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Zimbabwe opposition leader freed from two years’ pre-trial detention

Zimbabwe opposition leader freed from two years’ pre-trial detention

A Zimbabwean court freed opposition politician Job Sikhala after nearly 600 days of pre-trial detention on charges of inciting public violence in 2022. Sikhala, 51, a leader in the opposition party Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), has been arrested dozens of times since he began his political career in 1999. He was jailed in 2022 for obstruction of justice and inciting public violence after saying that the ruling party, ZANU PF, had killed an opposition activist, which it denied. He denied all charges against him. On Tuesday, a Harare magistrate convicted him of inciting public violence but gave him a…
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Trial of Moroccan journalists raises fears of repression

Trial of Moroccan journalists raises fears of repression

AHMED ELJETCHTIMI NEW hearings took place yesterday in the trials of two dissident journalists in Morocco accused of sexual assault, whose detention rights groups see as evidence of increasing state repression and a push to silence dissent. The two men, Soulimane Raisouni and Omar Radi, who both deny the accusations against them, have spent a year in pre-trial detention and Raisouni has been on hunger strike for over two months, raising concerns about his health. The cases have brought into focus fears that the ruling authorities are increasingly intolerant of dissent and will manipulate Moroccan law to silence critics, a…
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Kremlin foe Navalny held in pre-trial detention

Kremlin foe Navalny held in pre-trial detention

ANTON ZVEREV and ANDREW OSBORN A Russian judge has remanded Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in pre-trial detention for 30 days for violating the terms of a suspended jail sentence, ignoring calls from Western countries to free the opposition politician immediately. The ruling, a day after police detained him at the airport as he returned home for the first time since being poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent, may be the prelude to him being jailed for years. Moscow's prison service has applied to convert a suspended 3.5 year embezzlement sentence in the same case, which he says was trumped up,…
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