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Regional branch of Russia’s Union of Journalists initiated picket in the support of the journalist Vadim Rogozhin who was attempted on the March, the 5th.

Build bridges, not walls

Sahrawi refugees started arriving in Algeria in the mid-seventies. UNHCR has been providing assistance to this group since the influx into the Tindouf area in 1975-76 while WFP has been providing food assistance since 1986. The refugees have been living in four desolate camps in south-west Algeria since the mid-seventies, when a dispute arose between Morocco and the Frente Polisario over the status of Western Sahara.

The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN is seriously concerned about the detention of Kunchok Tsephel Gopey Tsang, a Tibetan internet writer, who has reportedly been held without charge since 26 February 2009. The WiPC fears that Kunchok Tsephel Gopey Tsang may be held for his online writings, and if so, calls for his immediate and unconditional release in accordance with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the People´s Republic of China is a signatory.

Andrzej Poczobut (Andrei Pachobut) of Polish “Gazeta Wyborcza” was fined by court in Hrodna for reporting on the meeting of the Union of Poles in the Republic of Belarus. Two weeks ago he was denied the press accreditation.

Карэспандэнт “Газэты выборчай” Андрэй Пачобут пакараны за працу падчас “незаконнага” з’езду Звязу палякаў. Два тыдні таму журналіст быў пазбаўлены акрэдытацыі ў Беларусі.

Croatia and International Development Help Program

The Republic of Uganda People’s Defence Forces yesterday abruptly ended its three-month old military offensive against the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in Garamba and started withdrawing its troops. Right, LRA boy soldiers pictured near Rikwangba, southern Republic of the Sudan.

-Journalists remain the most defenseless “fighters for a just world order”, the Russian Union of Journalists say in its statement pledging support for another Russian journalist being attempted.

At the end of the fourth session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group, a total of 64 states have been reviewed — a third of the UN global membership. Since the UPR began less than a year ago, the Human Rights Council has now reviewed the human rights record of more states than its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, ever did, including of states that have never before come under scrutiny by a UN human rights political body. In this sense the UPR is a true innovation, concludes Amnesty International’s International Secretariat in a recent public document.

International Press Institute and the South East Europe Media Organisation urge the Serbian justice minister to intensify investigation into unsolved 10 year old case of killing of the editor Slavko Curuvija, right.

“Shqip Media” newspaper journalists were stopped and searched by police on their way to cover election campaign in FYR Macedonia. The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) condemns the Macedonian police action against a group of journalists from Albania.