Middle East & North Africa

CPJ’s Joel Simon, Robert Mahoney, and Nina Ognianova pay tribute to journalists who died in 2008. The toll was highest in Iraq, but conflicts in South Asia and the Caucasus were deadly as well. Impunity in journalist murders in Russia, Philippines, and Mexico were top issues.

New York, December 31, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the intimidation of Tunisian journalists who tried to cover efforts Tuesday by the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) to demonstrate against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Two journalists were assaulted and three faced harassment in Tunis, according to several CPJ interviews.

Dear Defense Minister Barak: The Committee to Protect Journalists urgently demands an explanation for the bombing of Al-Aqsa TV headquarter in Gaza City by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday. We are also dismayed by the army’s decision to declare Gaza’s northern boundary with Israel and other parts of the territory “closed military zones.”

New York, December 23, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the decision by an Algerian court to sentence an editor-in-chief and a journalist at the Algiers-based independent daily El Watan to a three-month jail term each for defamation on Monday.

It has been 14 months since my colleague at The Washington Post Salih Saif Aldin was shot and killed. Time flew by fast and the path for journalists in Iraq is yet to be safe. Shootings, kidnappings, and murder in cold blood have not stopped in my war-torn country. 

The now infamous incident of Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throwing his shoes at President George Bush became primetime news throughout the world. In the Middle East it has been shown on television almost endlessly. 

NOVEMBER 5, 2008 Shahrvand Emrouz CLOSEDIran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance shut down the moderate weekly magazine Shahrvand Emrouz on November 5, saying that the magazine had breached the terms of its licensing agreement.

New York, December 18, 2008—For the sixth consecutive year, Iraq was the deadliest country in the world for the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its end-of-year analysis. The 11 deaths recorded in Iraq in 2008, while a sharp drop from prior years, remained among the highest annual tolls in CPJ history.

During a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi called President George Bush a dog as he hurled his shoes at him. Though he missed his target, al-Zaidi was immediately tackled to the ground and restrained by plainclothes security personnel.

New York, December 11, 2008–The Lebanese authorities must bring to justice those responsible for the 2005 assassination of journalist Gebran Tueni, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.