Attacked

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...

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...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for an investigation into the attack on Lara Logan, a reporter for the American TV cable network CBS, last Friday in Tahrir square, Cairo. CBS has confirmed that Logan was the victim of "a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating." "This is a shocking attack which must not go unpunished," said Jim Boumelha. "The Egyptian Prime...

Nepal is failing to act in the face of the growing number of attacks on freedom targeting journalists, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has alleged. Nepal has reached an extremely worrying level of attacks on the media, mostly the responsibility of political parties and religious groups. “We call on the authorities to do everything to end these attacks, prevent a...

Authorities in Bahrain and Yemen have escalated their physical attack on the press in order to censor coverage of spreading anti-government protests, the Committee to protect Journalists said Thursday. Also, in Iraq, at least two journalists were attacked by guards for the Kurdistan Democratic Party's building, local journalists told CPJ. "Governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa...

There has been no significant police response to an incident in which snipers allegedly in the pay of an influential landowner fired on reporter Talat Hussain cameraman Haider Ali of the DawnNews TV channel when they were doing a story about the social impact of recent flooding in Thatta, in the southern province of Sindh, on February 4. No one was fortunately injured. Paris-based press freedom...

Security agents, police officers and plainclothes men have carrying out attacks against journalists covering street protests in Sana'a during the past three days. The attacks took place during demonstrations hailing the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and calling for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s departure, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières...