Middle East & North Africa

  

Palestine: Open season on broadcast media

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest recent attempts by the Palestinian National Authority to silence private broadcast media in the West Bank.

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Tunisia: London-based journalist on hunger strike to protest government travel ban against his family

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to express its deep concern for Noureddine Aouididi, a London-based Tunisian journalist whose family has been denied the right to travel outside Tunisia. We fear that these restrictions have been imposed in reprisal for Aouididi’s journalistic work.

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CPJ Condemns Assassination Attempt on Tunisian Journalist Riad Ben Fadhel Seriously Wounded in Drive-by Shooting Outside His Home

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in TUNISIA New York, May 26, 2000–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today condemned Tuesday’s assassination attempt against Tunisian journalist Riad Ben Fadhel, which occurred only days after the journalist published an article criticizing Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

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Local journalist freed as Israeli forces withdraw from South Lebanon; BBC driver killed by shellfire

Read an account of the shelling incident in The Financial Times and in the BBC New York, May 23, 2000 — A Lebanese free-lance reporter was freed today after nine months in detention, as Israeli troops pushed ahead with their accelerated withdrawal from occupied southern Lebanon, Lebanese sources told CPJ today.

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Morocco: Censorship, criminal prosecution of journalists on the rise

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about government restrictions on press freedom in Morocco this year. During the past four months, Moroccan authorities have taken several punitive measures against the press, including the censorship of newspapers and the criminal prosecution of journalists.

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TAOUFIK BEN BRIK ENDS 43-DAY HUNGER STRIKE

New York, May 16, 2000 —Tunisian journalist Taoufik Ben Brik, who went 43 days without food to protest government harassment, ended his hunger strike yesterday in Paris, where he has been staying since leaving Tunisia on May 4. Ben Brik had vowed to continue his strike until Tunisian authorities released his brother Jalal Zoughlami, who…

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Editor charged with instigating “sectarian feuds”

Al-Ayyam is the first and only Yemeni newspaper to interview Abu Hamza Al-Masri. “I Paid A lot of Taxes to the ‘Non-Believers’ and Now I Reap the Benefits” [Published in Al-Ayyam, August 11, 1999] [CPJ Editor’s Note: This translation has been edited for style].

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CPJ and Human Rights Watch Protest Ongoing Harassment of Tunisian Journalist

New York, April 5, 2000–In a joint letter sent today to Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) strongly protested the Tunisian authorities’ continued harassment of journalist Taoufik Ben Brik, who is being persecuted solely for exercising his internationally guaranteed right to freedom of expression.…

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Editor prosecuted for coverage of local terrorism trial

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to strongly protest the prosecution of Hisham Basharaheel, the editor in chief and publisher of the independent thrice-weekly newspaper Al-Ayyam.

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Iran Briefing: May 2000

New York, May 5, 2000 —When Iran’s top cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched a scathing tirade against the country’s pro-reform newspapers on April 20, journalists braced for the inevitable showdown. On previous occasions when the supreme leader had excoriated the press, the conservative-dominated judiciary responded with remarkable swiftness, shutting down newspapers and hauling journalists to…

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