West Asia - North Africa

US human rights lawyers charged Sunday that US military prisons are "legal black holes" and the force is detaining journalists to "shut people up" about activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. A vast detention camp planned for the main US base in Afghanistan will be a "second Guantanamo" where laws do not apply, they said at a press conference about an...

The Kuwaiti government's issuing of a resolution to prevent official staff from writing in newspapers is a harsh blow to press freedom and freedom of expression, taking Kuwait back decades and violating several constitutional articles that ensure the freedoms of opinion and expression. Al Qabas newspaper revealed a governmental document, which has been under preparation since February 2008, that...

Reuters has urged the US military to hand over video footage from US attack helicopters and other materials relating to the killing of two Iraqi staff in Baghdad a year ago. Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in a US helicopter air strike in eastern Baghdad on July 12, 2007. Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh had gone to the area after hearing of a military raid on a...

A Rabat court Friday fined Al-Jazeera's Rabat bureau chief, Hassan Rachidi, 50,000 dirhams (approx. 4,500 euros) under article 42 of the press law because the Qatar-based satellite TV station wrongly reported in June that people were killed in clashes between police and protesters in the southern port city of Sidi Ifni. "We welcome the fact that the judges had the good sense not to impose a jail...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the reopening of Afaq TV, a Palestinian commercial TV station based in the West Bank city of Nablus which Israeli soldiers closed on July 10 for one year on the grounds that it was a "terrorist" media outlet. The station has stopped broadcasting and seals have been place over its entrance. "Palestinian journalists must be allowed to enjoy the same...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed alarm at a draft law in Iran that would extend the death penalty to include crimes committed online. Passed by parliament on first reading on July 2, the proposed law would, for example, apply the death penalty to bloggers and website editors who "promote corruption, prostitution or apostasy." "This proposal is horrifying," Paris-based RSF said....

There has been an upsurge in cases being brought against journalists in Kuwait, despite the fact it was the first Gulf state to decriminalise press offences. "The 2006 press law reform profoundly transformed the emirate's media landscape. We urge the authorities to continue to strengthen the protection of the right to be informed and to inform the public," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the authorities not to execute the warrant for the arrest of Mohammad Javad Haghshenas, the editor of Etemad Melli, a daily newspaper that is the mouthpiece of the pro-reform party of the same name. The warrant was prompted by an article critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that was previously posted on a blog. "Repressive measures against...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the abusive behaviour by Israeli security agents towards Palestinian journalists moving around the Territories or returning from visits abroad. Paris-based RSF says it has recorded five incidents of wrongful arrest over a recent 10-day period. One journalist is still being held, while another needed hospital treatment after being subjected to brutality...

Three rights organisations - ANHRI, the Arab Council for the Support of a Fair Trial and the Hisham Mubarak Law Center - submitted a petition to a deputy demanding an investigation into the brutal assault of journalist Kamal Murad of "Al-Fajr" newspaper by three police officers on June 17. The police officers, who are from Rahmanya Centre in Buhaira Governate in the Delta region, badly beat Murad...