Middle East & North Africa
2011
Kings, queens, and torture in Bahrain
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark visited Bahrain in February at the invitation of King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa. As part of the official program, the queen honored Hamad with the “Storkorset af Dannebrog,” the second highest Danish royal order. Although the visit took place about two weeks before Bahraini authorities began a violent crackdown…
Syria’s Assad gives tacit OK to online attacks on press
On Monday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave his third public address on the vast unrest that has roiled his nation. Reporters described him as nervous. He, the reporters, or perhaps both, may have been thinking about the significance of speech No. 3. Both Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak were overthrown…
U.N. secretary-general commits to defending press freedom
New York, June 23, 2011– Press freedom, particularly free expression online, will be a priority for newly re-elected U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. chief pledged today in a meeting with the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.The heads of both organizations said they were encouraged by statements made by the secretary-general in…
Syria must prove jailed blogger is alive, well
New York, June 23, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information today called on the Syrian government to produce immediate evidence showing that unjustly imprisoned blogger Tal al-Mallohi is alive and well. The demand follows several recent news reports saying that al-Mallohi died in a Syrian prison a month…
In Bahrain, extraordinary tribunal sentences bloggers to life
New York, June 22, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s politicized verdict in which 21 bloggers, human rights activists, and members of the political opposition were found guilty of plotting to topple the monarchy. Today’s court ruling further cements 2011 as the worst year for press freedom in Bahrain since the island kingdom declared…
CPJ’s exiled journalists survey: Behind the numbers
In 2007, my colleague Karen Phillips suggested we do something to mark World Refugee Day. Initially planning to publish a brief statement, I set about reviewing our data for background, checking in with older journalist cases about their current situation and looking broadly for trends to highlight. As the number of cases began counting into…