Amara Abdalla al-Khatabi, 67, is currently detained in Hudba Prison in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, charged with defamation in relation to a list of 84 judges his newspaper published saying they were involved in corruption.

He has been on hunger strike since 28 February in protest against his arrest and continued detention. There are risks that his health will deteriorate rapidly as he suffers from a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes and hypertension.

“We are extremely worried about Amara Abdalla al-Khatabi’s health. Detaining a journalist because he run a piece on corruption is reminiscent of al-Gaddafi-era practices. Amara Abdalla al-Khatabi should be released immediately and without any conditions,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“Restrictions on freedom of expression and widespread corruption were some of the grievances that sparked the 2011 popular uprising and led to the fall of al-Gaddafi’s government. It is outrageous that the authorities in Libya continue to rely on the same old tactics to prevent journalists from speaking up about issues such as corruption.”

Amara Abdalla al-Khatabi was originally arrested on 19 December 2012, a month after the article was published.

Charges were brought against him in relation to his newspaper’s registration and for “offending the judicial institution”.

Until recently his family and lawyers have been denied permission to visit him in prison. His lawyer was not allowed to see his files until just before a court hearing on 11 March.

At the hearing, Amara Abdalla al-Khatabi’s health was so poor that he had to be helped into the room. His lawyer has claimed that he lost consciousness during the hearing and his requests to transfer him to hospital were denied.

The trial was postponed until 18 March at the request of Amara Abdalla al-Khatabi’s lawyer, after he was granted permission by the judge to access his client’s files and visit him in prison in the next few days.

According to Libyan media, the Minister of Justice, Salah Marghani, told a press conference on 4 March that Amara Abdalla al-Khatabi should be released on bail.

The grounds for the convictions are unclear, but the court appeared to convict the two under Somalia’s penal code and newly added charges under Sharia (Islamic) law. The journalist, Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, was sentenced to one year for fabricating a false claim – even though he never published the allegation anywhere – entering the home of another man without permission, and falsely accusing a government body of committing a crime that damages state security.

The woman was also sentenced to one year in prison for fabricating a rape case that damages state security. The court deferred her sentence for one year because she is breastfeeding. Abdiaziz Abdinur is detained in Mogadishu Central Prison. The court ordered the release of the woman’s husband for lack of evidence.

“These guilty verdicts mean that any Somali who is raped or otherwise abused by Somali security forces will think twice about reporting it to the police, and journalists will be cautious of even interviewing victims of human rights violations,” said Netsanet Belay, Africa programme director at Amnesty International.“The government should quash the case and order the immediate release of the journalist from prison.”

The groups calling for overturning the convictions and freeing the journalist are the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Sister Somalia, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The verdicts stem from an interview by Abdiaziz Abdinur with the woman on January 8, 2013 about her alleged rape by government security forces in August 2012.

The woman initially retracted her claim after being interrogated for two days by the police without legal counsel. She later refused to recant her allegations in meetings with the attorney general. She was released, but was required to report to police daily, and her husband was detained in her place. Credible local sources say he has steadfastly supported his wife’s allegations. The man and woman who allegedly helped her meet with the journalist were arrested around the same time.

Senior government officials publicly said the defendants were guilty before the trial, undermining the presumption of innocence.

The prosecutor failed to provide any evidence to justify a conviction on the criminal charges, the organizations said. A midwife testified on the first day of the trial, February 2, that she concluded that the woman was not raped after conducting a “finger test,” an unscientific and degrading practice that has long been discredited because it is not a credible test of whether a woman has been raped.

The judge refused to allow the defense lawyer to present witnesses to the court, and he was not permitted to present any medical evidence to rebut the prosecution’s assertions. The defendants will appeal the convictions, their lawyer said.

“This case has been flawed by serious violations of due process from the start,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The long pre-trial detention without charge, official smears of the defendants in the media, and the abusive police efforts to discredit and intimidate a woman who alleged rape, point to a government more concerned with deflecting criticism than protecting ordinary citizens.”

Sexual and gender-based violence has been a significant problem throughout the Somali conflict. Internally displaced women and girls, such as the alleged victim in this case, are particularly vulnerable to such abuse. But they are often very reluctant to report rape to authorities because they fear reprisals, lack faith in the authorities, and have little access to medical, psychosocial, and legal services. This case risks creating further mistrust, the organizations said.

“This case is forcing women in Somalia to ask, who can we trust now?” said Fartuun Abdisalaan Adan from Sister Somalia, a shelter for rape survivors in Mogadishu run by Elman Peace and Human Rights Center. “The government should focus on building trust and ensuring accountability for abuses, not intimidating vulnerable individuals.”

“Somali reporters should feel secure to interview anyone alleging a human rights violation,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists’ East Africa consultant, Tom Rhodes. “The current climate of censorship and recrimination means it is perilous to take any step toward seeking accountability and justice.”

