International Press Institute (IPI)

An Egyptian court announced it would reach a verdict on July 30 in the case against Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed after the case was adjourned on eight previous occasions. Peter Greste, is being tried in absentia on the same terrorism charges.

The move follows the highly publicised trial of Delo investigative journalist Anuška Delić on charges of publishing classified state intelligence after she revealed links between the Slovenian neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour and members of the Slovenian Democratic Party in a 2011 exposé.

This piece forms part of a reporting series on an international high-level press freedom mission to Spain led by IPI in June 2015. In this piece, Professor Katrin Nyman Metcalf, an independent member of the mission, reflects on critical legislative changes, including Spain’s new Public Security Law, many of which took effect on July 1.

Jordan’s State Security Court (SSC) detained Al Ghad columnist Jihad Muheisen over a Facebook post in which he criticised Jordan’s democratic process and said he would become a Shi’ite.

Serbeze Haxhiaj, a journalist with public radio Radio Kosova, has received threats from individuals who identified themselves as former superior officers in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) / Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës (UCK).

Alemu was arrested in 2011 and charged with plotting an act of terrorism, while the Zone 9 bloggers were arrested in 2014 and accused of using social media to create instability in the country.

Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev was shot dead on 9 July 2013 as he left for work in Makhachkala, Dagestan. He had actively reported on human rights violations against Muslims by the police and Russian army.

The repeal of the two insult articles came after IPI and ARTICLE 19 conducted a joint mission to Lithuania, urging lawmakers to bring the country’s defamation law more in line with international standards.