West Asia - North Africa

Armed men attacked the headquarters of a Palestinian press agency in Gaza City Tuesday, employees said. The militants, most of them masked, broke into the offices of Palmedia and scared staff with aimless gunshots before seizing a computer and television editing equipment. Injuries were not reported. Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) Wednesday condemned the impunity with which journalists are being...

An obscure Islamist group has threatened to behead female television broadcasters if they do not wear strict Islamic dress. The threat to "cut throats from vein to vein" was delivered by the Righteous Swords of Truth, a fanatical group that has previously claimed responsibility for bombing Internet cafes and music shops. The new threat was the first time the organisation targeted a specific group...

(RSF/IFEX) - Madrid investigating judge Santiago Pedraz announced on 24 May 2007 that he has rejected an appeal by the prosecutor's office against his decision to indict three US soldiers for the murder of Spanish cameraman José Couso, who was killed when a US tank shelled the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on 8 April 2003. Prosecutor Jesús Alonso had appealed against the indictment on the grounds...

(RSF/IFEX) - Madrid investigating judge Santiago Pedraz announced on 24 May 2007 that he has rejected an appeal by the prosecutor’s office against his decision to indict three US soldiers for the murder of Spanish cameraman José Couso, who was killed when a US tank shelled the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on 8 April 2003. Prosecutor Jesús Alonso had appealed against the indictment on the grounds...

The UN Security Council has established an international criminal tribunal empowered to prosecute individuals responsible for a series of deadly attacks against Lebanese journalists in 2005. The Security Council approved resolution 1757 on May 30, establishing an international criminal tribunal to prosecute the masterminds of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, who...

New York, June 1, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the slayings of four Iraqi journalists during an especially deadly week in the country. Nazar Abdulwahid al-Radhi, 38, a correspondent for the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq and Radio Free Iraq, was gunned down in the southern city of Al-Amarah on Wednesday morning. Three men wearing white uniforms and riding in a pickup...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep shock at the murders of four Iraqi journalists by armed groups within a space of five days. The body of a local TV station employee was found in the boot of his car in the northern city of Kirkuk on 26 May 2007. A Turkmen journalist was killed in Kirkuk on 28 May. Gunmen burst into the home of a journalism teacher and contributor to several...

The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Iranian authorities to drop criminal charges against an Iranian-American journalist working for U.S.-backed Radio Farda, to return the journalist’s seized passport, and to allow her to travel freely. On May 15, the Special Security Bureau of the Revolutionary Court Public Prosecutor’s office charged Parnaz Azima with disseminating propaganda...

A US military report that exonerated US troops in the killings of two Al-Arabiya journalists at a Baghdad checkpoint in 2004 has failed to address contradictory witness reports, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. This includes statements from Al-Arabiya employees that at least two US soldiers fired directly at the journalists’ vehicle, newly declassified records show. The report...

The International News Safety Institute (INSI) has dismissed the Iraqi government's restrictions on news coverage of bombings as irrelevant to the safety of journalists. According to a report on state-run Al-Iraqiyah television last week, an Interior Ministry spokesman said the ministry had decided to prevent news teams from approaching the scenes of incidents out of concern for their safety...