access to free medical care.

Describing the attack that he received in prison on the night of 8 August to Agence France-Presse, Mintya said: “I was clubbed over the head and lost consciousness (...) I was admitted to the prison infirmary and spent 10 days there before being taken to hospital.”

Mintya and the other two journalists were arrested as a result of a complaint by Laurent Esso, the secretary-general of the president's office, accusing them of forging his signature to a document and then using it in an attempt to discredit him. Mintya denies that he had any role in the forgery.

Reporters Without Borders has been told that individuals close to Esso promised Mintya that he would be freed if he signed a statement saying he was led astray. Mintya wrote many letters to Esso – some of which were published in L'Anecdote, a newspaper that supports Esso – begging forgiveness for the fact that the document was forged.

After failing to obtain his release, Mintya then wrote many letters accusing other leading Cameroonian personalities of being responsible. The attack on him could have been carried out at the behest of one the people he incriminated.

Sabouang, the editor of the fortnightly La Nation, will also receive an emergency grant of money from Reporters Without Borders. For more information about Cameroun Express editor Bibi Ngota's death on 22 April.

Sabouang and Mintya are facing the possibility of 20 years in prison if convicted on the forgery charges. Bebela journalist Simon Hervé Nko'o, the alleged author of the forgery, cannot be found.

Photo : Journalists demonstrate in Yaoundé on 3 May 2010 following Bibi Ngota's death (AFP / Reinnier Kase)

The trial of those charged with the Maguindanao massacre, in which 32 media professionals were killed, is due to resume in Quezon City, near Manila, on 1 September, after a preliminary round of hearings ended on 17 August. At least 700 people, including 196 defendants, 200 prosecution witnesses and 300 defence witnesses will testify. Given the scale of the case, prosecutors think the trial will last several years.

The leading defendant is the former mayor of Datu Unsay, Andal Ampatuan Jr., who is charged with 57 murders. Others members of his clan are awaiting a ruling on the request they submitted to the justice ministry for a revision of the proceedings initiated against them.

This trial is a major test for the rule of law and the fight against impunity in the Philippines. Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to:
provide sufficient material and human resources so that the main trial can be completed within a reasonable period;
increase the justice ministry's budgetary allocation for the protection of this case's witnesses and their families.

In order to better understand what is at stake in this trial, Reporters Without Borders interviewed Prima Jesusa Quinsayas, a lawyer who has been hired by the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ) to represent the families of 17 of the journalists murdered in Maguindanao.

The trial will resume very soon. What is the strategy of the defendants and their 17 lawyers?

What should the international community's priority be now? As immediate assistance has already been provided, the challenge is ensuring that the murdered journalists get justice (...) In the long term, security can be achieved only if the private armies of powerful clans are disbanded and local militias are rehabilitated. We also need to help build a strong civil society in the area. Otherwise, there will be no check on the clan power, violence will go on as usual and the victims of this last massacre, like other victims that preceded them, will be forgotten. For more information about the Maguindanao massacre: http://en.rsf.org/philippines-numbe...

The trial of those charged with the Maguindanao massacre, in which 32 media professionals were killed, is due to resume in Quezon City, near Manila, on 1 September, after a preliminary round of hearings ended on 17 August. At least 700 people, including 196 defendants, 200 prosecution witnesses and 300 defence witnesses will testify. Given the scale of the case, prosecutors think the trial will last several years.

The leading defendant is the former mayor of Datu Unsay, Andal Ampatuan Jr., who is charged with 57 murders. Others members of his clan are awaiting a ruling on the request they submitted to the justice ministry for a revision of the proceedings initiated against them.

This trial is a major test for the rule of law and the fight against impunity in the Philippines. Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to:
provide sufficient material and human resources so that the main trial can be completed within a reasonable period;
increase the justice ministry's budgetary allocation for the protection of this case's witnesses and their families.

In order to better understand what is at stake in this trial, Reporters Without Borders interviewed Prima Jesusa Quinsayas, a lawyer who has been hired by the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ) to represent the families of 17 of the journalists murdered in Maguindanao.

