MOROCCO Press freedom continued its downward slide, belying Morocco’s carefully burnished image as a liberalizing country with a free press. Outspoken journalists found themselves in court, in prison, or out of work following a rash of politicized court cases, while the government of King Mohammed VI unveiled a restrictive new press bill. On May 3,…
SUDAN Despite free speech protections built into Sudan’s 2005 interim constitution, authorities operated as if a state of emergency were still in force. Newspaper suspensions, criminal charges, and detentions were a routine part of working as a journalist in Sudan. When trying to cover one of the world’s biggest stories—the genocide in Darfur—reporters faced high…
TUNISIA In a July 25 speech marking the 50th anniversary of the Tunisian Republic, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali proclaimed that his government had “enriched the information and communication landscape and offered opportunity for the expression of different opinions.” It was an Orwellian moment in a year in which the Ben Ali administration stepped…
TURKEY The murder of an outspoken newspaper editor underlined a troubling year in which journalists continued to be the targets of criminal prosecution and government censorship. Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian editor of the bilingual weekly Agos, was gunned down outside his newspaper’s Istanbul office on January 19. Dink had received numerous death threats from nationalist…
YEMEN Journalists covering a rebel insurgency and government corruption were subjected to a frightening array of violent attacks and politically motivated court cases. Threats against independent journalists continued at an alarming rate, taking on an almost routine air. Perpetrators, for the most part, went unpunished. Since 2004, the government has been combating a regional insurgency…
FEBRUARY 3, 2008 Posted March 3, 2008 Rachid Niny, Al-Massae ATTACKED Rachid Niny, director of publication for the daily Al-Massae, told CPJ that around 8 p.m., three assailants attacked him very close to Al-Rabat al-Madina train station. He said the men, one of whom had a knife, came up behind him and started violently beating…
See also: Journalists killed | Journalists abducted | Background reports The war in Iraq illustrated the dangers faced by people who work with journalists in supporting roles–as drivers, interpreters, fixers and guards. Here is a statistical look at media support workers killed in Iraq 2003-09. Capsule reports detailing each death are…
New York, January 30, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the criminal defamation lawsuit filed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday against the editor-in-chief of the independent Kurdish weekly Hawlati for translating and publishing a report written by a U.S. scholar. Tariq Fatih, publisher of Hawlati, told CPJ the newspaper was served…
New York, January 25, 2008—Several Yemeni news and opinion Web sites have apparently been blocked domestically by the government-owned Internet service provider, according to news reports and a CPJ interview. Three Web sites became unavailable to domestic users on January 19, joining a list of at least five others that have disappeared within Yemen without…