West Asia - North Africa

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi television reporter who was kidnapped in Baghdad last week was freed Monday, his station said. Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a 28-year-old reporter for the Iraqi satellite channel al-Baghdadiyah, was released and appeared to be in good health, according to an editor at the channel who spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. No ransom was paid, the editor said. He...

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi television reporter was kidnapped on his way to work in central Baghdad, his station said Saturday, while the U.S. military reported that troops had killed six suspected militants in a raid. Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a 28-year-old reporter for the Iraqi satellite channel al-Baghdadiyah, disappeared Friday, according to an editor at the channel. The editor spoke on condition of...

Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage today at the suspended sentence of two months in prison passed by Casablanca court yesterday on AIC Press agency director Mourad Bourja for “disrespect for agent of the state in the exercise of his duties.” “Judicial harassment of the Moroccan press since the start of the year has dispelled any illusions about the government’s talk of a political opening,”...

The latest jail terms handed down to journalists in Egypt are making the country being seen as one of the most repressive for media in the world. A court has imposed a sentence of one-month’s forced labour on editor of Al-Wafd, Anwar Al-Hawari and Younes Darwish, the daily’s correspondent in Assyout, 380 km south of Cairo, for “publishing false news” about fraud by two members of the

On a sweltering summer day of August 11, 2003, Reda Helal left his office like any other day, but this time never to reach home. No one knows where he disappeared, nor is anyone bothered to know. Today, Reda Helal, a senior editor at Egypt’s daily Al-Ahram, has been long forgotten. Four years after Helal disappeared in central Cairo, in a special report 'The Forgotten Man', the Committee to

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the prolonged detention of journalist Ata Farahat, who was arrested on 30 July and is being held in Al-Jalama prison (14 km southeast of Haifa). The organisation has been told he could be prosecuted for “collaborating with an enemy nation” but this has never been confirmed by the Israeli authorities. “Three months have gone by since Farahat’s arrest and we...

New York, October 29, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Sunday’s murder in Baghdad of Shehab Mohammad al-Hiti, an editor for the fledgling weekly Baghdad al-Youm. Al-Hiti, 27, was last seen leaving his home in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Jamia to go to the paper’s offices around mid-day Sunday, a source at the paper told CPJ. Iraqi security forces found the journalist’s...

A look at Israeli television channels and one can have a fair idea how far Israel lags behind in representing minorities. A regular TV viewer in Israel may never come across an Arab doctor advising on a flu virus, or an Arab lawyer giving tips on labour laws. Thanks to the almost no Arab presence on TV and radio. A recent study by the Israeli Centre for Strategic Communication has revealed some

Omar Fekeiki, a 28-year-old Iraqi citizen studying journalism at UC Berkeley, was at his campus apartment when he received news that chilled his heart: His friend and Washington Post colleague Salih Saif Aldin had been murdered while on assignment in a Baghdad neighborhood. Just two weeks before, Aldin, 32, had called Fekeiki to thank him for being a good mentor. "He died for us to get the story,"...

Egypt continues to imprison journalists and editors who publish stories critical of President Hosni Mubarak and other high officials. Activist advocating minority rights in the country are also detained and fined. Basic right of freedom of religion and fundamental right of free expression are being explicitly violated. Members and partners of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)...