Posts Tagged ‘terrorism’
May 17th, 2013
Five members of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) are scheduled to appear before the country’s Anti-Terrorism court in Damascus on 19 May. Three of the activists, SCM’s head Mazen Darwish, blogger Hussein Gharir, and activist Hani Zaitani have been held in prison since February 2012, when Syrian security forces attacked and raided the organisation’s offices. Abdel Rahman Hamada and Mansour Omari were conditionally released earlier this year. Syria’s Air Force Intelligence has accused the five activists of “publicising terrorist acts”, under the country’s Anti-Terrorism law.
A group of 19 international organisations today called for the release of Zaitani, Gharir, and Darwish, and for the charges against all five to be dropped. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in prison. According to a statement released today, Syria’s Justice Minister earlier this month promised the release of SCM’s three jailed members — in addition to 69 other jailed activists.
SCM member Maha Assabalani, who was avoided being imprisoned during the raid, wrote about her colleagues for Index last year. She said that her colleagues are in prison for fighting for freedom of expression — and that they “risked their life fighting for real change.” She also said that Darwish regularly told the organisation’s staff that “there are not enough prisons for the free word.”
January 7th, 2013
Writing for Index on Censorship magazine in 2007, the late Stan Cohen argued that child pornography and jihadi violence were testing the limits of tolerance (more…)
September 10th, 2012
Ethiopia has
pardoned two Swedish journalists charged with supporting terrorism and will release them soon, a government source said on Monday. Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye were sentenced to 11 years in prison in
October 2011, after illegally entering the country with ethnic rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The chairman of the Swedish Union of Journalists, Jonas Nordling, said that the sentence aimed to deter journalists from investigating alleged human rights abuses in the Ogaden region, adding there was
no evidence to support the pair’s conviction on terror charges.
July 13th, 2012
Prominent Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega was today
sentenced to 18 years in prison for violating anti-terrorism laws. He and 23 other activists and writers were
convicted last month, and accused of links with US-based opposition group Ginbot Seven, which Ethiopia considers a terrorist organisation. Last September Eskinder was arrested after publishing an article questioning arrests made under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism legislation, namely that of well-known Ethiopian actor and government critic Debebe Eshetu.
May 10th, 2012
A prosecutor in
Burundi has requested a
life sentence for a journalist facing charges of terrorism. Radio journalist Hassan Ruvakuki was arrested on 28 November 2011 after interviewing an alleged member of a rebel group based in Tanzania. The journalist and 22 others are charged with “participating in acts of terrorism”. Many of the defendants, including Ravakuki, refused to enter pleas, as they believe the trial violates procedural rules and basic defence rights. The court adjourned until 20 June.
November 4th, 2011
The smoke had barely cleared from the firebombed office of Charlie Hebdo magazine – attacked for publishing cartoons of Mohammed – when TIME magazine’s Bruce Crumley chose to criticise the satirists before the terrorist. James Kirchick denounces a too-familiar tendancy
(more…)
October 12th, 2011
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zanawi
publicly accused two imprisoned
Swedish journalists of being terrorists on Monday. In an interview with Norwegian newspaper
Aftenposten, Zenawi said Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye, of Sweden-based photo agency Kontinent, were accomplices to terrorists. “They are, at the very least, messenger boys of a terrorist organisation. They are not journalists,” the prime minister said. Persson and Schibbye
were arrested after they crossed with rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) into Ogaden. Zanawi added: ”Why would a journalist be involved with a terrorist organisation and enter a country with that terrorist organisation, escorted by armed terrorists?”
September 19th, 2011
Two independent journalists
have been arrested by
Ethiopian authorities for being involved in a terrorism plot. Security forces took journalist Sileshi Hagos from his home on 9 September. Hagos worked as the managing director for Change, a magazine that covered Ginbot 7, Ethiopia’s leading opposition party which has also been banned under allegations of terrorism. On 14 September, officials also arrested Eskinder Nega, a dissident blogger and journalist. Local journalists speculate that Nega’s arrest was sparked by a column critical of the arrest of a famous Ethiopian actor on charges of terrorism. Four journalists were
arrested on similar charges earlier this month.