The trial will resume very soon. What is the strategy of the defendants and their 17 lawyers?

What should the international community's priority be now? As immediate assistance has already been provided, the challenge is ensuring that the murdered journalists get justice (...) In the long term, security can be achieved only if the private armies of powerful clans are disbanded and local militias are rehabilitated. We also need to help build a strong civil society in the area. Otherwise, there will be no check on the clan power, violence will go on as usual and the victims of this last massacre, like other victims that preceded them, will be forgotten. For more information about the Maguindanao massacre: http://en.rsf.org/philippines-numbe...

Reporters Without Borders condemns the two-year jail sentences that have been imposed on Sonam Rinchen and Sonam Dhondup, two students who helped to edit the Tibetan student magazine Namchak. Two other editors of the magazine, who were arrested at the same time as them in March, are still awaiting trial.

Their conviction has coincided with other cases of repression. For example, the Tibetan writer Kalsang Tsultrim, also known by the pen-name of Gyitsang Takmig, was arrested on 7 July in Dzoge, in Sichuan province. According to relatives cited by Tibetan sources in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, his arrest was prompted by his book “Miyul La Phul Ve Sempa” (Share My Heart's Inner Thoughts) and recordings of his speeches voicing his concerns for the Tibetans that have been distributed on CDs.

The lack of independent observers in Tibet allows the Chinese authorities to arrest and convict Tibetan journalists, writers, bloggers and environmentalists without any form of due process. The government prevents the foreign media from working in Tibet so that there are no witnesses.

When the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China recently polled its members, 98 per cent said it was impossible to cover the situation in Tibet properly because of obstruction by the authorities. More information: http://www.fccchina.org/2010/06/29/...

Arrested on 17 March, the four Tibetan students who edited Namchak were charged with separatism and inciting separatism in their writing. Sonam Rinchen, 19, and Sonam Dhondup, 18, were registered as students at the University of Barkham (in Sichuan province), as were the other two, who have been identified as Yargay and Dakden.

Kanyak Tsering, an exiled Tibetan monk, told Reporters Without Borders that they had published comments about China's policies towards minorities, including Tibetans.

Tibetan writer Tragyal, also known by the pen-name of Shogdung, has meanwhile been held in harsh conditions since April in Xining detention centre, in Qinghai province, where his family has not yet been allowed to see him. His lawyer says the police are dragging their feet and have not passed the case to prosecutors. In a book entitled “The Line between Heaven and Earth,” Tragyal called for peaceful resistance by the Tibetan people. As a result, he has been accused of inciting separatism.

Before his arrest, Tragyal said: “I am, of course, terrified by the idea that, once this essay is published, I will have to endure every kind of hell this planet has to offer. I could lose my head because of my mouth, but this is the road I have chosen.”

At least 50 Tibetans have been arrested since March 2008 for sending information abroad: http://en.rsf.org/china-at-least-50...

Policemen fired on the Baghdad home of the head of the Iraqi Press Agency, Haydar Hassoun Al-Fizaa, on 27 August, injuring his wife and other relatives, before searching the premises and damaging furniture.

The attack on Al-Fazaa's home in the east Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Shaab was carried by police officers travelling in seven interior ministry vehicles. With the help of neighbours, Al-Fizaa was able to take his badly-injured wife to hospital. Other members of the family were also hospitalised.

Officials said the police had not known that Al-Fizaa owned the house and carried out the raid on the basis of information that a hostage was being held there. They also claimed that no shots were fired during the operation.

The police showed no warrant before carrying out the raid and did not make any arrests. They failed to apologise to Al-Fizaa and offered no compensation.

The contradictory claims by officials and the illegal nature of the raid constitute, at the very least, a breach of the rule of law. An impartial and independent investigation is needed to dispel any doubts about the reasons for the raid. And those responsible must be punished.

