Watchdog

The UN Committee against Torture (CAT) has expressed concerns over a Russian court's ruling against a nongovernmental organization in St.Petersburg that had provided information to the CAT.

The CAT said on December 23 it was disturbed that Russian prosecutors, as part of their civil lawsuit against the Anti-Discrimination Center Memorial, had referred to Memorial's report on police abuse of Roma and labor migrants it submitted for CAT's review of the Russian Federation in November 2012.

CAT's rapporteur on reprisals, George Tugushi, stated that "Russia is a State Party to the Convention against Torture and as such should ensure that no group faces prosecution for communicating with or providing information to the Committee."

The court ordered Memorial to get registered as a "foreign agent" in accordance with a controversial law adopted last year.

Turkey, Iran, and China are the top jailers of journalists, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) media watchdog.

More than half of all the imprisoned reporters, bloggers, and editors in the world are in those three countries, the CPJ said.

Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan also made the top 10 list of countries with jailed journalists.

It is the second consecutive year that Turkey and Iran topped the CPJ's list.

The CPJ says there are currently 40 journalists in Turkish prisons who are jailed for their work, down from 61 in October 2012.

In Iran, the number of jailed journalists is 35, down from 45 one year ago.

The remaining list of top 10 countries for jailing journalists is, in order: Eritrea, Vietnam, Syria, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Uzbekistan.