US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the United States has “expressed our concern about Maziar Bahari’s confinement and trial” to the Canadian government and offered to help. Newsweek’s Tehran correspondent was detained on 21 June as part of Iran’s post-election crackdown on the media. This week her husband, Bill Clinton, returned from North Korea having obtained the release of two imprisoned US journalists. Read more here
Six journalists in Gambia have been jailed for two years each after being found guilty of criticising the country’s president. The journalists from the newspaper Foroyaa and weekly publication The Point were convicted of sedition and defamation for comments critical of President Yahya Jammeh. Read more here
The Guardian has published an apology and has settled out of court for an undisclosed amount with the South African President. The paper had described president Zuma in an article as a rapist. President Zuma, although brought to court for both rape and corruption was not convicted as guilty. Read more here
Police in China have detained a leading human rights lawyer in a dawn raid, less than a fortnight after the Open Constitution Initative, the pioneering legal centre he helped found was shut down. Xu Zhiyong’s disappearance comes amid growing concern about increasing pressure on activist lawyers in China. Read more here