Watchdog

The Committee To Protect Journalists says Iran, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, and China are among the "10 worst countries to be a blogger."

In a new report, the New York-based journalism advocacy group says Myanmar, ruled by a military regime that heavily censors print and broadcast media, is the worst place in the world to be blogging.

The report ranks Iran as the second-worst, saying that Iranian authorities "regularly detain or harass bloggers who write critically about religious or political figures, the Islamic revolution, and its symbols."

The report also says authorities in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Egypt, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and Turkmenistan use detentions, regulations, or intimidation to restrict Internet activity.

YEREVAN -- A member of an Armenian parliamentary delegation at the Council of Europe said Yerevan has done little to comply with three Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) resolutions adopted in the past year.

Zaruhi Postanjian, the only opposition member of the delegation in Strasbourg, told a monitoring committee on April 27 that John Prescott, a PACE co-rapporteur on Armenia, "objected to what I said, saying that he is also aware of other opinions," but told RFE/RL's Armenian Service on April 29 that the issue is still being discussed.

PACE threatened to kick out Armenia's delegates from PACE because of the 55 opposition activists jailed by the Armenian government after last year's presidential election but softened its position after Yerevan introduced some amendments to its criminal code.

Arman Grigorian, a Swiss-based representative of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian's Armenian National Congress, told RFE/RL that PACE has "to wait until those [court] processes [for some of the detainees] are over" before they can press for results.