14 Feb 2012 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
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.
14 Feb 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
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.
14 Feb 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
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.
14 Feb 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Veteran Chinese dissident Zhu Yufu has been sentenced to seven years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” after he shared his poem “It’s time” over Skype. The court in Hangzhou, eastern China, sentenced Zhu following a trial hearing on 31 January. During the hearing, prosecutors cited the poem and messages the activist had sent online. In the poem, Yufu called on Chinese citizens to defend their freedoms. The court verdict said the crime deserved “severe” punishment.
