Special Reports

Kuwait


Relying heavily on vague antistate charges, authorities jail 145 journalists worldwide. Eritrea, Burma, and Uzbekistan are also among the worst jailers of the press. A CPJ special report

From Africa to the Americas, more journalists are imprisoned today than at any time since 1996. (AFP)
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

                        

Saudi Arabia loosens press shackles, but religion and politics are still perilous topics.
By Joel Campagna

Permission to Fire?

CPJ Investigates the Attack on the Palestine Hotel

Between Two Worlds

Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel faces conflicting expectations

The smell of oil, profits, and risk hang heavily over Baku. To the Western visitor, this port city looks like a boom town. Azerbaijan has discovered new oil reserves in the Caspian Sea which may be nearly as great as those of Kuwait. And outsiders are rushing to town to pump oil and get rich quick, or to service ³the oilies² who are doing the pumping. Because of oil, Baku is now the most prosperous city in the Caucasus.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Caucasian republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia have declared their desire to model themselves after Western European societies, with free - market economies and democratic government. But their passage from communism to a new social order has been rife with contradictions. In the current transition period, leaders of both countries display authoritarian tendencies, resulting in an ambiguous and sometimes surreal climate for the media:
Six Jordanian journalists were among 405 prisoners released from Kuwaiti prisons on Feb. 25 as part of a pardon by Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah marking the sixth anniversary of the country's liberation from Iraqi occupation.

CPJ's 1995 report surveys 101 countries


The bullet-ridden wall pictured on the cover is a detail from a photograph taken in Somalia by American photojournalist Dan Eldon of Reuters. Eldon, Associated Press photojournalist Hansi Krauss, and Reuter colleagues Hosea Maina and Anthony Macharia were murdered in July 1993 by a Somali crowd angered by the death of 50 countrymen in an air raid on Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidid's command post. Reuters/Dan Eldon

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Contact

Middle East
and North Africa

Program Coordinator:
Sherif Mansour

Research Associate:
Jason Stern

smansour@cpj.org
jstern@cpj.org

Tel: +1 (212) 300-9018,
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فيسبوك : لجنة حماية الصحفيين بالعربية

Blog: Sherif Mansour
Blog: Jason Stern