A journalist since 1996, Al-Fizaa has written many articles. He has headed the Iraqi Press Agency since 2008

Reporters Without Borders and Journalist in Danger (JED), its local partner organisation, wrote to President Joseph Kabila today to condemn the steady decline in the climate for journalists and the reduction in the space for free expression in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The two organisations, which are particularly worried about Jullson Eninga, a journalist who is facing a possible 20-year jail sentence or even the death penalty on a charge of treason, urged President Kabila to undertake courageous and major reforms to promote press freedom and improve the climate before next year's presidential election. This is the text of the letter:

President Joseph Kabila
Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of Congo

Paris and Kinshasa, 30 August 2010

Dear President Kabila,

Reporters Without Borders and Journalist in Danger (JED), its local partner organisation, would again like to draw your attention to the steady decline in the climate for journalists and the reduction in the space for free expression in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Our two organisations already sounded the alarm on the 50th anniversary of the RDC's independence on 30 June, referring to several cases of murders of journalists, the frequent arrests and threats against media personnel, and the foreign media's difficulties in working properly.

Nothing has been done to improve the situation in the two months since then. Our organisations have even registered ten more deliberate attacks on journalists and media in the past two months, attacks that could foreshadow even greater repression in the run-up to next year's elections if preventive measures are not adopted.

Here are some examples:

1. Michel Tshiyoyo, a cameraman working for Radio Télévision Amazone (RTA) a station based in Kananga, the capital of Kasaï-Occidental province, was given an emergency evacuation to Kinshasa by the UN Stabilisation Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) on 17 August, shortly after receiving SMS threats from individuals allegedly close to the province's governor, Trésor Kapuku. His only crime was to have witnessed clashes a few days before between the governor and his men, on the one hand. and the population of the village of Lwandanda, 25 km from Kananga. Even after being evacuated, he continued to receive threats, including one coming from the telephone number 0812221172, warning that “murder is common in Kinshasa” and recalling the “fate of Chebeya.” Is it necessary to point out that it is the prevailing sense of impunity that permits this kind of brazenness?

2. Pascal Mulunda, the editor of the privately-owned weekly Le Monitor, has just been released after spending 24 days in prison and having to pay 600 dollars in unjustified bail amounts. He was arrested on 27 July and placed in pre-trial detention in Kinshasa prison as a result of a libel action brought by Baudouin Iheta, the coordinator of the Small-Scale Mining Technical Assistance and Training Service (SAESSCAM), over a 23 June article accusing Iheta of mismanagement and embezzlement. He was released conditionally on 19 August. According to his lawyer, he has to present himself before a judge every Tuesday and Friday and is banned from leaving the capital.

Is it also necessary to point out that the DRC continues to be a country where journalists are systematically jailed on defamation charges and the defamation legislation does not even require verifying the facts of a case?

3. Jullson Eninga, the editor of the daily Le Journal, has been held in the Kinshasa Penitentiary and Re-education Centre (CPRK) for the past five months without being given any chance to avail himself of the presumption of innocence. Initially accused of “propaganda on behalf of a rebellion,” a crime that does not exist under the DRC's legislation, he is currently being tried before a Kinshasa high court on a treason charge, which carries a possible 20-year jail sentence or the death penalty. This is because, in June 2009, he published a communiqué by the Hutu rebels of the Rwanda Democratic Liberation Forces (FDLR), who operate in the eastern DRC. The communiqué was taken from the Africatime.com website.

Eninga insists on his innocence, explaining that the publication of the communiqué was a mistake by the newspaper for which he has formally apologised. Le Journal has nonetheless remained closed for the past year at the behest of the communication ministry, which is also behind the prosecution. Everything points to a deliberate desire to hound and gag the independent press.

4. The transmission signals for Canal Kin Télévision (CKTV), Canal Congo Télévision (CCTV) and Radio Liberté Kinshasa (Ralik) – three opposition stations owned by Jean-Pierre Bemba – were all cut on 26 July. According to our information, a group of armed men stormed into the complex that houses the transmitters and ordered technicians to cut off their broadcasts. No official explanation was given to the three stations, which were able to resume normal broadcasting two days later.

