In the Middle East and North Africa , where political change occurs slowly, blogging has becomes a serious medium for social and political commentary as well as a target of government suppression. By Mohamed Abdel Dayem
Committee to Protect Journalists
Jordan
In our special report “Middle East Bloggers: The Street Leads Online,” CPJ’s Mohamed Abdel Dayem says blogging has become a crucial front in the region's struggle for freedom of expression. Here, Abdel Dayem describes how two regional trends--booming Internet audiences and repression of traditional media--have made blogging a vibrant news alternative. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here to download. (2:05)
While covering a demonstration in
The now infamous incident of
Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throwing his shoes at President George Bush
became primetime news throughout the world. In the
New York, October 30, 2008--A Jordanian editor battling a lawsuit filed by a governor will be held for 15 days while an investigation is completed, the Jordanian military court ruled on Tuesday.
August 2008
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists
Reports
| Afghanistan, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, France, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Rwanda, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Syria, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe
More than 80 journalists flee their home countries in the last year. Iraq and Somalia are the hardest hit. By Elisbeth Witchel and Karen Phillips
New York, Mach 18, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by three-month prison sentences handed down to five Jordanian journalists in two separate defamation cases in a week.
Editor Taher al-Adwan and reporter Sahar Qassam of the Arabic daily Al-Arab al-Youm, former Ad-Dustour editor Osama Sharif, and Ad-Dustour reporter Fayez Louzi were sentenced Thursday under the penal code to three months in prison each for “insulting the judiciary and commenting on its rulings,” according to Jordanian news reports.
Attacks on the Press
| Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen
Under the Radar, a New Kind
of Repression
By Joel
Campagna
On a Wednesday afternoon last June, Yemeni security agents stormed the home of outspoken editor Abdel Karim al-Khaiwani and dragged him before a State Security Court in the capital, Sana'a. A prosecutor questioned al-Khaiwani and later rang him up on charges of belonging to a secret terrorist cell--charges that carry a possible death sentence. The arrest shocked Yemeni journalists, and some wondered aloud whether their colleague, known for his incendiary columns attacking the Yemeni government and its battle with rebels in the northwestern city of Saada, might have been involved in something nefarious. CPJ issued guarded statements of concern, unsure whether the charge had substance.
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