By Nigel Parry for Rustbelt Radio, February 15th, 2010

A variety of measures were taken by both Canadian and U.S. authorities against independent jounrnalists attempting to cover the protests around the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Listen to the report:

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A group of 20 to 30 bloggers and activists including prominent blogger Wael Abbas and Kifaya movement leader George Ishaaq were detained on 15th January bound for Naga Hammadi, the site of recent sectarian clashes. The group was headed to meet the region’s bishop and to visit families of those killed in the January 7th massacre on the eve of the Coptic Christmas.¬† Six Copts and a Muslim church guard were killed. Read the rest of this entry…

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Update 2:

Blacklooks tells us that Elendu is now free, and is receiving treatment.  Here at CPB we are in solidarity with Elendu and all Nigerian bloggers.

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Blacklooks reports that the Nigerian Blogger who’d been arrested has now been transferred, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency. Now that he is in EFCC custody, Jonathan has reportedly been tortured. EFCC is supposed to deal with economic crimes and not repression of free speech. It looks like the Nigerian Government is trying to find something, anything to charge him with.

EFCC has denied him access to his lawyer and the Nigerian Human Rights Writers Assosciation says that, Elendu has been tortured and other information we are getting is that his health has deteriorated considerably, though it is not know if this is because of the torture or due a ‘hunger strike’ he said to be on.

Nigerian Curiosity from whom we have been getting updates has organized to have Friday October 31st as ‘Free Jonathan Elendu Day’ The essence of the campaign is to try and generate as much awareness about the detention as possible. What you can do to help is to:
1. Title all blog posts on 31st October – ‘Free Jonathan Elendu Now’
2. On Facebook, title your status updates – ‘Free Jonathan Elendu Now’

So on Friday we here at CPB will be joining the campaign., and we urge you to join in.

Nigerian Blogger, Jonathan Elendu was arrested by the Nigerian SSS and questioned for ‘sponsoring a guerilla news agency’¬† The SSS is the Nigerian State Security Service, and is notorious for clamping down on dissenters.¬† Elendu was arrested after his arrival from the US where he is based.¬† His writings are said to have generated ‘national security issues’ *we wonder what these are!*

Elendu blogs at Elendu Reports which focuses on federal corruption and gives updates on public officials in court and the progress of their trials. He was held for 24 hours before he was interrogated, with a spokesman for the SSS undertaking that the ‘rule of law’ would be followed.

As of yesterday, 22nd October he had not been released or charged and it is not clear if he will indeed be brought before the courts.

We will give updates as the situation unfolds.

H/T to Nigerian Curiosity

Magomed Yevloyev, the publisher and owner of opposition Ingushetya¬†website, www.ingushetiya.ru ¬†has been killed.¬† He¬†died from a bullet injury to the head while in olice custody.¬†He had been arrested upon arrival at Nagan (Mazras) Airport.¬† The Ingushetiya authorities say an ‘incident’ took place in the car taking him to hospital leading to his death.

Magomed was a prominent critic of Ingushetiya President, Murat Zyzikov who has criticized inushetiya.ru’s reporting and has brought a court case seeking to shut it down.¬† His lawyer is quoted saying that the police picked him up and shot him in the temple before dumping him near the hospital.

Zyzikov has been fighting an insurgency in Ingushetiya and has taken a hardline stance to any opposition.

The website is calling for supporters to rally and demonstrate to protest the killing, and we here fully support their cause.

 

Chinese citizen journalist, Zhou ‘Zuola’ Shuguang¬†was today placed under a kind of ‘town arrest’ by Chinese authorities.¬† Apparently he was able to tweet the incident, oh the joys of twitter, and his followers quickly got the word out.

The authorities seemed to be uncomfortable with his intention to travel to Beijing and blog about the olympic games.  Zuola knew he would be visited by the authorities today and had tweeted about to let everybody know.

Aware of the rucus he was causing he decided against going to Beijing, and was at home when the ….’government people’ came for him.¬† He was detained for a bout an hour and released, and informed that he would not be allowed to leave his hometown for the time being, and told that if he left he would be brought back.

Global Voices writes that this is the second time Zuola has be threatened for his blogging.