29 Nov 2011 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
A Vietnamese court have halved the jail sentence of a blogger after international pressure from government’s and NGO’s. Pham Minh Hoang was sentenced to three years imprisonment for attempted subversion in August this year after he wrote 33 articles under a pseudonym, which were ruled by the court to “blacken the image of the country” and aimed to topple the government. Hoang will be released on January 13 after serving a 17-month sentence, but will then serve three years of house arrest.
29 Nov 2011 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
Three journalists in the Ivory Coast were taken into police custody on Thursday. César Etou, Boga Sivori and Didier Dépry from daily newspaper Notre Voie were taken in for police questioning on suspicion of insulting the head of state and harming the national economy. Publisher Etou and Chief Political correspondent Sivori were questioned about an article that appeared in the newspaper about 40 new Mercedes official cars made available to members of the government, while the assistant editor Dépry was questioned about an article from the newspapers front page regarding the value of the CFA franc.
29 Nov 2011 | Americas, Mexico
The website of the weekly newspaper Riodoce was taken down by a cyber attack. The DDoS attack follows the murders of two unidentified twitter users in Nuevo Laredo and the slaying of two workers of an Internet news site and blog. All occurred in the same state, Sinaloa, which is a hub for organised crime in Mexico.
According to Riodoce’s Director, Ismael Bojorquez Perea, the distributed denial-of-service attack attack began last Friday at noon. The publication is known for its incisive reporting, it recently received New York’s Columbia University Maria Moors Cabot Award for ‘heroically’ struggling to report the news in the face of increasing violence from organized crime.” The newspaper covers Sinalo’s drug trade but has always managed to avoid provoking the wrath of drug traffickers. The newspaper covers crime in a simple and stark manner, but ignores some details that could cause problems for the weekly. It has now been three days since the website riodoce.com.mx disappeared from the web.
Riodoce found out about the attack when their US-based internet host Dreamhost, warned them about a “big attack” that also affected some of their other clients. The internet hosting company is now refusing to host Riodoce.
Sinaloa, where Riodoce was founded in 2003, is home to the Sinaloa Cartel, but has recently been hit with a wave of unprecedented violence due to battles between different organised crime groups. A major massacre occurred in this northwestern state last week. The Sinaloa Cartel is one of the most established organised crime groups in Mexico. Its leader, Joaquin Chapo Guzman Loera, is among the richest men in Mexico.
25 Nov 2011 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
The news editor of an online news agency has been released on bail after being held for nearly four months. Ekramul Haq, the editor of recently closed Sheershanews.com, was released from jail in Dhaka at around 4pm, local time, after he was granted bail by the lower court. Haq was arrested on suspicion of extorting Tk 20 lakh (around £17,000) from Chittagong businessman Gias Uddin Talukdar on July 30.
