Archive for December, 2010
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Al Jazeera’s office in Kuwait City has been
shut down after the news channel broadcast footage of police brutality against members of the Kuwaiti opposition. The footage showed police beating activists, and the channel aired interviews with members of the Kuwaiti opposition. Four Kuwaiti members of parliament and a dozen citizens were injured in the incident. The official reason for the closure given to Al Jazeera was “the latest developments and your interference in Kuwait’s internal affairs”. Al Jazeera’s Kuwait office was previously closed in November 2002 in the run-up to the US led invasion of Iraq.
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Labour activist, Reza Shahabi
remains in custody despite the payment of bail USD 100,000 by his family. Shahabi, who was detained on 12 June, was due to be released on 11 October but two months on he has still not been Evin prison. In protest to his circumstances, he began a
dry hunger strike on 4 December. In an interview with the
International campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Shahabi’s wife, Zohreh Rezaei, has expressed grave concern for his well being.
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Wikileaks‘ founder Julian Assange was granted bail by a London court, but he will remain in custody until an appeal against the decision is heard. Assange is facing extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges including one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape. He denies the charges.
Before he is freed Assange must pay a £200,000 security into the court, he will be electronically tagged and subject to a curfew from 10am-2pm and 10pm-2am.
(more…)
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
South African president,
Jacob Zuma has filed a $440,000 defamation lawsuit over a cartoon depicting him as a
rapist of the justice system. The cartoon, published in 2008 by South Africa’s Sunday Times, depicts Zuma pulling his trousers down and about to rape a woman symbolising the justice system, aided by allies. One of Zuma’s allies depicted in the cartoon, filed a complaint about the cartoon before South Africa’s Human Rights Commission in 2008, however the commission concluded that the cartoon did not violate Zuma’s constitutional right to dignity or constitute hate speech.
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Berivan Eker, former editor of the women’s magazine Renge Heviya Jine, has been arrested on charges of “spreading propaganda for an illegal organisation”. She faces
21 years in prison. Eker referred to PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan as the “leader of the Kurdish people” and praised alleged PKK members. Several of the magazine’s senior editors — Sultan Sonsuz, Ruken Aktaş and
Gurbet Çakar — face similar charges. Renge Heviya Jine (The Colour of Women’s Hope) is the only magazine in Turkey published in both Turkish and Kurdish.
Monday, December 13th, 2010
A Russian court has overturned a slander verdict against investigative reporter
Mikhail Beketov. On Friday (Dec 10) a
Khimki court reversed last month’s conviction, Beketov was originally fined 5,000 roubles after he accused the local mayor of setting fire to his car. The incident left the journalist brain-damaged, unable to speak and crippled. The attacks on Beketov are alleged to be related to his investigation into construction of a motorway through the
Khimki forest, which he linked to powerful political and business interests.
Monday, December 13th, 2010
The Iranian authorities have arrested former journalist
Mehran Faraji, and
Reyhaneh Tabatabaei,
Shargh newspaper’s political correspondent. Last week,
four other workers from the reformist newspaper, Ahamd Gholami, Farzaneh Roostayi, Keyvan Mehrgan, Ali Khodabakhsh, were detained. Iran currently holds more journalists in prison that any other country in the world.
Friday, December 10th, 2010
Security authorities raided into the office of reformist newspaper Shargh on 7 December and detained journalists Keyvan Mehregan, Farzaneh Roostayi and Ahamad Gholami, along with chief editor Ali Khodabakhsh. According to reformist website
Kaleme, the authorities also physically checked the staff’s mobile phones. The raid coincided with
national student day which brought student protests across university campuses in the country.
