Belarusian authorities assaulted and interrogated Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Ina Studzinskaja while she was covering a meeting of opposition activists and local residents outside the capital Minsk last week. Studzinskaja, a...
CATEGORY: Europe and Central Asia
UK: Spectator fined after admitting reporting breach
The Spectator has been ordered to pay £5,600 after admitting a November 2011 article about the trial of Stephen Lawrence's killers breached a court order. Associate editor Rod Liddle's piece claimed defendants Gary Dobson and David Norris --- who...
Belarus: Andrei Sannikov not allowed to leave country
Former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov was removed from a train travelling from Minsk to Vilnius at a station near the Lithuanian border yesterday. The activist, who was released from detention and pardoned by Belarusian president...

Belarus activist fights political sentence
Political activist Siarhei Kavalenka may have given up his hunger strike but his fight for freedom in Belarus continues, says
Andrei Aliaksandrau
Azerbaijan: Outspoken blogger released
An Azerbaijani blogger who had spent 15 months in prison for criticising the government was granted an early release by the supreme court on Monday. Bakhtiyar Hajiyev was arrested in March 2011 after calling on social networks for an...

Britain’s press needs a strong public interest defence
The Leveson Inquiry should not forget the need to protect British journalism, says Marta Cooper
UK: receives police warning for Facebook joke about Olympic flame
A woman who joked on Facebook that she planned to squirt the Olympic flame with a water pistol has been issued with a warning by police. Helen Perry posted the joke on a local newspaper page, and was contacted by the police several weeks later. In...
Azerbaijan: Editor claims he was tortured in detention
The lawyer for the editor-in-chief of an Azerbaijani news website has claimed his client was tortured following his arrest. Nijat Aliyev from Islamic news website Azadexber was arrested on 20 May for narcotics charges and put in two months of...

“Norwegian Borat” stripped and ordered to stamp on Iranian flag by Azerbaijan police
If the ignominy of coming last in the Eurovision Song Contest was not enough, Norway suffered a further humiliation when it was alleged that a journalist from their official delegation was threatened, stripped to his underwear and told to stamp on...
Moscow radio host stabbed after “anti-Muslim” comments
Moscow journalist Sergei Aslanyan was stabbed repeatedly earlier this week. Anslanyan, who specialises in motoring and hosts a programme on state Mayak radio station, was attacked on 29 May after a stranger called him and asked to leave...