West Asia - North Africa

LONDON: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to announce that Iraqi interpreters working for the British army will be given the opportunity of asylum here, newspapers reported on Saturday. The offer to interpreters and their families, who face threats because of their work with the British, will apply to those who have worked with them for a year. Brown is due to make a statement on Iraq to...

Egypt's prosecutor general has reversed a decision to send an outspoken tabloid newspaper editor who questioned President Hosni Mubarak's health to the country's emergency court of no appeal. A judiciary official said Friday that Al-Dustour editor Ibrahim Eissa will instead face a regular criminal court where appeals are possible on October 1. The official did not elaborate on the reasons why the...

The Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) decreed on Tuesday that journalists should not be jailed over their work, two days after two were jailed for libel, the state WAM news agency reported. Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum "has issued instructions ... not to imprison journalists for reasons related to their work," said the head of the National Media Council, Sheikh Abdullah bin

Reporters Without Borders today deplored the murder of TV journalist Jawad al-Daami, of the satellite TV station Al-Baghdadiya, who was shot dead in Baghdad on 23 September, less than a week after the killing of Muhannad Ghanem Ahmed, of radio Dar Al Salam, in the northern city of Mosul. “The plight of the Iraqi media continues to be disastrous,“ the wordwide press freedom organisation said. “Ever...

Global journalists' and and news safety leaders have welcomed the launch of an Iraq-based campaign aiming to stem the tide of violence against news media which has claimed the lives of 226 journalists and media staff since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the International News Safety Institute (INSI) are calling on governments and aid agencies to...

During the reign of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman could only be published in London. Fleeing the government's muscular arm in the 1990s, the newspaper's founder, former Hussein aide Saad al-Bazzaz, was forced to run his media operation out of Europe for nearly a decade. But after Mr. Hussein's expulsion in 2003, Mr. al-Bazzaz set up offices in Baghdad, and he has since been busy...

A Cairo court has sentenced four independent editors to one-year jail terms for publishing “false information.” Editors Ibrahim Eissa of the daily Al-Dustour, Wael al-Abrashy of the weekly Sawt al-Umm, Adel Hammouda of the weekly Al-Fajr, and Abdel Halim Kandil, former editor of the weekly Al-Karama were convicted Thursday of “publishing false information likely to disturb public order” in a case...

A Cairo court has sentenced four independent editors to one-year jail terms for publishing “false information.” Editors Ibrahim Eissa of the daily Al-Dustour, Wael al-Abrashy of the weekly Sawt al-Umm, Adel Hammouda of the weekly Al-Fajr, and Abdel Halim Kandil, former editor of the weekly Al-Karama were convicted Thursday of “publishing false information likely to disturb public order” in a case...

A newspaper editor will be go on trial over his paper's recent reports questioning the health of Egypt's 79-year-old president, Hosni Mubarak. Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the independent daily Al-Dustor, was questioned last week for printing the rumours and released without bail, but the general prosecutor decided Tuesday to send the case to trial, the MENA news agency reported. Eissa's trial on...

Egyptian prosecutors on Wednesday questioned the editor of a prominent independent newspaper about his paper's recent reports on the health of the country's 79-year-old leader, President Hosni Mubarak. Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the independent daily Al-Dustour, was questioned for several hours by prosecutors Wednesday outside Cairo on accusations that he published reports “likely to disturb public...