5. Several soldiers stormed into Moto Oïcha, a radio station based in Oïcha, near Béni (in the eastern province of Nord-Kivu), on 28 July and asked to speak to a presenter. As he was absent, the solders beat the technician who was there, and then searched the building. Fearing for his safety, the presenter has been in hiding ever since. A few days before this incident, the station's news editor had received anonymous telephone threats.

All these press freedom violations are indicative of the difficulties that Congolese journalists are encountering in the course of trying to work without being exposed to threats and risks. This is the case both in the capital and the provinces, especially the eastern provinces.

We have for years been calling on your government to take measures to provide journalists with more security, to guarantee a better climate for free expression and to ombat impunity for murders of journalists. Shortly after Didace Namujimbo's murder in Bukavu in November 2008, for example, we urged you to create a special judicial commission to shed light on the murders of journalists, but you took no action.

The need is now more urgent than ever for you to undertake such courageous and major reforms to promote press freedom in the DRC. It would allow you to respond to the current problems as well as to prepare for next year, bearing in mind that the country's journalists are likely to encounter new problems linked to the campaign for the 2011 presidential election.

We very much hope you will take account of these requests.

Respectfully,

Jean-François Julliard, Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders

Donat M'Baya Tshimanga, President of Journalist in Danger

Picture : President Joseph Kabila (AFP)

Reporters Without Borders is very disappointed by the six-month jail sentence which a Dakar court has imposed on Abdourahmane Diallo, the editor of the Express News daily, for defaming President Abdoulaye Wade's chief of staff, Pape Samba Mboup. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Diallo, who was tried in absentia, but he has not yet been detained.

“There are two distinct aspects to this matter,” Reporters Without Borders said. “One is whether the newspaper was in the wrong. The other is what penalty should be imposed. It is clear that the comments published by Express News, which let itself be used in an exchange of insults between political rivals, were defamatory. But does that mean its editor has to go to prison?”

The press freedom organisation added: “This sentence is inappropriate, unjust and counter-productive. To prevent this kind of incident from recurring, the media law needs to be quickly amended in order to decriminalise press offences, something we have been urging the Senegalese authorities to do for years.”

The Dakar criminal court that had tried Diallo in absentia finally issued its verdict on 26 August, after two postponements. It imposed a six-month jail term on the editor, together with a suspended sentence of an additional 18 months in prison, and ordered the newspaper to pay Mboup 20 million CFA francs (30,000 euros) in damages. The court also ordered the local press to publish its decision.

Diallo did not appear in court and some local journalists claimed that he never received a summons to appear. The newspaper's lawyer said he would appeal on the grounds that the verdict was issued in the absence of the defendants.

The case was brought over comments about Mboup that Express News published on 23 and 24 June. The source was a group of young ruling party members who support Farba Senghor, the head of a faction opposed Mboup, but the newspaper published them as if they were statements of fact.

The newspaper's front-page headline on 23 June was: “Pape Samba Mboup is a political mercenary still in the pay of the person with full pockets.” The next day it ran the headline: “Mboup is seen as a permanent danger for the regime and violates state secrets.” It added: “Pape Samba Mboup is a drunkard and a conspirator, and is not credible.”

Picture : President Abdoulaye Wade (AFP)

Reporters Without Borders is worried about the disappearance of the head of a Muslim news agency and his deputy a week ago in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a republic in the Russian Caucasus.

Khuda-Media director Abubark Rizvanov and his deputy, Timur Kurbanmagomedov, went missing after leaving their office at 4 p.m. on 20 August to buy a printer cartridge. After they failed to return, their colleagues tried to call them on their mobile phones without success.

The authorities have denied any involvement in their disappearance but according to Dosh (a magazine that won the Reporters Without Borders-FNAC press freedom prize in the media category last year), they are being held inside the interior ministry on terrorism and extremism charges, and Rizvanov is suspected of having contacts with Islamic rebels.

Dosh also reported that the police had promised their families that Rizvanov would be able to see his lawyer and Kurbanmagomedov would be released, but neither promise has so far been kept.

The staff of Dosh told Reporters Without Borders that if the families and lawyers of the two journalists have not been able to see them it might probably be because they have been mistreated and tortured, a common practice in a region where freedom of expression is not respected.

