West Asia - North Africa

18 July 2007

Morocco: Two journalists being held for publishing internal security memo on terrorist threat

Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrest of Abderrahim Ariri, the publisher of the weekly Al Watan Al An (The Nation Now), and one of his journalists, Mostapha Hurmatallah, yesterday in Casablanca after they published the text of an internal security memo circulated by the General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST), an intelligence agency. “It is wrong to arrest these two...

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16 July 2007

Little hope for press freedom on eve of President Assad’s second seven-year term

Reporters Without Borders appealed for the release of Michel Kilo, Muhened Abdulrahman and Habib Saleh today, on the eve of President Bashar Al-Assad’s swearing-in tomorrow for a second seven-year term. “Assad’s first term as president was marked by many arrests of Syrian journalists and activists,” the press freedom organisation said. “The state of emergency that has been in effect since 1963 is...

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16 July 2007

Reuters asks for Pentagon probe of deaths of 2 staffers in Iraq

NEW YORK Reuters on Monday asked the U.S. military to conduct a full and objective investigation into the killing last week of two of its staff in Iraq after evidence emerged casting doubt on explanations given for their deaths. Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in Baghdad on Thursday in what witnesses said was a U.S. helicopter attack and which police in...

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13 July 2007

US army must investigate deaths of Reuters staffers

The US army and the Iraqi police have been urged to investigate the deaths of a photographer and a driver employed by Reuters Thursday in Baghdad because of the contradictory accounts about the circumstances. Their deaths bring to six the number of Reuters employees killed since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003. Relatives of Saeed Chmagh, an Iraqi driver working with Reuters, mourn...

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13 July 2007

Killings continue: New York Times reporter shot dead in Baghdad

An interpreter and reporter in the Baghdad bureau of the New York Times was shot and killed Friday, the bureau chief, John F Burns, reported. Khalid W Hassan, 23, was the second Iraqi employee of the Times to be killed during the current conflict. Hassan was shot in the Seiydia district of south central Baghdad while driving to work under circumstances that remain unclear, Burns said. He had...

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12 July 2007

It's US again: Reuters photographer, driver killed in Baghdad

An Iraqi photographer and driver working for Reuters in Iraq have been killed in Baghdad, the agency has said. Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in eastern Baghdad Thursday at a time when clashes had been taking place between US forces and militants in the area. Noor-Eldeen was single. Chmagh was married and had four children. Four other Reuters staff —...

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7 July 2007

Iraqi TV journalist gunned down in Samawa

Baghdad, Jul 7, (VOI)- The Iraqi Society for Defending Journalists' Rights said on Saturday an Iraqi journalist was killed in the clashes that erupted between security forces and fighters of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa during the last two days. "The society's office in Samawa was informed of the death of journalist Ali Watan who was working...

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5 July 2007

Iran: Promiment reformist newspaper shut down once again

Iran's leading reformist daily newspaper Hammihan (Compatriot) has been ordered closed, less than two months after it was allowed to resume publishing. Hammihan, banned in 2000 by the hardline Iranian judiciary after the newspaper called for improving Iranian ties with the United States, had resumed publishing in May this year, publisher Gholamhossein Karbaschi told the Associated Press (AP). A...

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4 July 2007

BBC correspondent freed in Gaza as Hamas forces kidnappers into late-night deal

Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in Gaza, was freed and handed over to Hamas officials early on Wednesday after a late-night deal with the al Qaeda-inspired group that abducted him in March. The 45-year-old Briton was embraced by BBC colleagues after he arrived by car at the home of Hamas's local leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh. Johnston was smiling and looked well despite four months...

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3 July 2007

Two journalists employed by Sunni TV station murdered in separate incidents

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the murders of two Baghdad TV journalists after being kidnapped in separate incidents in the past month. Owned by the (Sunni) Iraqi Islamic Party, Baghdad TV was the target of an armed attack just three months ago that killed two of its employees. “We are again deeply shocked by the news of these repeated attacks on the news media,” the press freedom...

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