Index on Censorship award winner prevented from leaving country by security forces Journalist and free expression activist Sihem Bensedrine was forcibly prevented from leaving Tunisia by security forces at Tunis Airport on 19 August. The 2006 Index...
The Terrorism Act has again proved to be much too broadly defined for comfort, writes Jo Glanville Aabid Khan, Sultan Muhammed and Hammad Munshi were all found guilty under the Terrorism Act this week. Between them they had what’s been described as...
A Gambian journalist avoided four years in prison after raising 8,000 euro to pay a fine yesterday. A court convicted Gambian journalist, Fatou Jaw Manneh, for ‘sedition’, relating to her 2005 article criticising President Jammeh. Manneh was found...
Aabid Khan and Sultan Muhammad, both 23 and from Bradford, have been sentenced to 12 and 10 years respectively after being found guilty of possessing or making documents promoting terrorism. The two were convicted along with 18-year-old Hammaad...
The Chinese authorities are yet to issue any permits for the designated 'protest zones' which were installed as a gesture of openness and freedom in conjunction with the Olympic Games. The state media organ, Xinhua, reported that 77 applications...
A radio reporter in Puntland, Somalia, who broadcast a speech by an opposition candidate, has been detained without charge. Mohamed Mohamud, the regional director for Radio Daljir, was arrested on 17 August following his broadcasting of a speech by...
Blogger Zhou 'Zola' Shugang, known in China as the 'nailhouse blogger', was placed under house arrest last week by Chinese authorities seeking to prevent him travelling to Beijing. Zola has frequently drawn attention to issues hushed up by the...
The UK government’s record on free expression has been harshly criticised in a United Nations report. Defamation laws allowing for ‘libel tourism’, and sweeping incitement to terrorism legislation, were singled out as dangers to free speech. Read...
Journalist John Ray of ITV and Guardian photographer Dan Chung have both reported being ‘manhandled’ by the Chinese police while covering a pro-Tibet protest in Beijing. Ray was also detained by police who claimed to have mistaken him for an...
Edinburgh Fringe Festival organisers have been accused of censorship. Sound recordist Colin Macnab has complained that his right to carry out interviews was under threat. Macnab claimed that he had been prevented from initiating interviews on the...
Dutch news cameraman Stan Storimans was killed by Russian bombing in the city of Gori, central Georgia on 12 August. Another Georgian journalist, and his driver, were killed by Russian shells in Gori's main square in the same offensive, bringing...
An Arab-Israeli publisher has been ordered to stop importing Arabic-language books from Syria and Lebanon. Salah Abassi gave an interview to Israeli public radio on 11 August in which he stated that the Trade and Industry Ministry had ‘warned’ him...