Reporter arrests

Journalists covering an Arkansas oil spill in a suburban neighborhood said they were threatened with arrests, kicked out of the disaster site and had to seek permission from ExxonMobil to fly over the evacuated area.

An ExxonMobil pipeline ruptured in Mayflower, Ark., on March 29, causing 22 homes to be evacuated in the small town located north of Little Rock. So far, more than 19,000 barrels of oil have been collected.

A federal judge in New York recently halted enforcement of a controversial section of an anti-terrorism bill that the court found harms First Amendment rights. Plaintiffs to the case included noted activists, journalists and a member of Icelandic parliament who argued the law had a chilling effect.

Two journalists were handcuffed and detained by Chicago police outside a hospital over the weekend as they waited to speak with the family of a 6-year-old girl who was murdered.

New York City police are facing tough criticism for their treatment of reporters covering Tuesday's overnight raid of the Zuccotti Park base of the Occupy Wall Street movement for what some journalists are calling and hashtagging a “media blackout.”

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel photographer is the latest journalist to be arrested while covering the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that have sprung up across the nation, raising questions about how police should define and handle reporters documenting the protests.

A Milwaukee Fox news station and a number of journalism organizations are demanding today that all charges be dropped against a veteran photojournalist whose First Amendment rights they say were violated when police arrested him while filming a house fire outside of the police perimeter.

Clint Fillinger, a photojournalist with Fox6 Now for 45 years, was arrested for resisting and obstructing police on Sunday. The 68-year-old, who sustained some minor injuries when he fell to the ground during his arrest, is expected to return to work by the end of the week.

American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were reportedly pardoned and expected to be released from North Korean custody Wednesday after being held since March 17 for perpetrating "hostile acts" in entering the country, according to multiple media reports. They had been reporting on North Korean refugees living in China.

Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist who has been imprisoned in Tehran since her arrest in January, was released Monday after she won her appeal of an eight-year sentence for alleged spying, The Washington Post reports.

Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran, has been granted an appeal.