Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

Journalist Karma Khayat is facing a possible seven-year jail sentence or fine of 100,000 euros, or both. The tribunal is scheduled to pass sentence on 28 September. Khayat plans to appeal.

RWB is relieved by blogger Ta Phong Tan’s release after three years in prison on an anti-state propaganda charge but points out that 15 other citizen-journalists are still detained in Vietnam.

Rumours of Akran Raslan’s death have been circulating online in recent days and now the sources consulted by Reporters Without Borders say it has been confirmed that he died in detention in 2013, less than a year after his arrest in October 2012, and that his death was almost certainly the result of having been tortured by the Syrian security services.

Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned by the precedent set in the United States’ government’s case against a former CIA operative convicted of allegedly divulging classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen.

At least ten Palestinian journalists were injured on 13 and 14 September while covering the clashes, which coincided with the Jewish New Year celebrations.

Shirin Abbasov disappeared without trace in Baku on 16 September while on his way to the university. His lawyer, who has not been allowed to see him, thinks he is being held by the MIA, a police unit that is supposed to combat organized crime.

Moroccan journalists who violate the taboos on criticizing Islam, the monarchy or the country’s claim to Western Sahara are liable to receive heavy fines or long jail terms.

Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the situation in Burkina Faso, where the soldiers who staged a coup d’état yesterday have silenced most privately-owned radio and TV stations and are controlling the state-owned national TV broadcaster, RTB.