“At a time when the world’s eyes are turned to Africa, the international community needs to react to this death by pressing Somalia to take energetic measures in response to the constant violence against journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“Working as a journalist in Somalia requires permanent courage and determination. The attacks against them are targeted and unpredictable, and go unpunished. We urge the government to respond to the distress call from the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) for the creation of a special force to protect journalists”.

Aged 45, Adan was an active member of NUSOJ, the Reporters Without Borders partner organization in Somalia. He was one of the few Shabelle Media Network journalists not to live on the premises. Almost all of the news outlet’s employees prefer to live there full-time because it is protected and because the streets are so dangerous for them.

Three of its journalists were murdered in 2012: Hassan Osman Abdi, its director, in January, Ahmed Ado Anshur in May and Mohamed Mohamud Turyare in October. In all, its employees have been the targets of half a dozen cases of violence, threats and intimidation in the past 12 months.

Shabelle Media Network’s radio station, Radio Shabelle, won the Reporters Without Borders press freedom prize in 2010.

This year has not begun well for the Somali media. Abdulaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, a journalist working for two radio stations, Dalsan and Ergo, has been held at the Central Investigation Department (CID) since 10 January after interviewing a woman who said she was raped by soldiers. Three other journalists were briefly detained. The victim finally withdrew her complaint after several days of police harassment.

With 18 journalists killed in connection with their work in 2012, Somalia was Africa’s deadliest country for the media and the world’s second-most dangerous country for news providers, after Syria.

“I condemn the killing of Suhail Mahmoud Al-Ali,” said the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, recalling that more journalists were killed in Syria in 2012 than anywhere else.

“I am appalled by the death toll of Syrian journalists and call on all parties to recognize reporters’ duty to continue informing the public even in the midst of strife,” Ms. Bokova added. “Once again, I call on all sides to respect journalists’ civilian status and let them benefit from their basic right to speak freely, in keeping with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

According to the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, Al-Ali died from injuries while covering fighting in the city of Aleppo.

In total, 41 professional and citizen journalists died in Syria last year and more than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the country since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in early 2011. Recent months have witnessed an escalation in the conflict, which is now in its 23rd month.

Separately today, a UN spokesperson announced that the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, will meet on Friday in Geneva with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, and the United States Deputy Secretary of State, William Burns.

The meeting is aimed at furthering their discussions to arrive at a political solution to the crisis in Syria. Mr. Brahimi has been holding meetings in the Middle East region and elsewhere, as part of his efforts to bring an end the conflict.

Hussein Mortada, a Lebanese journalist working as Damascus bureau chief for Iran’s Arabic-language TV station Al-Alam, also sustained a gunshot injury while covering the fighting. Tajamu’ Ansar Al-Islam claimed responsibility for the two explosions (one of which was a car-bomb) but not for shooting the two journalists.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the targeting of the Press TV and Al-Alam reporters and points out that, under UN Security Council Resolution 1738, journalists should under no circumstances be targeted by the parties to the conflict.

Aged 35, Nasser was the 12th professional journalist to be killed in Syria since the start of the uprising in March 2011.

It has meanwhile emerged that Abdelkarim Al-Oqda, a citizen journalist who had filmed many videos of the government’s violent crackdown its opponents, was killed during an assault by government forces on Arbaeen, a neighbourhood in the west-central city of Hama, on 19 September.

He died when soldiers attacked his home and set fire to it. An amateur video posted online by activists shows four charred bodies on the ground, one of them Al-Oqda’s. An activist said the army targeted his house because of his coverage of the uprising in Hama.

Aged 27, Al-Oqda was a cameraman and reporter for Sham News Network (SNN), providing thousands of videos about the clashes in Syria since March 2011. SNN’s videos are used by many international media such as Al-Jazeera and the BBC.

His tragic death brings the number of citizen journalists killed since the start of the uprising to 29.

“I am on a hunger strike to defend press freedom, our sole gain in the revolution,” the 36-year-old told the agency. Five other bloggers have joined in the hunger strike to defend press freedom.

“The soldier who deprived Ramzi of his work equipment is depriving us Tunisians of the right to information,” a colleague wrote. The army however said there was a ban on filming the hearings.

Bettaieb says he wanted to highlight the plight of those whose relatives were killed in the crackdown by the Ben Ali regime to stifle the revolt, which claimed some 340 lives and saw nearly 2,200 injured, according to the government, says AFP.

Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia after being toppled in a popular uprising, last year, is being tried in absentia. His co-accused are ex-senior officials being prosecuted for the deaths of at least 22 people during the January 2011 pro-democracy protests in the towns of Thala and Kasserine. Many of the victims died when security forces fired live rounds.