West Asia - North Africa

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to heed a High Court order and release journalist Tariq Abu Zaid immediately. A four-person special military court in Nablus sentenced Abu Zaid, a correspondent who reported on camera for Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV, to 18 months in prison on February 16 on charges of "undermining the status of the authority, and...

Newspaper journalist Maan Aqil was released from prison Tuesday after the authorities held him for three months without ever charging him, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The national criminal investigations department still has not said why it arrested Aqil at his place of work on November 22. A reporter with the government daily Al-Thawra, he had written articles denouncing...

Payam Fazlinejad, an Iranian reporter who works for the ultra-conservative daily Kayhan was assaulted earlier this week. The official news agency IRNA said he was taken to Bagiolah Azam hospital after being seriously injured in an attack by several individuals on motorcycles on the evening of February 21in Tehran. Fazlinejad began his career as a journalist working for the weekly Sinema at the end...

Palestinian journalist Tareq Abu Zayd, the correspondent of Hamas-run TV station Al-Aqsa, has been given an 18-month jail sentence by a court in the West Bank city of Nablus, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The sentence was imposed by a Palestinian Authority military court on February 16. Zayd has been held for more than three months in Nablus, 60 km north of Jerusalem. The supreme...

Syrian reporter Ali Taha was freed on February 7 after 36 days in detention, and cameraman Ali Ahmed a few days later, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The two journalists, who work for the TV station Rotana, were arrested on January 2. “The release of these two journalists is good news, but we condemn that the fact that they were held for a more than month without charge,” Paris...

Iraqi reporter Hussam Daoud al-Eqabi, who was seized by unidentified armed men on Wednesday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Al-Eqbi is a political reporter for Al-Ahed, a radio station in Kirkuk affiliated with radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. According to Abed Abu Zahra, head of Al-Ahed, four unidentified gunmen abducted Hussam Dawood al-Eqabi, 22, in front of his...

Four Radio Benghazi journalists who worked on a programme that specialises in covering corruption were arrested Wednesday evening outside the station in Benghazi (650 km east of Tripoli) and were released at midday Thursday, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported. Their arrests come amid a general crackdown by the Libyan authorities on news media, especially independent news websites. “We firmly...

Muhammad al-Rabou'e, a Yemeni reporter for the monthly Al-Qahira who wrote several articles about the alleged activities of an infamous criminal group was killed Saturday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Al-Jazeera and other news outlets said five individuals burst into Al-Rabou'e home in the district of Beni Qais, in Yemen’s northern province of Hajja, and shot him...

Mohammed Shu’i Al-Rabu’i, a correspondent for several news media including the opposition newspaper Al-Qahira, was gunned down on February 13 in the district of Beni Qais (in the governorate of Hajja), 120 km northwest of Sana’a, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Those allegedly responsible have already been arrested. “We offer this journalist’s colleagues and family our heartfelt...

A state security court prosecutor in Amman on Thursday ordered newspaper columnist Mwaffaq Mahadin and Sufian Tell, a specialist in environmental issues, held for 15 days for criticising the assistance which the Jordanian intelligence services provide the United States in its fight against Al-Qaeda, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Mahadin, who writes for the daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm...