18 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Shehla Masood, a freedom of information activist and blogger, was murdered yesterday in the city of Bhopal. The 39-year-old was shot in the neck as she got into a car in front of her home. Over the past two years, Masood had been publicly pushing for the enforcement of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in India. The 2005 RTI Act provides access to certain public documents but those seeking them — namely material involving sensitive local matters — are often targeted by officials, with a dozen people allegedly being killed last year for doing so.
18 Aug 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Members of security forces attacked the Damascus home of the family of Moussa Al-Omar, a journalist based in London on 11 August. A host for Al-Hiwar TV, Al-Omar has interviewed many Syrian dissidents on his programme. Also on the same day, Myriam Haddad, a reporter for Mouqarabat was kidnapped while at a cafe in Damascus, and journalist Sami Al-Halabi was also arrested following a severe beating in the city of Suwayda.
18 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Imprisoned journalist Ramazan Esergepov’s request for release on parole was rejected for the fourth time yesterday by an appeal commission in Taraz prison, southern Kazakhstan, although under Kazakh law a prisoner can be freed conditionally after serving a third of their sentence. The former owner and editor of the weekly Alma-Ata Info, he was sentenced to three years in prison on 8 August 2009 on a charge of gathering and publishing information that was considered a state secret. He was arrested on 6 January 2009 after publishing an article implicating the National Security Committee (KNB) in influence-trafficking.
18 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Zhao Lingmin, one of the top editors at Window on the South, a Guangzhou-based news and current affairs magazine, has been suspended from her duties. In a letter to colleagues, Zhao wrote that an article called “China Has Risen, We Must Say Goodbye to the Foreign Policy of Revolution” , which she wrote for a recent edition of the magazine, featured “errors of political guidance”. The article, which is still available on a number of blogs and chatrooms, has been deleted from most other sites. The original link at the Window on the South website now results in a 404 error message.
