Iraq / Middle East & North Africa

By Paul E. SteigerFor 24 years, the Committee to Protect Journalists has remained steadfast in its mission to defend the press around the world. But in 2005, that mission meant paying unusual attention to what was happening at home.

AFGHANISTAN: 1 Ali Mohaqqiq Nasab, Haqooq-i-Zan (Women’s Rights) Imprisoned: October 1, 2005 The attorney general ordered editor Nasab’s arrest on blasphemy charges after the religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, Mohaiuddin Baluch, filed a complaint about his magazine. “I took the two magazines and spoke to the Supreme Court chief, who wrote to the attorney…

By Ann CooperOn May 2, when the Committee to Protect Journalists identified the Philippines as the world’s most murderous country for journalists, the reaction was swift. “Exaggerated,” huffed presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye, who was practiced at dismissing the mounting evidence. He had called an earlier CPJ analysis of the dangers to Philippine journalists “grossly misplaced…

Free Expression Takes a Back SeatBy Alex Lupis To gain military footing and access to energy resources in the former Soviet empire, the United States has diverted its attention from human rights and press freedom issues in Eurasia. The U.S. policy of close cooperation with the region’s authoritarian leaders has undermined free and independent reporting in…

In the Crosshairs, Journalists Face New Threat By Joel Campagna The bomb that ripped through Samir Qassir’s white Alfa Romeo on June 2, 2005, silenced Lebanon’s most fearless journalist. For years, Qassir’s outspoken columns in the daily Al-Nahar took on the Syrian government and its Lebanese allies when few reporters dared do so. The assassination sent shockwaves…

IRAQ Iraq was an assignment of unending danger for the hundreds of journalists covering the world’s biggest news story. Journalist murders, deaths in crossfire, abductions, and detentions continued apace, reinforcing Iraq’s distinction as the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist and as one of the deadliest conflicts for media in…

UNITED STATES An investigation into the leak of a CIA officer’s identity erupted, with one reporter compelled to testify about his confidential source, another jailed for 85 days before she testified, and a high-level White House aide indicted on federal charges of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. Confidentiality of sources was under attack…

New York, February 1, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a report that two Iraqi broadcast journalists were abducted in western Baghdad today. Journalists Marwan Ghazal and Reem Zaeed, from the privately owned television station Samaria TV, were abducted by gunmen in Baghdad’s Yarmouk district after covering a meeting at the offices of…

JANUARY 24, 2006 Posted January 30, 2006 Nagham Abdul-Zahra, Al-Jawra’a ATTACKED Abdul-Zahra, a TV presenter working for Iraqi TV channel al-Jawra’a, jumped off her second-floor balcony to escape a kidnapping in southeastern Baghdad.