Protesters took to the streets on Monday (30 May) in Inner Mongolia after Han Chinese coal truck drivers killed a Mongolian herder who attempted to stop them from trespassing on grasslands. Chinese officials have sought to stifle the protests in...
CATEGORY: minipost
China tightens television censorship
Hunan Broadcasting System, one of China’s largest television networks, has told the Financial Times it will reduce entertainment content and revamp its programming to comply with new government broadcasting standards. The network has outposts in...
US senator blocks controversial anti-piracy legislation
Just hours after the PROTECT IP Act passed unanimously in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon placed a hold to prevent it from reaching the Senate. Wyden argued the legislation was an “overreaching...
EU plan to fight piracy may lead to internet policing, say critics
The European Commission’s plan to tackle internet copyright infringements, such as illegal media downloads, would require internet service providers to work with the entertainment industry to monitor content. Critics fear this could lead to...
Gunmen in Honduras target media: kill one, wound another
Three gunmen killed Channel 24 television owner Luis Ernesto Mendoza Cerrato last week. Gunmen also wounded newspaper manager Manuel Acosta Medina two days as he drove home. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 journalists have...
British author Alan Shadrake jailed in Singapore
The Singapore High Court has denied writer Alan Shadrake’s appeal against his six-week jail sentence. Shadrake was convicted of "scandalising the judiciary" in November after he published "Once A Jolly Hangman" a book criticising the use of the...

Azerbaijan: Eynulla Fatullayev pardoned
Azerbaijan journalist Eynulla Fatullayev has been pardoned by the country’s president Ilham Aliyev, according to a report on the News.az website.
Fatullayev’s name featured on a list of prisoners to be released on the morning of Friday 27 May.
Fatullayev, who worked as a reporter on Elmar Huseynov’s magazine Monitor and later founded and edited Realny Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaycan, served almost four years in prison.
Index on Censorship, English PEN, Article 19 and Amnesty led an international campaign for the 34-year-old editor’s release.
Natasha Schmidt, Assistant Editor of Index on Censorship said:
“We’re absolutely delighted that Eynulla will be freed. This comes more than a year after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he should be released. Only last month Index lobbied European leaders to ensure that this judgement was enforced and that freedom of expression is upheld. It is of concern however that bloggers and Facebook activists are still in prison.”
Brazilian anti-logging activist shot dead
José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, an outspoken opponent of illegal burning and logging in the Amazon rainforest, has been shot dead in an ambush near their his home in Nova Ipixuna, in Pará state, about 37 miles from Marabá, Brazil. His wife was also...
Cisco sued by Falun Gong members for “aiding” Chinese censorship
A federal lawsuit filed last Thursday against Cisco Systems claims the computer networking company helped design the controversial “Golden Shield” firewall used by the Chinese government to censor the internet and monitor dissidents, such as...
Press TV could face fine for Bahari prison interview
Iran's state-run English language channel Press TV could face a hefty fine from UK TV regulators after it broadcast a prison interview with jailed journalist Maziar Bahari. Ofcom found that the station had breached Bahari's rights by broadcasting...