3 Jan 2012 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
Ivorian television presenter Hermann Aboa was released on bail on 30 December after five months in prison. Aboa, a presenter with national state-run public broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI), continues to face prosecution on a range of charges, including threatening the nation’s defences, attacking and conspiring against state authorities, undermining national territorial integrity and attacking public order. Aboa’s lawyer said he is due to be examined on the substance of the charges in the coming days. In July the presenter was detained for moderating a TV talk show series, launched during the crisis that followed the disputed November 2010 elections, which lauded former leader Laurent Gbagbo, who controlled the station before he was ousted in April by forces loyal to his opponent, current president Alassane Ouattara.
3 Jan 2012 | Index Index, minipost
An Argentinian TV reporter and cameraman were beaten, ordered to strip and threatened with death while investigating reports of human trafficking on 29 December. Journalist Julián Chabert and cameraman Raúl Zalazar, of Channel 7 of Mendoza, said they were investigating reports of Bolivian immigrants suffering labour exploitation at an olive producing plantation when the farm’s owner locked them in the kitchen and threatened to kill them. Chabert used his mobile phone to contact the police, who rescued the pair and arrested the landowner.
27 Dec 2011 | Index Index, minipost
An Ethiopian court has sentenced two Swedish journalists to 11 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism after the pair illegally entered the country with an ethnic Somali rebel group.
Photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye were detained by Ethiopian security forces in July while travelling with the outlawed separatist group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, and were put on trial in October. The chairman of the Swedish Union of Journalists, Jonas Nordling, has been reported as saying that the sentence is aimed at deterring journalists from investigating alleged human rights abuses in the tense Ogaden region, adding that there is no evidence to support the pair’s conviction on terror charges.
22 Dec 2011 | Uncategorized
A barely concealed battle is brewing in Guatemala over the legacy of the 38-year civil war which ended in 1996. It has affected press freedom, especially journalists who write about human rights abuses during the civil conflict. Recently, three journalists were included in a demand put before the Guatemalan Courts, which charges more than 50 people with human rights abuses, including kidnappings and murders carried out by Guatemalan guerrilla forces during the war. At least one of those accused was a small child when the incidents occurred.
Coffee baron Theodor Plocharskie, a US citizen and resident of Guatemala, charged Marielos Monzón, a columnist with the daily Prensa Libre; Miguel Ángel Albizures, a columnist with daily El Periodico; and Iduvina Hernández, director of an NGO that promotes democratic change SEDEM; and a columnist for Plaza Pública, with participating in the murders of dozens of victims of the guerrillas during the civil war, including US Ambassador John Gordon Mein, who was killed by guerrillas on 28 August 28 1968, and was the first American ambassador killed while serving office.
It has been speculated that the charges are revenge for legal decisions that have recently gone against military officials— a number have been convicted for involvement in massacres and there has been increasing interest in charging top officials for being the intellectual masterminds of these massacres.The peace accords agreed in 1996 granted amnesty to many who participated in the civil war, but crimes against humanity were not included. A recent court decision sent four military officers to jail for 6060 years for the 1982 massacre of Dos Erres in Peten, in which than 200 villagers were murdered. Two top military officers are charged in another case of genocide, with responsibility in massacres which exterminated the residents several villages belonging to an indigenous group, the Ixil. All of these charges have been designed to target those further up the chain of command and to charge those responsible for designing a “scorched earth” military policy.
All three journalists included in the demand have been critical of the army and are in support of legal action against those found to be intellectually responsible for the dirty war tactics, which were responsible for the killing and disappearance of 200,000 people.
