3 Jan 2012 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
Ivorian television presenter Hermann Aboa was released on bail on 30 December after five months in prison. Aboa, a presenter with national state-run public broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI), continues to face prosecution on a range of charges, including threatening the nation’s defences, attacking and conspiring against state authorities, undermining national territorial integrity and attacking public order. Aboa’s lawyer said he is due to be examined on the substance of the charges in the coming days. In July the presenter was detained for moderating a TV talk show series, launched during the crisis that followed the disputed November 2010 elections, which lauded former leader Laurent Gbagbo, who controlled the station before he was ousted in April by forces loyal to his opponent, current president Alassane Ouattara.
3 Jan 2012 | Index Index, minipost
An Argentinian TV reporter and cameraman were beaten, ordered to strip and threatened with death while investigating reports of human trafficking on 29 December. Journalist Julián Chabert and cameraman Raúl Zalazar, of Channel 7 of Mendoza, said they were investigating reports of Bolivian immigrants suffering labour exploitation at an olive producing plantation when the farm’s owner locked them in the kitchen and threatened to kill them. Chabert used his mobile phone to contact the police, who rescued the pair and arrested the landowner.
3 Jan 2012 | Asia and Pacific, China
The brother of Chinese dissident human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng has told two news agencies that his brother is now in a Xinjiang prison, being the first confirmation of his whereabouts in 20 months.
Gao Zhiyi added that he received a notice last Sunday informing him that his brother was back in prison because a court had revoked his probation, and that he would have to serve a further three years. Chinese state media reported last month that he had violated his probation.
In 2006 Gao Zhisheng was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for “subversion of state power”, having defended the rights of political and religious dissenters such as the Falun Gong, an outlawed spiritual sect in China. Since 2009 he has largely been held incommunicado. In the same year he was taken from a relative’s home in Shaanxi province, northern China, resurfacing briefly in March 2010, when he told the Associated Press he had been tortured. He disappeared again soon after.
Gao’s case is one of the most high-profile abuses of human rights in China, drawing widespread condemnation from the international community and calls for his release.
2 Jan 2012 | Burma
A film festival featuring Burma’s leading artists and dissidents will test the regime’s commitment to reform. Wei Mar reports
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