Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) is very worried about imprisoned journalist Slim Boukhdir’s state of health after he staged an eight-day hunger strike in protest against the conditions in which he is being held. Arrested on November 26, the Al-Arabiya website’s correspondent is serving a one-year sentence in Sfax prison (230 km south of Tunis). “Preventing a prisoner from seeing his family or...
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the Moroccan Supreme Court’s decision to reject an appeal by journalist Mustapha Hurmatallah and to force him to complete a seven-month jail sentence in connection with his story in Al-Watan Al-An newspaper that published extracts from internal government documents on security and terrorism. “We are outraged by this decision from...
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the recent closure of Zanan, Iran’s leading women and pro-reform magazine, after authorities said it provided a “dark picture” of the Islamic Republic of Iran. “The Iranian regime must end its censorship of the media and intimidation of journalists and activists fighting for decent rights for women in the country,” says Aidan White...
Leaders of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today welcomed the “historic reform” within Tunisian journalism following the creation of a new union of journalists and the lifting of a two-year ban on the IFJ’s website, only weeks after the federation accused the government of being “stuck in a political groove of media manipulation.” Tunisia’s journalists created a national trade...
The Iraqi Government has promised to shortly issue a full report on targeting and killings of journalists since the invasion of the country five years ago. More than 250 journalists and media staff have died since 2003 says the IFJ-affiliated Iraqi Union of Journalists. With a media killing every five days over the past two years casualties in Iraq have pushed the global death toll of journalists...
Independent newspapers in the Arab world are demonstrating they can be commercially successful while maintaining their editorial independence. But to do so, they must negotiate a minefield. And for the vast majority of independent media in the Middle East, censorship and repression remain the norm. Those were the lessons from the 2nd Arab Free Press Forum, which drew independent journalists and...
Delegates to the Arab Free Press Forum have condemned travel restrictions imposed by authorities in several Arab countries that prevented some speakers and participants from attending the event. The Forum, organised by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the An-Nahar newspaper, drew independent journalists from across the Arab world to Beirut, Lebanon, to address the challenges and...
Michel Hajji Georgiou, a senior political analyst at the French-language daily L’Orient-Le Jour in Lebanon, has been awarded the 2007 Gebran Tueni Award, the annual prize from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) that honours an editor or publisher in the Arab region. Georgiou, who is a member of the newspaper’s editorial board and chief of its yearly political supplement, received the award...
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Israeli authorities to abandon plans to prosecute journalists who visited Lebanon and Syria, countries with which Israel has no formal relations, in the course of their work. “At a time when key players in the region are talking peace it is grotesque that journalists should be facing prosecution for doing their job,” said Aidan White...
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Tuesday condemned as “intolerable and vindictive” the sentence handed down to Tunisian journalist Slim Boukhdir on charges stemming from a search by police on the group taxi he was riding in. It is the latest targeted attack on Boukhdir who has been frequently harassed by Tunisian authorities, IFJ said. “The authorities are using these charges to...
