West Asia - North Africa

A Sudanese journalist specialising in the war-torn Darfur region has been held incommunicado for five days without charge, journalists said on Wednesday. Abu Obeida Aballah covered the Darfur peace talks in Nigeria, forging contacts with many rebels there. Since a May peace deal, signed by only one of three negotiating rebel groups, violence has escalated with a dozen aid workers killed and tens...

BAGHDAD — Ahmed al-Karbouli, a reporter for Baghdadiya TV in the violent city of Ramadi, did his best to ignore the death threats, right up until six armed men drilled him with bullets after midday prayers. He was the fourth journalist killed in Iraq in September alone, out of a total of more than 130 since the 2003 invasion, the vast majority of them Iraqis. But these days, men with guns are not...

Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi photographer who helped the Associated Press win a Pulitzer Prize last year, is now in his sixth month in a U.S. Army prison in Iraq. He doesn't understand why he's there, and neither do his AP colleagues. The Army says it thinks Bilal has too many contacts among insurgents. He has taken pictures the Army thinks could have been made only with the connivance of insurgents...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, September 20, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the arrest and detention of a reporter in Tikrit today. Kalshan al-Bayati, 33, an Iraqi correspondent for the London-based, Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, was arrested by Iraqi forces around noon when she went to collect her previously confiscated personal computer from local authorities...

The Pentagon said on Monday that an Iraqi photographer working for The Associated Press and held by the U.S. military since April was considered a security threat with “strong ties to known insurgents.” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there was sufficient evidence to justify the continued detention of Bilal Hussein, 35, who AP said was taken into U.S. military custody on April 12 in the...

New York, September 18, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder today in Iraq of Ahmed Riyadh al-Karbouli, a correspondent for Baghdad TV. Six gunmen in two Opel cars shot the reporter/cameraman as he chatted with friends after midday prayers outside a mosque in the town of Ramadi, CPJ sources said. Al-Karbouli, 25, had received numerous death threats from insurgents over...

NEW YORK - The U.S. military has been holding an Iraqi photographer working for The Associated Press since April, and the agency asked Sunday that he either be charged or released. Bilal Hussein, 35, was taken into U.S. military custody on April 12 in the Iraqi city of Ramadi and has been held since then without charge, AP said. “Bilal Hussein has been held in violation of Iraqi law and in...

New York, September 13, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of an Iraqi photographer today in Baghdad and a journalist in Diyala province yesterday by unidentified gunmen. Safa Isma’il Enad, 31, a freelance photographer for several outlets including the now-defunct newspaper Al-Watan, was shot in a photo print shop in Baghdad’s Ur neighborhood, according to the...

TIKRIT, Iraq - An Iraqi journalist for a mass-selling Arabic language newspaper said she was released Wednesday after being arrested for allegedly helping insurgents. Kalshan al-Bayati, 33, of the London daily Al-Hayat, was arrested two days ago at her home in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) north of Baghdad. "They released me," Bayati said on Wednesday. "I...

A man purporting to lead an African branch of the al Qaeda militant network claimed responsibility on Tuesday for the beheading of a Sudanese newspaper editor who was found dead last week. The man, in a statement distributed to Sudanese newspapers, called editor Mohamed Taha a "dog of dogs from the ruling party", and accused him of insulting the prophet Mohammad. "Three individuals from this...