Cathal Sheerin

Zhanbolat Mamay, editor of the Kazakh opposition newspaper Sayasi kalam/Tribuna was handed a two-month detention order on 11 February 2017. If found guilty, he faces up to seven years in jail.

Can Europeans be sentenced to jail for vague references to terrorism? It already happened. And it is a trend that threatens to spread throughout Europe.

A roundup of key free expression news in Europe and Central Asia, based on IFEX member reports.

Fabricated or inaccurate news stories are not new; they are the inevitable price we pay to enjoy our precious right to free expression.

Fabricated or inaccurate news stories are not new; they are the inevitable price we pay to enjoy our precious right to free expression.

Now in her sixties, journalist and activist Teresa Toda is a supporter of peaceful self-determination for the Basque region. One of 30 journalists prosecuted on terrorism-related charges, she was imprisoned in 2007. She now campaigns for free expression and prisoners’ rights. Cathal Sheerin, a writer and journalist with a particular interest in human rights in Latin America and Europe, interviewed her for IFEX.

Reaction outside Russia to these laws has been to laugh at their silliness, but Russians whose work is in writing or the visual arts point to something much more sinister going on behind this legislation.

Cathal Sheerin, a researcher and campaigner at PEN International, recently interviewed three journalists and a filmmaker about Edward Snowden, Pussy Riot, and a number of laws that have placed a choke-hold on free expression in Russia.