16 Nov 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Journalist Guillaume Bontoux, working for the Spanish Radio Exterior, has landed in Gran Canaria last night after having been detained and interrogated by the police in Laayoune, West Sahara, for several hours. The journalist asserted to have received a better treatment because of his French nationality.
Moroccan authorities have recently issued a ban on foreign journalists who wish to fly to Laayoune, where violent clashes between Moroccan security forces and Sahrawi protesters are taking place. The intensity of the conflict is reportedly very high: Spanish activists hidden in the city speak about genocide.
16 Nov 2010 | News and features
British journalist Alan Shadrake has been sentenced to six weeks in prison and fined SGD$20,000 by a Singapore court,
Shadrake, 76, was earlier found guilty of contempt of court after he claimed in his book “Once a Jolly Hangman” that the Singaporean judiciary was not impartial in its application of the death penalty. He has been granted seven days to appeal the sentence.
Index on Censorship chief executive John Kampfner commented: “Alan Shadrake’s sentence once again shows Singapore’s desperate difficulties in dealing with criticism and free expression.”
15 Nov 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Columnist and commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has said she will not press charges against Birmingham councillor Graham Compton.
Compton had tweeted suggesting that someone should stone the Ugandan-born Muslim journalist. He had been listening to Alibhai-Brown discuss stoning and human rights on BBC radio at the time. The Conservative Party politician was arrested under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which makes it an offence to send “by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character…”
The Birmingham Post reports Ms Alibhai-Brown as saying: “My objections have been made and there is no need for more.”
The Crown Prosecution Service may still decide to pursue the charge.
15 Nov 2010 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost, News and features
Cem Büyükçakır, founder and general publications director of the Haberin Yeri website was given an eleven-month long jail sentence for publishing a reader’s comment implying that Turkish President Abdullah Gül descended from an Armenian family.
Abdullah Gül was the recipient of this year’s Chatham House prize for the statesman who made the “most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year”.
