Middle East & North Africa
2012
CPJ in joint call for release of bloggers, activists in Bahrain
CPJ is among 50 organizations that have signed a joint letter to Bahrain’s king calling for the release of detained bloggers, activists, and human rights defenders and to drop all charges that violate the right to peaceful expression ahead of the Formula One motor racing event to be held in Manama on April 22.
In Sudan, a new strategy to censor the press
Sudanese authorities have a long history of closing newspapers and silencing journalists. But the government security agents who carry out official censorship have launched a new strategy this year that focuses on economic impoverishment–leaving newspapers more vulnerable than ever.
Syrian cartoonist, attacked in August, returns to drawing
Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat is wielding his pen once more. According to news reports, the famous cartoonist, who suffered a severe beating in August, has regained 90 percent of the movement in his hands, which were deliberately targeted by his attackers before they dumped him on the side of a road.
Iraqi cybercrime bill is the worst kind
After the rash of political revolutions and criminal attacks on governments and companies last year, it wasn’t hard to predict that 2012 would be the year of a cybercrime crackdown. The United States is considering its own cybercrime legislation, and the European Union is seeking to harmonize its member state’s computer crime laws. Governments understandably…
Chair of UN panel on Syria pledges to probe attacks
Paulo Pinheiro, the chair of the International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, is a seasoned diplomat trained in the tradition of Brazil’s foreign affairs ministry, Itamaraty, with its celebrated emphasis on impartial mediation, dialogue, and strong skepticism toward foreign intervention to resolve international conflicts.
In Syria, killing the messenger hasn’t killed the message
A report on the first anniversary of the Syrian uprisingWeeks of sporadic protests seeking government reform burst into full-fledged unrest on March 15, 2011, when thousands of demonstrators gathered in four Syrian cities. Within days, authorities had cut off news media access to Daraa, a center of the unrest, beginning a sustained effort to shut…
From Small World, timely advice on safe satphone use
Journalists and technologists often speak different languages. But a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit, Small World News, is bridging the gap with a new guide on the safe use of satellite phones. It comes at a critical time. The group’s Guide to Safely Using Satphones just went online, less than three weeks after the deaths of international…
Egyptian journalists pressured by military, Islamists
For a few weeks after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, it looked as if Egypt might do the unthinkable and do away with the ministry of information. New publications and TV stations sprouted up, newspaper circulation soared, and a new breed of citizen journalists and bloggers opened a space for reporting and comment that…
Recalling Rémi Ochlik, ‘a man of great value’
I liked Rémi a lot. Rémi was fragile, yet he didn’t really try to conceal the fact. His fragility was his strength, a formidable one at that. Unlike so many journalists of today, Rémi was a true idealist, a rare mix of innocence and panache, compassion and bravery.