Search Results for: journalist prison

Edited by: Alanah Vargas | JURIST Staff, US Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983-2009) between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist Tamil militant and political organization fighting for an independent Tamil state, claimed 80,000-100,000 lives by UN estimates, with its legacy of displacement and land dispossession still affecting various minority [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) condemned the sentencing of Moroccan political activist and human rights defender Fouad Abdelmoumni to six months in prison for his social media posts criticizing the government. The rights organizations urged the authorities to overturn the conviction and cease restrictive actions targeting journalists and [...]

Algeria’s Criminal Court of Dar El Beïda on Thursday sentenced renowned 80-year-old French-Algerian writer and outspoken critic Boualem Sansal to five years in prison and fined him 500,000 Algerian dinars. French lawyer François Zimeray, who represented Sansal in the early stages of the case, said the verdict betrayed the meaning of the word justice and [...]

A lawsuit challenging the use of a commercial messaging app by members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet to coordinate military strike plans in Yemen was assigned on Wednesday to Judge James Boasberg, the same federal judge whose ruling on Venezuelan deportations to El Salvador recently sparked tensions between the White House and judiciary. The latest [...]

The Saharawi Youth Union, advocating for the independence of Western Sahara, together with the International Service for Human Rights, urged the UN Human Rights Council on Monday to “take action” and uphold its obligations in ensuring the protection of Saharawi peoples’ human rights and access to human rights mechanisms. The Saharawi Youth Union (UJSARIO) addressed [...]

Turkish authorities formally arrested Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu Sunday on multiple corruption charges. A Turkish court remanded İmamoğlu in custody pending trial, prompting mass protests across Istanbul and other cities. İmamoğlu, a leading member of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was detained on Wednesday, as part of a sweeping investigation into an alleged criminal [...]

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders requested Monday the urgent intervention of Chinese authorities regarding the arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of citizen journalist Zhang Zhan. Zhang Zhan is accused of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” Currently, there is no information about Zhang Zhan’s situation at the Pudong Detention Center in Shanghai [...]

Russian online media RusNews revealed Wednesday two letters from an imprisoned journalist and anti-war activist, Maria Ponomarenko, which demonstrate her current suicidal tendency. Amnesty International urged the authorities to protect her from further self-harm and release her immediately. RusNews stated that the Russian authorities censored the letters, which indicated her suffering in prison and asked [...]

The slow, insidious dismantling of a free press is not a mere shift in media landscape; it’s a calculated assault on the very foundations of democracy. To understand this, we must recognize that a free press isn’t just about headlines and soundbites. It’s the lifeblood of an informed citizenry, the watchdog against tyranny, and the [...]

Human rights violations have persisted in Niger since the 2023 military coup, an Amnesty International report revealed on Tuesday, calling for Nigerien military regime to be held accountable. The report documents human rights abuses Nigerien authorities have committed since the military coup in July 2023. It details the widespread use of arbitrary detention, press censorship, [...]