12 Jun 2012 | Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
A journalist and government critic has been sentenced to two years in prison in Azerbaijan. Anar Bayramli, a correspondent for two Iranian media outlets, was sentenced for a drug possession charge following a controversial court case which was said to include contradictory evidence. Bayramli was arrested in February and charged with possession of four grams of heroin. The journalist was previously summoned by police on a number of occasions to disclose his political affiliation. The sentencing comes at a time when tensions between Azerbaijan and neighbouring Iran are particularly heightened.
12 Jun 2012 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A Mexican reporter has gone missing from her home in the state of Coahuila, along with her two-year-old son. Hypathia Stephanía Rodríguez Cardoso, crime reporter for Zócalo Saltillo newspaper, disappeared on Friday (8 June) after attending an event celebrating Freedom of Expression day. The journalist contacted colleagues around 2 AM Friday to tell them she had returned home safely, but did not turn up for work later that morning. According to relatives, her house had been ransacked. The disappearance comes less than three weeks after a crime journalist in Sonora, Marco Antonio Ávila García, was kidnapped and later found tortured and killed.
8 Jun 2012 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
Gang member Jonathan Martínez Castro was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a San Salvador court on 31 May for the murder of Canal 33 cameraman Alfredo Hurtado. Two gunmen shot Hurtado while he was visiting Ilopango, on the outskirts of the Salvadorian capital, on 25 April 2011. Hurtado had often covered gang member arrests, and it has been reported that the Mara Salvatrucha gang, of which Martínez Castro was a member, had suspected Hurtado had identified two of its members to the police as the murderers of another gangster. Martínez Castro’s alleged accomplice, Marlon Abrego Rivas, is currently a fugitive.
8 Jun 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
Belarusian authorities assaulted and interrogated Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Ina Studzinskaja while she was covering a meeting of opposition activists and local residents outside the capital Minsk last week. Studzinskaja, a correspondent with RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service Radio Svaboda, was detained by police and security agents for three hours on May 31 while on assignment in Svetlahorsk. She told RFE/RL that a policeman grabbed and twisted her arm, and she was then taken to a local police station, where she was interrogated. No charges were brought against the reporter.
