The Thai government forced the closure of 13 radio stations on Tuesday (26 April) and issued them with court warrants for broadcasting a speech by an opposition leader in which the monarchy was criticised. In Thailand, Les majeste, or offence...
The Chinese government has refused author Liao Yiwu an exit visa to attend the PEN World Voices Festival in New York. Authors at the event, led by Salman Rushdie, issued a protest on Friday (22 April) and called on the Chinese authority to overturn...
A columnist for the independent Al-Wasat newspaper was arrested on Monday (25 April) after 30 uniformed and plainclothes police officials raided his house. Local journalists have claimed that Haidar Mohammed al-Nuaimi was dragged out of his house...
A television cameraman was shot dead on Monday (25 April) while on his way to work. Alfredo Hurtado, 45, worked for Canal 33, a privately owned news channel. Three suspected gang members are believed to have entered the bus and shot him 12 times in...
The Syrian regime has launched a massive crackdown against protestors demanding political reform in the country. The killing of protestors in 14 separate towns on April 22 heralded a dramatic escalation in violence. In an attempt to pre-empt...
Yemeni authorities detained the editor of Al-Shahid at a checkpoint on 25 April. Abdel Aziz al-Majidi was prevented from entering the Taiz province to report on the region. In a separate incident on the same day, security forces encircled the house...
A Pakistani journalist who worked for a local news channel was shot twice on 19 April. Naveed Kamal, 26, was attacked by two unidentified men when coming home from the offices of Metro One TV. Kamal is currently in the Intensive Care Unit of a...
A Saudi Arabian writer and teacher has become the most prominent figure to be arrested in the country since protests started in February. Nadhir al-Majid was detained on April 17 in the Persian Gulf city of al-Khobar. Rights groups have urged...
Iranian journalist Nazanin Khosravani was sentenced to six years in jail on 19 April after being convicted of impinging on national security and conducting propaganda against the regime. She was arrested in November 2009 and had her computer and...
A journalist received a written warning over an article in which he questioned the Belarussian authorities’ claims to have arrested those responsible for April’s Minsk metro bombing. A prosecutor in Belarus's eastern district issued a letter which...
ASwiss television channel claimed on 18 April that two of its reporters were detained without charge in Qatar for 13 days. The RTS network alleges that the pair were in the country to shoot a documentary about Qatar hosting the World Cup in 2022....
Six men raided the office of a news website, Al-Muharrir, in Amman on 19 April. Unidentified men broke into the personal office of editor-in-chief Jihad Abu Baidar and threatened to kill him if he did not withdraw a report criticising the country’s...