Freedom House

It is believed that Mr. Quan’s detention is politically motivated and a reaction to his blog, where he frequently exposed human rights violations by the Vietnamese government.

Journalist and editor Ali Anouzla was arrested on 17 September 2013 in connection with a 13 September news article published on the Arabic edition of news website Lakome. Ahead of a Rabat court hearing scheduled on 18 February, local and international rights organisations came together to call for the charges against him to be dropped.

Poet Hashem Shaabani was an Iranian of Arab origin and a founder of the Dialogue Institute, which tried to promote understanding of Arabic culture and literature in Iran. He was sentenced to death in July 2013 and executed on 27 January 2014.

A three-judge panel of the High Court in Nairobi has halted implementation of the Media Council Act 2013 and Kenya Information and Communications (Amendment) Act 2013 until the full Court considers the legal questions.

A new report by Freedom House catalogues the Turkish government’s actions to suppress freedom of speech, which have intensified since the emergence of a major corruption scandal in December 2013.

195 civil society organisations from around the world have called on the UN to put government accountability and independent media at the centre of a new framework for global development.

Marked by intensified repression in Eurasia and the Middle East, the state of freedom declined for the eighth consecutive year in 2013, according to “Freedom in the World 2014”, Freedom House’s annual report on global political rights and civil liberties.

Following the criminalisation of peaceful protest in Egypt in November 2013, 57 organisations and individuals release joint statement against arrests of Egyptian bloggers and political activists.