PEN’s Free Expression Digest brings you a daily curated round-up of the most important free expression-related stories from around the web. Please send your feedback and suggestions to [email protected]

Journalists threatened and news website hacked in the Maldives
Addu Live, a news website operating out of the southern Maldives was hacked after it started reporting on the beginning of President Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s impeachment. Within three hours of the report going live, the site received a call from an overseas number threatening to attack Addu Live if the report was not removed. The site reportedly refused. IFEX

Turkish police raid Istanbul media group Koza-Ipek
Turkish police have stormed the headquarters of a media group linked to US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen days before the country’s election. Officers used chainsaws to smash through the gates of the media compound, according to footage broadcast live on TV. Mr Gulen, the spiritual leader of the Hizmet movement, is a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. BBC

Media freedom in post-Soviet Romania remains elusive
In spite of their many high-caliber journalists, Romanian media outlets are fighting to survive while maintaining professional standards due to judicial investigations, political scandals, and struggles with high debt loads. INDEX ON CENSORSHIP

Indonesia’s 1965 genocide: writers rebel as authorities cancel festival events
More than 60 writers have joined PEN International in condemning the Indonesian authorities for forcing a local literary festival to cancel a series of events covering the 1965 massacre of hundreds of thousands of alleged communists. Novelists Lionel Shriver, Mohsin Hamid, Michael Chabon, and writer and photographer Teju Cole are among the protestors. THE GUARDIAN

Jailed for anti-monarchy graffiti, Thai musician gets support on social media
A social media campaign seeks the release of a 68-year-old musician and businessman known as Opas C or Uncle Opas, who is currently serving a three-year jail term in Thailand for writing anti-monarchy graffiti in a shopping mall in October 2014. GLOBAL VOICES

Mexico: Police killings in Michoacán
The evidence in two 2015 episodes in which at least 50 civilians died points to unlawful killings by federal police, Human Rights Watch said today. In respective cases involving a citizens’ self-defense demonstration and an alleged raid on a criminal gang, multiple witnesses reported that they saw police officers shoot dead unarmed civilians after initial confrontations were over. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

How Black Lives Matter uses social media to fight the power
#BlackLivesMatter became a hashtag in the summer of 2013, when Oakland, California, labor organizer Alicia Garza responded on her Facebook page to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the man who gunned down Trayvon Martin. Since then, it has become the banner under which millions of individuals have pressed for change. WIRED