West Asia - North Africa

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has voiced concern about the danger of continuing to detain journalist Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand after he suffered an attack of dizziness Monday in his cell in Tehran’s Evin prison. He has been held since last July and his family is unable to raise the money for his bail, set at 150 million toumen (145,000 euros). “There seems to be no limit to the persecution of...

A month after journalist Fadel Shana was killed by an Israeli tank crew in the Gaza Strip, Reuters renewed its demand on Thursday for a prompt explanation from the Israeli army of why it fired on its cameraman. Shana, a 24-year-old Palestinian, was killed on April 16 along with eight mostly teenage bystanders by darts known as flechettes that burst out of a tank shell in mid-air. Shana had been...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the definitive release of journalist and human rights activist Emadoldin Baghi who suffered a heart attack in his cell at Tehran’s Evin prison, after being returned there on April 15 following a temporary release for health reasons. “We urge the Iranian authorities to act now to avoid putting the journalist’s life at risk,” Paris-based RSF said. “He...

The State Security Specialized Court refused on Sunday a request to release journalist Mohammad al-Maqaleh who is charged of mocking a judge during a colleague's trial, according to the NewsYemen website. At hearing session, the court said al-Maqaleh was charged with committing criminal acts when he insulted judge in the court room on April 8 and ridiculed the court's procedures against journalist...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced a series of threats and attacks carried out Friday by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies against pro-government news outlets in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. In separate incidents on Friday, Hezbollah gunmen and allied opposition groups attacked and threatened offices belonging to the Future media group owned by Saad Hariri...

Gunmen loyal to Hezbollah forced the pro-government Future News television off the air on Friday. Future News is owned by Saad al-Hariri, leader of Lebanon's US-backed ruling coalition. "An army officer accompanied by members of Hezbollah walked into the station and told us to switch off transmission. We are off the air," an official told Reuters anonymously. The offices of Hariri's al-Mustaqbal...

An Egyptian television agency boss was charged by a Cairo court Monday over helping to broadcast images of protesters tearing down portraits of President Hosni Mubarak during deadly food riots in April, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. Nader Gohar, who owns the Cairo News Company, was charged with not having a licence to provide satellite feed facilities to foreign channels following a...

Moroccan authorities have stopped the pan-Arab satellite TV news station Al-Jazeera from broadcasting a daily news programme covering the Maghreb countries from its studios in the Moroccan capital Rabat. Al-Jazeera’s Rabat bureau received a fax Tuesday from the National Agency for Telecom Regulation (ANRT) saying the frequency it used for broadcasting the Maghreb programme was being withdrawn...

The US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp is the worst prison ever, Sudanese al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj who was released from the prison days ago said Monday, according to a Xinhua report. In a speech broadcast live on Sudanese television, ai-Haj, who returned to Sudan on Friday, said he spent 2,340 days in the "most heinous prison mankind has ever known," and that jailers there insulted...

Gunmen dragged a woman freelance journalist from a taxi in Iraq's northern restive city of Mosul on Sunday and killed her in broad daylight, a local police officer told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Tharwat Abdul-Wahab, 30, was on her way to work when a group of gunmen pulled her out of the vehicle and shot her in the head in eastern Mosul's Al-Baqar neighbourhood, the policeman said on condition of...