The Committee to protect Journalists documented additional attacks Friday in Iraq, Yemen, and Libya as journalists tried to cover anti-government protests. Iraqi authorities cracked down on media: Security forces stormed a satellite TV office, detained dozens of journalists, and confiscated equipment, according to local journalists and news reports. In Yemen, at least four journalists were...
The International Federation (IFJ) has called for media reforms and respect of press freedom as journalists have come under fire over coverage of anti-governments protests sweeping through the Arab world and the Middle East. The call follows reports of bans on free movement of journalists and new attacks on media in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Iraq Kurdistan. The authorities have imposed a media...
The climate for the media has been continuously deteriorating in Côte d’Ivoire. Harassed, threatened and exposed to physical violence, journalists are now finding it virtually impossible to work freely, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). It urged civil society and the two rival camps led by Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara to respect freedom of...
An armed raid was carried out Wednesday morning on the Baghdad headquarters of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO), partner organisation of Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) in Iraq, in which all of the JFO’s computers and archives were stolen “A dozen gunmen belonging to private security forces burst into our office near Al-Fardous Square in central Baghdad...
Several sources in Iran have told Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) that the authorities have again been blocking the Internet and mobile phone networks since the start of a big protest at 3 p.m. on February 20. Internet connections have been slowed right down or entirely disconnected in certain neighbourhoods in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashad, making it hard or...
The Bahraini security forces had previously been restrained in the way they obstructed journalists but snipers in a helicopter fired at New York Times reporter Michael Slackman and cameraman Sean Patrick Farrell as they were filming the violence in Manama’s Pearl Square on February 18. The US network security company Arbor Networks reports a 20 per cent decrease in Internet traffic in and out of...
The violence against journalists has been continuing in Yemen. In one of the latest incidents, security forces assaulted Zaki Saqladi, a correspondent of the news website AlmasdarOnline, Tuesday in the southern province of Ad-Dali, confiscating his car and his camera, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Swiss Info correspondent Abdel-Karim Salam was the...
The Libyan authorities have imposed a news blackout on what is going in the country. It was already very difficult to interview people on the spot before the government began to trying to crush the uprising. It is now virtually impossible for a journalist to work. The few foreign correspondents who were already in Libya before the crisis are kept under extremely close surveillance and have to...
A destructive attack was carried out by 50 masked gunmen Sunday on the headquarters of Naliya Radio and Television (NRT) in the compound known as “German Village” in Sulaimaniya, in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, to prevent it from continuing to cover unrest in the city. After firing at NRT’s guards, wounding one of them, the gunmen smashed all the broadcasting equipment and then set...
Press freedom groups have condemned journalist Hilal Al-Ahmadi’s murder Thursday in the northern city of Mosul. Ahmadi, who worked for two local weeklies, the Mosul Echo and Iraqiyoun, was gunned down outside his home. “We are extremely shocked and dismayed by Ahmadi’s death,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “The...
