5 May 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
The dissident human rights lawyer — missing for over a year until he resurfaced last month — has been reported missing again by his family. In early April, Gao gave a series of interviews to the western media publicly renouncing activism. He boarded the Beijing-bound flight from Urumqi on 20 April but his whereabouts are now unknown. Critics speculate that his reappearance was “a ploy to try to demonstrate to the outside world that he had not been mistreated”.
4 May 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
President Mahinda Rajapaska has pardoned a journalist sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of supporting terrorism. Tyssainayagam, then editor of North-Eastern Monthly magazine, was first arrested in March 2008. He was accused of conspiring to cause ethnic violence through his articles. The Tamil journalist, who wrote about the effects of the separatist conflict on the ethnic Tamil minority, was convicted in August 2009. The government’s pardon announcement was timed to coincide with World Press Freedom Day on 3 May.
4 May 2010 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized
Elton John was banned from playing a private show on 18 May after the head of Egypt’s musician union denounced his “anti-religious sentiments”. Union head Mounir al Wasimi said John should not be allowed to perform in Egypt because he is “a homosexual who wants to ban religions, claimed that the prophet Issa (Jesus) was gay and calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom…”.
4 May 2010 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Twoal-Jazeera reporters were prevented from covering a demonstration in the West Bank on Friday by the Israeli military. They were detained for four and a half hours before being released and told to never return. Cameraman Majdi Bannoura and assistant Nader Abu Zer were arrested trying to videotape the weekly protests on the separation barrier being erected in Bil’in by Israel.
