West Asia - North Africa

New York, January 12, 2007—Unidentified gunmen killed a journalist today in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Khudr Younis al-Obaidi, a reporter for Al-Diwan newspaper, was shot by several men in a car as he walked along a street, The Associated Press reported. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating the circumstances of al-Obaidi’s death. “We condemn the murder of our colleague...

Iraqi journalists, members of parliament and government officials reached an unprecedented agreement about measures to protect and promote free and pluralistic media in Iraq during the International Conference on Freedom of Expression and Media Development in Iraq, held at UNESCO Headquarters from 8 to 10 January. The essential role of free, pluralistic and independent media in any democratic...

Reporters Without Borders has voiced dismay at the sentences of three to five years in prison and bans on working as journalists that the state prosecutor requested on 8 January 2007 in Casablanca at the start of the trial of Driss Ksikes, editor of the Arabic-language weekly “Nichane”, and one of his journalists, Sanaa Elaji, on charges of “damaging Islam” and “publishing and distributing...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the closure of the Baghdad studios of privately-owned satellite TV al-Charkiya, which was accused of "inciting sectarian violence" for showing footage of Iraqis mourning the death of former president Saddam Hussein. The announcement of his execution and the broadcast of footage of his hanging produced sharply different reactions in the Iraqi...

The publisher of the independent Moroccan weekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire and a former reporter have been ordered to pay the record damages awarded earlier this year in a controversial defamation suit. Publisher Aboubakr Jamaï said the award could jeopardize the magazine’s survival. Jamaï told CPJ that two court officials visited Le Journal’s Casablanca office on December 18 and gave him and former...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders called for an end to the impunity with which journalists are being targeted in Iraq after Omar Mohammed, of US-run Arabic satellite channel al Hurra, escaped a second murder attempt after being ambushed in central Baghdad. Mohammed was fired on by gunmen who had lain in wait for him as he left his office on 11 December 2006. He escaped with a bullet wound to...

NEW YORK: For the past four years there has been no shortage of news and views on Iraq and the long-running war there. What’s been missing: a one-stop-shopping clearinghouse for nonpartisan information, including material coming out of Iraq itself from natives of that country, not from foreign correspondents. Now that need is being addressed in the form of IraqSlogger, in Beta at www.iraqslogger...

New York, December 4, 2006—Unidentified gunmen killed Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaimi, 36, a news editor for the privately-owned station Radio Dijla, shortly after he left his home in Baghdad’s al-Washash neighborhood for work today, sources at the station told the Committee to Protect Journalists. “We offer our condolences to the family of Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaimi,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel...

Baghdad: Iraq's parliament will bar the media from future sessions and began yesterday by refusing access to reporters and then cutting off television coverage as a debate on mounting sectarian violence became heated. Spokesmen for the government and parliament said it was part of efforts, newly agreed by Iraq's National Security Council, to stop political leaders contradicting each other in...

BAGHDAD, 27 November (IRIN) - Freelance journalist Samir Khairallah, 31, walks a tight line between reporting the news and not becoming the news. With ongoing insurgent attacks and brutal sectarian violence plaguing the country, he must be careful about what he writes and whose 'side' he is perceived to be on. "Iraqi journalists are in constant danger. Different groups are targeting us without any...