West Asia - North Africa

Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old US army intelligence analyst, was charged on Tuesday with leaking a video of a US army helicopter attack in Baghdad in July 2007 in which two employees of the Reuters news agency were killed. Currently held in a US military detention centre in Kuwait, he is accused of divulging confidential information, a US army release said. Posted on the Wikileaks website on April...

Shwan Ahmed, a freelance Iraqi journalist, is facing criminal defamation charges based on a series of articles he wrote alleging corruption in Sulaimaniyah, in northeastern Iraq. Ahmed told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) he was threatened by one of the parties in the case. Ahmed said charges were filed against him and that he received the threats after publishing a...

An appeals court in Tunisia on Tuesday upheld a criminal conviction and prison sentence handed down to Fahem Boukadous, a correspondent for the satellite television station Al-Hiwar al-Tunisi, in connection with his coverage of violent labour protests in the Gafsa mining region in 2008. Boukadous, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), faces a four-year prison term on charges of...

Bahraini authorities have pressed charges against Mohammed al-Sawad, a reporter for the independent daily Al-Bilad, who is accused of violating a government-imposed gag order, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The order was issued in the case of former minister of state, Mansour bin Rajab, who was dismissed in March after a year-long investigation into alleged money...

Syrian authorities continue to crack down on journalists and human rights activists in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of Bashar Al-Assad’s installation as president, despite government claims of greater freedoms in the past 10 years, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). RSF called for the immediate and unconditional release of journalists Ali Abdallah and Kamal Sheikhou ben Hussein...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Kuwaiti authorities to drop all charges against journalist Mohammed Abdulqader al-Jassem, who was released on bail Monday. CPJ is also alarmed by local news reports that the Ministry of Information will prosecute Al-Jazeera’s office in Kuwait for violating a ban on local coverage of al-Jassem’s case after the station broadcast a protest...

Lebanon is planning a repressive technology bill that would restrict press freedom and free expression, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The bill focuses largely on electronic business transactions, including security and contractual issues. The legislation is seen as important among officials and business people who cite a need for Lebanon to adopt generally accepted...

Leading Iranian journalist Emadoldin Baghi has been freed on bail after six months in detention, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) . He is to be tried on July 4. “Baghi’s conditional release after six months in solitary confinement, in appalling conditions and subjected to arbitrary interrogations, is obviously good news,” Paris-based RSF said. “But is Iran is still holding 36 other...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Egyptian Minister of Finance, Youssef Boutros-Ghali, to drop charges against Wael al-Abrashy, the editor-in-chief of the weekly Sawt al-Umma, and Samar al-Dawi, a reporter for the weekly. In January, al-Abrashy mounted an editorial campaign to oppose a new and controversial property tax law, which would require property owners to submit...

Syrian authorities are still holding freelance journalist Ali al-Abdallah even after he completed a 30-month prison sentence in Damascus, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Ali al-Abdallah, who has regularly written for numerous prominent Arabic-language newspapers outside Syria, was supposed to be released on June 17 but a military court informed him that he will be given...