EWS

Heavily armed soldiers have been deployed in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces, a development which human rights organisations fear will revive memories of the massacres in which 20 000 civilians perished .Human rights groups say the soldiers have been deployed to intimidate

Amid a large presence of campaigners affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, thousands of voters streamed to the polls Saturday in Giza to vote on proposed amendments to the 1971 Constitution, marking rare fair elections in Egypt’s political history.

The Brotherhood, according to eyewitnesses, called for imams to speak in front of the polling stations about the benefits of voting “yes”.

By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

2010 World Press Freedom Index showed considerable worsening of situation in Kazakhstan.

In Uralsk it is hardly possible to buy an issue of the newspaper Respublika. The investigation proved that newspaper traders were ordered by unidentified officials not to sell the paper. City authorities said they have nothing to do with the issue. However all the traders state that they do not sell it because of threats.

At Press Conference the founder of the Stan Production Company stated that in the last half a year the staff of Video Portal Stan.kz has been working under heavy psychological pressing on the part of official bodies. Limited Liability Company «Stan Production» is being under scrutiny of the tax inspectorate as well as financial police with no grounds for it. The inspectors scrutinize not only financial documents but also technological procedures.