If the authorities are not holding Rizvanov and Kurbanmagomedov, Reporters Without Borders calls on them to publicly attest to this and to initiate a thorough search for them. The press freedom organisation hopes the two journalists will soon be reunited with their families, to whom it offers its moral support at this difficult time.

Launched in 2009, Khuda-Media provides local news and information and disseminates audio and video recordings of lectures by Dagestani Muslim theologians. It also distributes Russian translations of the lectures of Muslim preachers in Egypt, Syria, Britain, Australia and the United States. Muslims in both Dagestan and neighbouring regions use its services.

Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities in the southeastern province of Fujian to grant a definitive release to Fan Yanqiong, a blogger who is serving a two-year jail sentence on a charge of defaming the police. Fan was taken to hospital in a serious condition on 25 August but it seems she had been accorded only a provisional release on health grounds.

Fan was one of three bloggers who were convicted for publicising the case of Yan Xiaoling, a young woman who died after allegedly being gang-raped by individuals with links to the police. The other two bloggers, Wu Huaying and You Jingyou, who were given one-year jail sentences, were released at the start of June.

Fan has been held since 26 June 2009 in Fujian's Mawei prison where her health has deteriorated a great deal. Her lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, said the permission for her hospitalisation arrived too late because her condition was already alarming. Fan had made eight previous requests for appropriate medical attention, but all had been refused.

At the time of her trial in April 2010, she could not longer stand or breathe properly. She was using a wheel chair and an oxygen mask. She was coughing a great deal and was suffering from high blood pressure, muscular atrophy and terrible pains in all her limbs.

During her transfer to hospital on 25 August, Fan said: “What I would like to say above all is that in this despotic country, where freedom of expression is limited, where we are deprived of our freedom, those who expose the truth are in the right.”

More information about the case: http://en.rsf.org/china-prison-sentences-for-three-16-04-2010,37058.html Videos about the case:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEp5mRgPP7A&feature=PlayList&p=104009D30A1EBABB&index=0 http://video.ft.com/v/83290715001/May-19-Chinese-internet-activists-take-protests-to-the-real-world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcps1S_GDAI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMOhYM7zNvA&feature=related

Reporters Without Borders alerts the international community to the collapse of the security situation in Somalia and the living hell its journalists are having to endure as a result of a major offensive launched on 23 August by the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab against government troops and the soldiers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

In addition to the many casualties in the fighting, the offensive has also had a serious impact on the media and information.

“We voice our support for Somalia's journalists and we appeal to the international community to give them help and solidarity,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They need to be covering the suffering of the civilian population in the fighting raging in Mogadishu but they are unable to do so because it is too dangerous.”

The press freedom organisation added: “A journalist has just been killed by stray bullet while Al-Shabaab continues to try to control news and information by sowing terror and using local media to broadcast its hate messages and its calls for holy war.”

A journalist still in Mogadishu told Reporters Without Borders: “The media is facing increasing pressure at this moment and censorship is reaching its highest levels.” Heavy pressure has, for example just forced Radio Shabelle, Somalia's leading independent radio station, to stop broadcasting its "Tartan Aqooneedka Shabelle" talk show.

Barkhat Awale, the 60-year-old manager of Radio Hurma, was fatally hit in the stomach by a stray bullet on 24 August while helping a technician to install a transmitter on the roof of the station, located at the “Kilometre 5” intersection in the government-controlled area of Mogadishu. He was the second media fatality in Somalia this year. The first was Radio Mogadishu journalist Sheik Nur Mohamed, who was killed on 4 May (see the 5 May release).

Al Shabaab meanwhile seized control of Radio Holy Quran (IQK), an independent radio station, on 23 August and began using it to broadcast its propaganda.

Al-Shabaab and one of Somalia's other leading Islamist militias, Hizb-Al-Islam, are on the Reporters Without Borders list of Predators of Press Freedom.

Dozens of civilians have been killed in the fighting of the past few days. An attack on the Hotel Muna, which was claimed by Al-Shabaab, left around 30 dead including six parliamentarians.