On 31 January, Amjad Mahmood, 29, and Shella Roma, 27, of Greater Manchester, were charged under the Terrorism Act 2006 for distributing material encouraging acts of terrorism. Both have been released on bail and will appear at Westminster...
CATEGORY: News
Germany: atheist book faces ban
The German family ministry is pushing for the ban of children’s book How Do I get To God, Asked The Small Piglet. The ministry has written to the federal department responsible for reviewing children's literature, saying “the book ridicules three...
Switzerland: reporters arrested
On 26 January, police arrested two journalists in Basel. Both reporters were detained for several hours. They had been covering a peaceful demonstration against the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. On 19 January, a journalist from the weekly...
US: newspaper publisher threatened
Paul Cobb, publisher of the Oakland Post newspaper, has been placed under police protection after being told a contract has been put out for his murder. The editor of the Oakland Post, Chauncey Bailey, was assassinated in August of last year.
Iran: leading women’s magazine shut down
Iran’s Commission for Press Authorisation and Surveillance has suspended feminist monthly Zanan (Women) for “publishing information detrimental to society’s psychological tranquillity”. Hengameh Golestan reports Zanan has been published regularly...
Slovakian bill threatens media freedom
A bill submitted to parliament by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in late 2007 is garnering criticism for curbing press freedom. Slovakia’s opposition parties have threatened to block ratification of the EU’s new Lisbon Treaty in resistance to...
Senate backs blasphemy sentence
The Afghan Senate has issued a statement supporting the death sentence imposed on a journalist. Pervez Kambaksh, 23, was convicted last week of downloading and distributing an article critical of Islam. His trial has been criticised by the UN and...
Reporters sentenced to hard labour
A court in Baku, Azerbijan, has sentenced two journalists to hard labour following their conviction for libel. The charges related to articles they published in 2007 regarding alleged corruption in government circles. Avaz Zeynalli, the editor of...
Afghanistan: reporter beaten
The situation for journalists in the north of the country is deteriorating, writes Harun Najafizada Police in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz beat up a local journalist last week, apparently because he wrote a story critical of Afghan...
Websites blocked in Yemen
On 19 January, three domestic news and opinion websites were blocked to users in Yemen by the government-owned Internet provider. The sites joined a list of at least five others that have been censored without any official explanation. News site...
