Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009journalists in prison: sri lankaSarr alleged that Ould Dehah hadfalsely accused him of purchasing avilla with money from the militaryjunta, Taqadoumy reported. A Nouakchottcourt sentenced the journaliston August 19 to six months in jail forbreaching public decency, according tolocal news reports, but acquitted himof the defamation charges.Authorities had targeted Taqadoumyon other occasions for its critical reporting.The Web site was temporarilyblocked in March, and its journalistswere frequently detained by authorities,CPJ research found.MOROCCO: 1Driss Chahtan, Al-MichaalIMPRISONED: October 15, 2009A Rabat court sentenced Chahtan,managing editor of the independentweekly Al-Michaal, to a year in jail for“publishing false information” aboutthe health of King Mohammed VIduring a period when the monarchhad not been seen in public, localjournalists told CPJ. Police took thejournalist into custody immediatelyafter the ruling.The court also sentenced Al-Michaalreporters Mostafa Hiran and RashidMahameed to three months in prisonin connection with the September articles,but they were not immediatelytaken into custody. Defense attorneystold CPJ that the trial did not meetbasic fairness standards, notably in thecourt’s refusal to allow the defense tosummon witnesses.RUSSIA: 1Boris Stomakhin, Radikalnaya PolitikaIMPRISONED: March 22, 2006Stomakhin, editor of the small-circulationmonthly newspaper RadikalnayaPolitika (Radical Politics), wasimprisoned on March 22, 2006, oncharges of inciting ethnic hatred andmaking public calls to extremist activity.The Butyrsky District Court ofMoscow sentenced him to five yearsbehind bars that November. Thejournalist, his family, and his defenseteam said his imprisonment was inretaliation for his sharp criticism ofthe Kremlin’s policies in the southernrepublic of Chechnya.In her ruling, Judge Lyubov Ishmuratovasaid Stomakhin’s articles “approvedChechen terrorists’ criminalactions aimed at the annihilation ofthe Russian people as an ethnicity.”The ruling quoted him as writing:“Let tens of new Chechen sniperstake their positions in the mountainridges and the city ruins and let hundreds,thousands of aggressors fallunder righteous bullets! No mercy!Death to the Russian occupiers! ...The Chechens have the full moralright to bomb everything they wantin Russia.”Stomakhin, who had pleaded notguilty, said he was “tried for his viewsand not for any real crime. ... In thearticles, I expressed my opinion, withwhich people were free to agree or disagree,”the news agency RIA-Novostireported. He said an opinion was nota “call to action.”Police arrested Stomakhin inMarch 2006, a day after he fell fromthe window of his fourth-floor Moscowapartment while trying to eludepolice, according to local press reports.He broke both his legs and suffered aback injury.In May 2007, the Moscow CityCourt reviewed Stomakhin’s appealfor early release but left the verdict unchanged,the independent Caucasusnews site Kavkazsky Uzel reported.Stomakhin was later transferred toa prison colony in the village of Burepolom,Nizhny Novgorod region.In February 2008, the TonshaevskyRegional Court denied an appealfor Stomakhin’s early release, theMoscow-based nonprofit group ForHuman Rights told Kavkazsky Uzel.Representatives of the group met withhim briefly and told the press theywere concerned about the journalist’shealth; the fall from the window in2006 left him with a permanent limpand spinal cord damage.Two other appeals for early release,made in 2009, were also denied.SAUDI ARABIA: 1Raafat al-Ghanim, freelanceIMPRISONED: July 29, 2009Security agents arrested al-Ghanim, aSyrian blogger living in Saudi Arabiawho wrote about social and politicalissues in both countries, accordingto the Arabic Network for HumanRights Information.Before his arrest, al-Ghanim hadsigned a petition calling for the releaseof two activists who were arrested afterannouncing their intention to attenda sit-in protest in solidarity withPalestinians, according to the network.No formal charges had been disclosedby late year, and al-Ghanim’s whereaboutswere unknown.SRI LANKA : 1J.S. Tissainayagam, OutreachSL,North Eastern Monthly,and Sunday TimesIMPRISONED: March 7, 2008Terrorist Investigation Division forcesarrested well-known Tamil columnistand editor J.S. Tissainayagam whenhe tried to visit detained colleaguesVettivel Jasikaran and Vadivel Valamathy.Jasikaran and Valamathy werereleased after 19 months in detention.Tissainayagam was editor of thenews Web site OutreachSL at the timeof his arrest. He was also a columnistfor the Sunday Times and had onceedited a Tamil-viewpoint magazineknown as North Eastern Monthly.On August 25, 2008, the ColomboHigh Court indicted Tissainayagamon terrorism charges stemming from336337