30 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
A Tajik journalist is facing 16 years in prison, following charges of defamation. Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov, a reporter for the independent weekly paper Nuri Zindagi, was arrested for defamation, insult, and incitement following an article in which he criticised government and law enforcement officials in the Asht district in the northern Sogd region of Tajikistan. During his hearing yesterday, prosecutors asked the court to sentence the journalist to 16 years imprisonment, while Ismiolov’s lawyer claimed investigators had failed to prove he was guilty, and called for his release. The next court hearing in the case is scheduled for 3 October.
29 Sep 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
The lengthy prison sentences of two journalists have been upheld in Bahrain. Journalistic bloggers Abduljalil Alsingace and Ali Abdel Imam were sentenced in June on a series of charges related to “plotting to topple” the regime, along with 19 other people. The court upheld the life sentence for Alsingace and the 15 year sentence to Abdel Imam. Additionally in Bahrain, granting of ID passes to journalists from daily newspaper Al-Wasat was delayed, preventing the journalists from covering the government’s by-elections on Saturday. The passes would allow journalists to enter and report from polling stations.
28 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Two Peruvian journalists accused of defamation were last week sentenced to two years in prison, although on suspended sentences which involve house arrest and paying a civil fine of $11,000 USD. Fritz Du Bois, editor of the newspaper Perú 21, and Gessler Ojeda, Perú 21 correspondent in the city of Arequipa, were reportedly taken to court for publishing stories about supposed links between the family of legislator Ana María Solórzano and prostitution businesses in the southern city.
28 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
A journalist who was found guilty of defamation in Belarus has been barred from leaving the country. Andrzej Poczobut, a Polish-Belarusian journalist who writes for top daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, was found guilty of defaming President Alexander Lukashenko in July, and was given a three-year suspended sentence. Poczobut claims he was recently summoned to a police station in Homel, where he was instructed that as a convict he has no right to travel abroad. Poczobut wrote in his blog regarding the travel ban: “That is not mentioned either in my verdict or in the Criminal Code.”
