· October, 2010

Stories about Legal Threats from October, 2010

Azerbaijan: Free Expression under Attack

  22 October 2010

The report is the result of joint freedom of expression mission undertaken from 7 to 9 September, 2010. The mission representatives met with journalists and bloggers, collected testimonies from survivors of violent attacks, and family members of imprisoned journalists and bloggers, including Hikmet Hajizade, the father of imprisoned blogger Adnan Hajizade. The mission representatives also held meetings with civil society activists and government representatives.

Free Blogger Dieu Cay

  22 October 2010

Two and a half years ago, in April 2008, police in Vietnam arrested Nguyen Van Hai and detained him secretly for several weeks. Mr. Hai, now 58-years old, blogged under the nickname Dieu Cay which means “the peasant’s water pipe.” At the time, authorities denied targeting Dieu Cay for his writings even though he was then one of the country’s best known bloggers and government critics. Through his Yahoo 360 blog, Dieu Cay exposed government corruption, called for freedom of expression and was among the first Vietnamese to criticize a Chinese government decision to incorporate the Paracel and Spratly Islands—which are claimed by Vietnam and several other Asian countries— into an administrative unit under China’s Hainan island.

Iran: Khazali,blogger and physician was arrested

  15 October 2010

Mehdi Khazali, head of Iran's Medical Data Bank and son of hardliner, Ayatollah Abolghassem Khazali, was arrested on Wednesday by Iranian authorities. According to [fa] Sedaye Zendani, says Khazali wrote posts against Iranian government.[Update: he was released on was released on 200000 dollars bail in November]