10 Jun 2010 | Index Index, minipost
The editor of the Banjul-based The Independent newspaper, Musa Saidykhan, has informed judges that the people who tortured him in a 2006 incident were members of President Yahya Jammeh’s security forces. On 3 June a community court heard that the editor was arrested by policeman then tortured by presidential security forces, rendering him unconscious for 30 minutes. Siadykhan had recently returned from a human rights forum in South Africa where he gave an interview detailing the killing of 44 Ghanaian nationals in 2005. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MWA) instituted the legal action on behalf of Saidykhan.
10 Jun 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Three members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party were sentenced to six months each for speaking Kurdish in an election campaign. Although the election campaigners claimed to have welcomed the meeting in Kurdish, they were sentenced for”committing a criminal offence by violating the laws related to oral and written election propaganda to be made in Turkish only”. The sentences come only days after journalist Irfan Atkan was jailed for 15 months, and his editor fined for publishing an article quoting a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party.
10 Jun 2010 | Uncategorized
The Independent reports this morning that Ofcom is to investigate Iranian news channel Press TV. Index on Censorship contributor Maziar Bahari complained that the station broadcast an interview he gave while under interrogation in Tehran’s Evin prison in the aftermath of last year’s contested Iranian presidential elections.
Index editor Jo Glanville is quoted as saying that no self-respecting reporter should work for the channel, adding “The way they behaved by going into the prison in that way and essentially colluding with the torture and illegal detention of a journalist should finish their reputation once and for all in [the UK].”
Channel 4 News will be screening a special report on Press TV at 7pm tonight (10 June).
9 Jun 2010 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
Editors of the US-based newspaper Gambia Echo have seen access to their website from within Gambia blocked by the country’s government. In a letter sent to the US State Department on June 4, the imprint’s editor-in-chief claims the move is part of a trend under President Yahya Jammeh towards restricting press freedom. Gambia Echo’s website, and that of Freedom Newspaper, another independent imprint, were previously blocked in 2008.
