21 Feb 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
The Paris and Cologne offices of a Turkish newspaper were attacked by supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) last week. Zaman newspaper says that a group of nearly 15 masked PKK supporters entered its Paris office on 15 February, threatening employees and breaking furniture and computers. Meanwhile AFP has reported that arsonists torched the paper’s Cologne headquarters on the evening of the same day. The EU, USA and Turkey all classify the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
20 Feb 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Blogger and free speech activist Razan Ghazzawi was released on Saturday along with her female colleagues, after being arrested and detained last Thursday following a raid on the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression in Damascus. Ghazzawi’s sister tweeted that Razan had returned home but was not allowed to leave the country. Razan’s male colleagues remain detained.
20 Feb 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Bahrain announced the deportation of four foreign activists for “taking part in illegal demonstrations” on 18 February, bringing the number of those expelled over the past week to 12. The official BNA news agency reported on Friday that the four — including one American and one Briton — were deported for “lying on immigration forms”, as their “visas were issued for the purposes of tourism but all were participating in illegal demonstrations.”
20 Feb 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
A Burmese monk jailed for his involvement in 2007 protests faces further charges for breaking both the law and the Buddhist monks’ code of conduct. Shin Gambira, who was released from prison in a January amnesty, has been accused of rejoining the religious order without requesting authorisation, of being in the government sealed Magin Monastery and breaking the locks of two other monasteries. According to newspapers reports, Shin Gambira had said in a statement that he did not need permission to rejoin the order of monks so he would not ask for it.
Gambira was awarded an Index on Censorship Free Expression Award in 2008.
