West Asia - North Africa

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the indefinite closure today of an independent Sudanese daily for publishing an article about the beheading of an editor last September. A state prosecutor imposed an immediate ban on the prominent Arabic-language Al-Sudani which carried an article on January 31 discussing the murder of Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the private daily...

The Associated Press has repeated its call for the US military to charge or release one of its freelance photographers whose been jailed in Iraq without charge since April last year. The news wire service said yesterday that Bilal Hussein is accused of being a “security threat” though it stressed no evidence has been produced to substantiate the claim since he was arrested 10 months ago. An...

The Associated Press has repeated its call for the US military to charge or release one of its freelance photographers whose been jailed in Iraq without charge since April last year. The news wire service said yesterday that Bilal Hussein is accused of being a “security threat” though it stressed no evidence has been produced to substantiate the claim since he was arrested 10 months ago. An...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Arab journalists’ groups have called for urgent action to protect journalists working in the Gaza area of Palestine where they say threats from political extremists and recent violence against media have created a “climate of intolerable intimidation.” Palestinian policemen stand in front of the damaged office of Al-Arabiya television in Gaza...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF today welcomed the international warrant issued by a Madrid judge yesterday for the arrest of three US soldiers for the "murder" of Spanish cameraman José Couso of the privately-owned television station Telecinco, who was killed on 8 April 2003 when a US tank fired a shell at a Baghdad hotel used by the international media. "We hope that judge Santiago Pedraz's decision to issue...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF today welcomed the international warrant issued by a Madrid judge yesterday for the arrest of three US soldiers for the “murder” of Spanish cameraman José Couso of the privately-owned television station Telecinco, who was killed on 8 April 2003 when a US tank fired a shell at a Baghdad hotel used by the international media. “We hope that judge Santiago Pedraz’s decision to issue...

(RSF/IFEX) - Just weeks after the UN Security Council's adoption of Resolution 1738 on the protection of journalists in armed conflicts, a new string of killings of journalists in Iraq has underlined the urgent need for the Iraqi government to take determined measures to protect its country's media personnel, Reporters Without Borders said on 18 January 2007. A total of 146 journalists and media...

Suspended sentences of three years in prison and fines of 80,000 dirhams (7,200 euros) were handed down by a Casablanca court on 15 January 2007 on Driss Ksikes, editor of the Arabic-language weekly “Nichane”, and one of his journalists, Sanaa Elaji, for attacking Islam and traditional morals in a feature about Moroccan humour. The court also ordered “Nichane” to be closed for two months. “We are...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders expressed its horror at the murder of freelance journalist Khoudr Younes al-Obaidi, who was shot dead as he returned to his home in Mosul, northern Iraq, on 12 January 2007. The killing comes eight days after the discovery of the body in Baghdad of Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28, an occasional cameraman for the Associated Press, who went missing on 30 December 2006...

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein the press in Iraq - like the rest of Iraqi society - has been in a constant state of flux. The collapse of the old regime triggered a media free-for-all. Iraqis were soon able to choose from more than 200 publications, compared with just a handful during the Saddam era. But for every new publication that emerged, several others folded, largely owing to lack of...