West Asia - North Africa

Per Bjorklund, a Cairo-based Swedish freelance journalist and blogger who covered a recent wave of factory strikes in Egypt, was denied entry on returning to the country Tuesday and his passport was confiscated, apparently because his name appeared on a blacklist, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. As he arrived in Cairo on a flight from Prague, he is reportedly to be expelled on the...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Yemeni authorities to clarify the circumstances of the disappearance and current whereabouts of Mohammad al-Maqaleh, editor of Aleshteraki, a website affiliated with the opposition Socialist Party. Al-Maqaleh was detained by unidentified men on September 18 in Sana’a, according to local news reports. A local journalist, who asked to remain...

Iranian judicial authorities are continuing to hold journalists employed by foreign news media including, Maziar Bahari, the correspondent of the US news magazine Newsweek, arrested exactly three months ago, and Fariba Pajooh, a stringer for Radio France Internationale and other media, who Tuesday began her second month in detention. Bahari has dual Canadian and Iranian citizenship. “The recent...

The Iraqi journalist jailed for throwing his shoes at former US president George W. Bush has arrived in Greece following his release, Iraqi diplomats said Thursday, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report. TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi went to Greece for medical treatment after suffering torture while in prison, his family said. He was released on Tuesday after being jailed for one year...

The released Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former US President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was tortured during the first days of being in custody. "I have been tortured by electric shocks, beatings and whipped by cords," Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who was freed earlier in the day after nine months of imprisonment, told in the news conference at the TV station where he works in Baghdad's...

As Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi held six days of lavish parties, plays, concerts and exhibitions to celebrate the bloodless coup that brought him to power on September 1, 1969, it was unlikely his international guests would have asked about Libya's abysmal press freedom record and all the journalists who have been disappeared, tortured or killed in the past 40 years. Libyans who are critical of

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Moroccan authorities to end an investigation of two journalists who were interrogated for 40 hours over an article about the health of the king. Authorities have repeatedly pressed them to reveal their sources, according to their lawyer. Editor Ali Anouzla and journalist Bochra Daou of the independent daily Al-Jarida al-Oula ‎were detained...

A Tunisian court has decided to recognise a pro-government board of the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (NSTJ). Police Tuesday physically evicted members of the previous independent board from the syndicate’s offices, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. A court in Tunis Tuesday ordered the transfer of the syndicate’s offices to the new...

Iranian authorities arrested one journalist Tuesday while security forces summoned another 15 who were among the signatories of a recent petition demanding the release of detained journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported. Morteza Alviri, a journalist aligned with defeated presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, was arrested by judiciary agents at his home today, local press...

Kuwaiti information minister, Al-Sheikh Ahmad Abdallah al-Sabah, has suspended privately-owned Scope TV’s political satire programme Sawtak Wasal after only three of an initially-scheduled series of 15 programmes had been broadcast, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The 20-minute programme, consisting of sketches that satirized Kuwaiti politicians, had been referred by the government...