West Asia - North Africa

A total of 97 journalists and 37 media support staffers have been killed in the line of duty since the war began on March 20, 2003. The media death toll in Iraq has steadily climbed since 2003, when 14 journalists — most of them reporters working for the international press— were killed. In 2004, 24 journalists were killed, followed by 23 deaths in 2005, and 32 deaths in 2006. The 32 deaths in...

Four years after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains the deadliest country in the world for the press as local journalists continue to suffer disproportionately from the violence, research by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows. The bodies of correspondent Atwar Bahjat (inset), cameraman al-Falahi, and engineer Khairallah were found near Samarra, a day after the...

Masked Palestinian gunmen abducted a BBC correspondent from his car in Gaza City on Monday. As he was being taken away, the journalist threw a business card on the street that identified him as Alan Johnston of BBC, Palestinian security officials said. Alan Johnston was born in Tanzania and educated in Scotland. He joined BBC World Service in 1991 and has spent eight of the last 16 years as a...

Iran has lifted a ban on a leading reformist daily but closed down two weeklies. The Iranian government Sunday lifted the ban on Shargh which had been shut down last September by Iran’s press watchdog. An Iranian woman looks at Shargh newspaper, before the popular daily was shut down last September. Iran’s hardline judiciary has closed down over 100 reformist and moderate publications and websites...

The Spanish High Court has decided to close a case in which the family of a cameraman killed in Iraq sought the arrest and questioning of three US soldiers, ruling that his death was a mistaken act of war, a Reuters report has said. JUSTICE DENIED: The Couso family. The court's decision was "outrageous and disgraceful'' and the family was going to appeal Friday's ruling, said Javier Couso, brother...

Two journalists were bruised by Israeli stun grenades at an Israeli military checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah Thursday. Rami al-Faqih, a correspondent for the local Al-Quds Educational Television, and Iyad Hamad, a cameraman for the Associated Press, were each hit as Israeli border police fired at journalists covering a peaceful protest marking International Women’s...

Reporters Without Borders has learned of the death of two journalists in Baghdad, bringing to 152 the number of media personnel murdered in Iraq since the start of the conflict in March 2003. A journalist has also been kidnapped in the northern town of Kirkuk. Mohan Hussein al-Dhahr, 49, editor of the daily al-Mishrak, was killed in a botched kidnap outside his home in the al-Jami’a district in...

US soldiers destroyed images taken by Afghan journalists covering the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack and shooting in eastern Afghanistan Sunday. They were warned not to publish or air any images of US troops or a car where three Afghans were shot to death, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Afghan men shouts anti-American slogans after a car bomber attacked an American convoy in Barayekab in...

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Gunmen killed an Iraqi newspaper editor Sunday morning outside his home in western Baghdad, a colleague said. Mohan al-Dahir, an editor of the independent Al-Mashriq newspaper, was shot dead by assailants who first tried to kidnap him, said Sayed Ali, another editor at the paper. Al-Dahir, a Shiite Muslim, lived in a Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad. "He had good relations with...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by criminal defamation prosecutions of three Yemeni editors. Independent weekly Al-Deyar Editor-in-Chief Abed al-Mahthari was charged with defaming Watani Bank for Trade and Investment; Al-Shoura.net Editor Abdelkarim al-Khaiwani was charged with publishing false information about the Defense Ministry and defaming Armed Forces Moral Guidance...