24 Feb 2012 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
Cuban authorities yesterday prevented members of women’s organisation Ladies in White from entering a building in downtown Havana for an event commemorating the second anniversary of the death of activist Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Authorities reportedly diverted traffic from passing in front of the headquarters, stationed police officers in the four corners of the crossroad and checked identification cards of all pedestrians passing through the area.
23 Feb 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
A Tunisian court today released Nasreddine Ben Saida, general director of the Arabic-language daily Attounissia, who was arrested on 15 February after his newspaper published a photo German-Tunisian footballer Sami Khedira with his naked girlfriend. Rim Boukriba, a journalist for Attounisia, expressed her discontent about the arrest. “He was treated like a criminal … did he kill someone? Is he too dangerous to stay at large?” she said. “The authorities who jailed Ben Saida are seeking to silence us … their problem is not with the picture itself … but with the newspaper, which is popular, and widely read”, she told Index. “The picture is only an excuse,” she added. The court is expected to issue a verdict on the case on 8 March.
23 Feb 2012 | Index Index, minipost
A young Jordanian blogger is recovering in hospital after being stabbed on Sunday evening. Enas Musallam, 21, was stabbed in the stomach by a hooded man at around 7pm in Darat Al Funun. The man then held the knife to the blogger’s throat and said “next time it will be your neck if you do not stop.” Her colleague told local media he believed the attack related to a recently written blog post criticising Jordanian Prince Hassan. Musallam underwent surgery on Monday, but is said to be in a stable condition.
23 Feb 2012 | Digital Freedom, Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
Access to the website of independent news agency Ferghana was blocked this week by telecommunications company Kyrgyztelecom in response to a formal request from the Kyrgyz state communications agency. In a resolution made public on 16 June last year, the Kyrgyz parliament called for access to the site to be blocked on the grounds that its coverage of violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010 had been “subjective” and “provocative”.
