A group of Russian artists have threatened to boycott an exhibition at the Louvre over the removal of works deemed offensive to Vladimir Putin. Seven painters have said they won't partiicpate because of a ban on Avdei Ter-Oganyan's "Radical...
An Iranian news website is reporting that blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison. Mashregh News says that he was convicted on charges of cooperating with hostile countries, spreading anti-government...
The Chinese government is putting pressure on the Nobel committee not to award the peace prize to Liu Xiaobo. The activist is currently serving an 11-year sentence for subversion. According to the director of the Nobel Institute, Geir Lundestad,...
Iranian authorities have revoked the filming permit of an internationally acclaimed director over his support for dissident filmmakers. Asghar Ferhadi, who won the award for best director at the Berlin festival in 2009, called for change at a...
A cartoonist is under investigation on suspicion of sedition. Zulkifli Awar Ulhaque, more commonly known as Zunar, was arrested on 26 September just hours before the launch of his new book --- a collection of satirical political cartoons. Zunar was...
A convicted sex offender has sued Google after he found that an instant search of his name on Google.fr was accompanied with the words "rapist", "Satanist", "convicted" and "prison". A court in Paris has ordered the internet giant to pay 5,000...
The Education Ministry has banned a history textbook that includes both the Israeli and Palestinian narrative of the Middle East conflict. The principal of a high school in Sderot was summoned to the ministry after his school was found to be using...
The leader of the opposition has been sentenced to ten years in prison for comments he made about a border dispute with Vietnam. Sam Rainsy, who is currently living in exile in Paris, was convicted in absentia on 23 September, on charges of...
The manager of a popular Thai news website was detained earlier today on charges of insulting the monarchy and violating the Computer Crime Act. Chiranuch Premchaiporn was returning from an Internet freedom conference in Hungary when she was...
Bertrand Delanoé, the mayor of Paris, yesterday called for the Iranian authorities to spare the life of Hossein Derakhshan. In a press release, the mayor described Derakhshan as “ friend of France and Paris” and appealed for help to “save this...