Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, an Iranian 36-year-old human rights activist and writer, was sentenced to six years in prison over charges of ‘insulting Islamic sanctities’ and ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ for her Facebook posts supporting political prisoners in Iran. Golrokh was arrested at her home by Iranian security forces without official summons on October 24, 2016. She was taken to the notorious Evin prison, where…
Kamal C. Chavara, a Malayalam writer and activist, was arrested on Decemberr 17 by Nadakavu police over a disrespectful post made on Facebook regarding the national anthem. The blogger is facing Sedition charges under Section 124(A) of the Indian Penal Code. The blogger, known by the alias Kamalsy Prana, was taken into custody from Kozhikode following a complaint made at Karunagalapalli Police station by Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata…
Mohamed Tamalt, a 42-year-old British-Algerian blogger and journalist, died in Bab el-Oued hospital after 3 months of a hunger strike in protest against his imprisonment. Tamalt was sentenced to 2 years in prison over sharing a video on Facebook featuring a poem, allegedly offensive towards the Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Tamalt’s lawyer, Amine Sidhoum, confirmed his death on a Facebook post: “I can confirm the…
Faisal Hayyat, a prominent blogger and sports journalist, was sentenced on November 29 by a Bahraini court to 3 months imprisonment for ‘insulting a sect and a religious figure’ on Twitter. Hayyat was arrested on October 9, a few days after posting tweets critical to the Bahraini government. On his tweets Hayyat commented on events from early Islamic history. The conviction was based on article 209 of the…
Eduard Nedeliayev, a pro-Ukrainian blogger, was arrested in the occupied city of Luhansk. Nedeliayev is accused by Russian-backed militants of cooperating with the Ukrainian Secret Services and the Aidar battalion. The blogger was claimed by the “Ministry of State Security” to post extremist materials on social media. However, his supporters assert that Nedeliayev was only sharing the real life under military-held Luhansk. In a search conducted at his house,…
Human rights defenders Max Bokayev and Talgat Ayan were sentenced on November 28 in Kazakhstan to 5 years in prison for organizing peaceful protests earlier this year and publishing critical posts on Facebook. The charges ranged from ‘institution of social discord’ under Article 174 of the Criminal Code, ‘dissemination of knowingly false information’ under Article 274, to ‘violation of the procedure of organisation and…
Two women were sentenced by Saudi court in Jeddah to 10 days in prison and 20 lashes each, over using bad language while arguing with each other on WhatsApp. The messages were ruled to contain ‘impermissible expressions’. The women were warned by court that they would face worse punishment if they repeat their use of bad language. The case was brought to court two…
