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Aleh Byabenin, right, one of Belarus’s leading journalists and human rights activists, and among the founders and leaders of charter97.org website, has found dead in his summer cottage not far from Minsk. Contrary to suggestions that Byabenin must have committed suicide, no suicide note was found and no other possible indicators suggest the same.

On 3 August, Iranian journalist Badressadat Mofidi, right, was sentenced to six years in prison by Branch 26 of Iran’s Revolutionary Court. Mofidi was formerly the secretary-general of the Association of Iranian Journalists in Tehran, an organization that was established by prominent journalists in 1997 and shut down by the authorities in 2009.

The National Press Club has announced the recipients of the 2010 John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award, which is given each year to individuals who have contributed to the cause of press freedom and open government. This year, the international recipient is Iranian blogger Kouhyar Goudarzi, who is being held in notorious Tehran’s Evin Prison.

In an encouraging ruling last week, the Basmanny District Court in Moscow ordered that two suspects in the January 2009 double murder of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasiya Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov be kept in custody pending trial.

Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, two video bloggers from Republic of Azerbaijan were taken into police custody on 8 July, 2009 on “hooliganism”. On 19 August this year, the Azerbaijani Supreme Court upheld the lower courts’ rulings, which convicted Milli and Hajizade of hooliganism and sentenced them to two and a half years and two years of imprisonment respectively. Article 19 believes that the two were targeted for expressing opinions critical of the Azerbaijani authorities.

There is an increasing harassment of the Belarusian press in the run-up to the presidential election that has been scheduled for next spring. What with the information ministry’s repeated warnings, police raids, tax inspections and the country’s new media law, press freedom is now severely compromised in the Republic of Belarus.

The Burmese military government announced on 13 August 2010 that general elections are to be held on 7 November of this year, just days before Aung San Suu Kyi’s current terms of house arrest comes to an end. In a report to the UN Human Rights Council human rights organisation Article 19 outlines concerns around the elections, and other gross violations of the right to freedom of expression in the country.

In a letter addressed to the two Ambassadors responsible for coordinating the UN High Level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), seven international transparency organisations are calling for a stronger commitment to, and effective implementation of, transparency and the free flow of information in the fight against poverty.

Dissident Yu Jie is ignoring threats of prison to publish a book describing Premier Wen Jiabao as “China’s best actor”. The 36-year-old Chinese dissident and writer is about to risk his freedom by publishing an explosive new title outing China’s cuddly premier, Wen Jiabao, as an authoritarian hard-liner behind the scenes.