PEN International

In the April round-up: horrific attacks against secularists in Bangladesh, journalists arrested while protesting criminal defamation in the Maldives, crackdown on opposing voices in Cambodia, plus advocacy, awards and much more.

Human rights defender Somyot Phrueksakasemsuk is currently incarcerated in Bangkok’s Remand Prison, where he is serving a 10-year sentence following his conviction on charges of lèse-majesté.

Critical blogging is the lifeblood of free societies, not a threat to social stability, say rights groups.

The attack on university law student Nazimuddin Samad marks the sixth killing of secular writers or activists in Bangladesh since February 2015, and must serve as a catalyst for the authorities to do more to protect its writers and free thinkers.

17 Angolan activists, known as the Luanda Book Club, were sentenced to between 2-8 years in prison after having gathered to read Domingos da Cruz’s unpublished manuscript Tools to Destroy a Dictatorship and Avoiding a New Dictatorship – Political Philosophy for the Liberation of Angola.

Dündar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, and Gül, the newspaper’s Ankara representative, face accusations of aiding a terrorist organisation, espionage and disclosure of classified documents for reports in Cumhuriyet claiming that Turkey’s intelligence agency secretly armed Islamist rebel groups in Syria.

Godfrey Mwampembwa’s drawings include a 2009 cartoon that mocked President Kenyatta (finance minister at the time) for a $100 million accounting error.

Are the escalating violence, deteriorating human rights climate and shocking rates of impunity enough to wake people up to the current reality in Honduras?