Egyptian journalist, blogger and human rights activist Wael Abbas has been sentenced to six months in prison according to his Twitter page. In his tweet he says “I was sentenced to 6 months in prison in absentia, I don’t know yet what for, will update you.” His family home was raided yesterday and searched by plain clothed police while the activist was attending a bloggers’ conference in Beirut, according to both Abbas and his mother.
A devout Christian couple have been cleared of insulting a Muslim guest at their hotel because of her faith and asking her if she was a terrorist when she wore the hijab. Benjamin and Sharon Vogelenzang denied using threatening, abusive or insulting words which were religiously aggravated. District judge Richard Clancy dismissed the case against them at Liverpool magistrates’ court. He said that the evidence against the couple was inconsistent. Read more here
Two Tibetan web users have been sentenced to three-year jail terms after posting pictures of the exiled Dalai Lama on the Internet. Gyaltsen and Nyima Wangdu were given three-year sentences after being convicted of “communicating information to contacts outside China,” Reporters Without Borders said. Three other Internet users were also arrested for similar reasons on December 1 but have not yet been tried. Read more here
A journalist and councillor for the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ), Tika Bista, was yesterday found in an unconscious state near her home. According to Bista’s colleague Dhanbir Dahal, she had called him saying three men were following her before the incident. A laptop and two mobile phones belonging to Bista were found damaged nearby and documents written by the journalist were scattered at the scene. Bista had received a threatening phone call on 29 November about an article she had written criticizing the UCPN Maoist Party. Read more here