Several tallies, one conclusion on Turkish press freedom
Press freedom in Turkey is under assault. Thousands of criminal cases have been filed against reporters, the Criminal Code and Anti-Terrorism Act are used routinely to silence critical news coverage, and Kurdish journalists face constant persecution. Today CPJ released its annual prison census, which tracks cases of journalists jailed for their work globally. (The list…
Courage in documenting Egypt’s revolution
Today, on its 18th day, the Egyptian revolution has finally achieved its goal, deposing Hosni Mubarak and his regime. Egyptian journalists who have courageously found ways to work under the yoke of Mubarak’s censorship and repression are releasing a sigh of relief that they’ve held in for three long decades.
Government lies are exposed in Egypt’s Tahrir Square
Hosni Mubarak’s regime has had 29 years to perfect its always brazen but never convincing justifications for repressing journalists who expose the travesties he and his henchmen regularly visit upon the people of Egypt. It has also long enlisted state-owned media to disseminate the ruling party’s half-truths and outright lies. But over the past week,…
Tunisian TV station’s suspension reflects tenuous freedom
On Sunday, the privately owned broadcaster Hannibal TV was forced off the air for more than three hours. The state-owned news agency Agence Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP) issued a statement stating that an arrest warrant had been issued for the station’s owner on charges of “high treason” for an alleged “plot to destabilize national security.”…
A year after siege, Al-Ayyam is sorely missed in Yemen
Today marks the anniversary of the beginning of the multiday siege by Yemeni police and security personnel of the compound that houses the offices of the independent daily Al-Ayyam. During its assault on the headquarters of the critical daily, the government used automatic machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy weaponry. The siege and the ensuing…
In Yemen, press freedom worst in 20 years
One opinion was relayed to me repeatedly by numerous journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders during the week I just spent in Yemen: The crackdown against independent and opposition media in the country has not been this concerted at any time since the unification of the southern and northern halves of the country in 1990.
In Egypt, a deplorable press freedom climate
Judging by what’s transpired in recent weeks, press freedom in Egypt is in a deplorable state. To hear that Egyptian police abused and illegally detained peaceful protestors who took to the streets on April 6 is par for the course. To read that police and plainclothes thugs also beat and detained journalists, confiscating and destroying…