Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

A joint statement by the Association of Progressive Communications, IFEX and 64 co-signatories at the UN-HRC 36 warns of the threat to human rights posed by recent attacks on the right to use encryption technology, in Turkey and across the globe.

The journalists had just covered Operation Python Dance, a show of strength by the army on the streets of Umuahia aimed at ending clashes between soldiers and members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, a separatist group that was angered by a recent army raid on its leader’s home.

North Korea’s central court has passed a death sentence in absentia on four South Korean journalists for writing positive reviews of an “insulting” book about North Korea’s growing market economy.

Kazakh opposition journalist Zhanbolat Mamay was finally released but was sentenced to a three-year restriction on his movements and a three-year ban on working as a journalist after being convicted on a trumped-up money-laundering charge.

It is not just BBC Persian employees who are targeted. All international media outlets with Persian-language services are concerned, regardless of the country in which the media are based.

Whether authoritarian regimes, so-called democracies or warring armed groups, those who wield power in the Middle East and North Africa have taken internet censorship to new levels and stepped up their individual campaigns against critics, journalists, and opponents this month.

The region’s free expression news round-up includes lethal protests in Togo and Kenya, calls for release of an RFI correspondent in Cameroon, a creative campaign that is holding Nigeria’s presidency accountable for freedom of information, and more.

Reporters Without Borders and other NGOs have formed a committee to press for the release of RFI correspondent Ahmed Abba, who was given a 10 year jail term in April 2017.