Iranian blogger Mehdi Khazali’s wife and daughter have allegedly been kidnapped by security forces and moved to an unknown location, it was reported yesterday. Khazali, a staunch critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s state policies, was sentenced to 13 years and 10 months in prison and 10 years in exile on 7 February for “insulting the supreme leader”. The blogger has been on hunger strike for 38 days.
Brazilian newspaper editor Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues was shot dead on Sunday night, making him the second Brazilian journalist killed in less than a week and the third in 2012. The journalist, who was known as Paulo Rocaro, was driving home at night in Ponta Porá, a city near the country’s border with Paraguay, when two men on a motorcycle shot him at least five times. Cardoso was the editor of the local daily Jornal Da Praça and news website Mercosul News, and frequently wrote about local politics.
An Australian journalist who was detained in Egypt on the first anniversary of the ousting of former president Hosni Mubarak has been freed. Cairo-based freelance writer Austin Mackell was detained alongside an American student and their Egyptian translator in the northern city of al-Mahalla al-Kubra on Saturday while covering a nationwide strike led by workers. Mackell, who writes his own blog and has contributed to the Guardian, the Canberra Times and Russia Today, has said he was accused of spying and inciting people to strike, an accusation he denies.
Prominent French journalist and author Anne Nivat was expelled from Russia yesterday (13 February) for alleged violation of her visa status. Nivat has said she believes the move to be politically motivated, with authorities expressing their disliking that Nivat had met with opposition politicians. Nivat, who was conducting interviews for a new book on Russia’s current political climate, has said authorities cancelled her visa and gave her three days to leave the country.