The undersigned organisations call on the Syrian authorities to immediately release Mazen Darwish, a prominent Syrian human rights defender and Director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) – as well as seven of his colleagues and a visitor, who were arrested during a raid on their Damascus offices (more…)
A young Jordanian blogger is recovering in hospital after being stabbed on Sunday evening. Enas Musallam, 21, was stabbed in the stomach by a hooded man at around 7pm in Darat Al Funun. The man then held the knife to the blogger’s throat and said “next time it will be your neck if you do not stop.” Her colleague told local media he believed the attack related to a recently written blog post criticising Jordanian Prince Hassan. Musallam underwent surgery on Monday, but is said to be in a stable condition.
Access to the website of independent news agency Ferghana was blocked this week by telecommunications company Kyrgyztelecom in response to a formal request from the Kyrgyz state communications agency. In a resolution made public on 16 June last year, the Kyrgyz parliament called for access to the site to be blocked on the grounds that its coverage of violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010 had been “subjective” and “provocative”.
Indian journalist Chandrika Rai, his wife and two teenage children were found beaten to death in their home in Umaria, Madhya Pradesh state. Rai, 42, who worked for two Hindi-language dailies, Navbharat and Hitavada, had been investigating illegal mining in Umaria. Some local news reports have suggested that his murder could be linked to the kidnapping of a local official’s son or with a personal land dispute.