Middle East & North Africa

  

Attacks on the Press 1999: Yemen

During the heady days following the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen in 1990, there was a remarkable proliferation of private newspapers and a new vigor in public discourse. In recent years, however, the Yemeni government has been following the repressive example of its regional neighbors. Although Yemen still boasts one of the freest…

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REFORMIST PUBLISHER IN COMA AFTER SHOOTING

New York, March 14, 2000 — A leading reformist newspaper publisher who was shot in the face on March 12 is battling for his life in a Tehran hospital. Saeed Hajjarian, 47, an advisor to President Mohammad Khatami who also publishes the newspaper Sobh-e Emrooz, which has consistently criticized Iran’s hard-line religious rulers, may have…

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Three journalists sentenced to prison terms of up to two years for libel

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in Egypt. New York, April 1, 2000 —The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the New York-based press freedom watchdog, today condemned an Egyptian criminal court’s sentencing of three opposition journalists to prison terms of up totwo years for libel.

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CPJ urges Clinton to raise press freedom concerns with Yemeni leader

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in YEMEN. New York, April 3, 2000 —The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urges U.S. president Bill Clinton to put press freedom high on the agenda for his meeting with Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh in Washington tomorrow. Since the end of Yemen’s 1994 civil war,…

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Yemen: Editor banned for life

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest the February 22 suspension of the opposition weekly newspaper Al-Wahdawi and the banishment of Jamal Amer, the paper’s columnist and editor, from the journalistic profession.

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Israel: Prominent journalists protest treatment of Palestinian reporter

New York, Feb. 7, 2000–Twenty-seven prominent U.S., European, and Israeli journalists called on Prime Minister Ehud Barak today to end Israeli government restrictions on the free movement of Palestinian journalist Taher Shriteh, a veteran Gaza-based reporter for The New York Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun. The appeal is being…

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Dateline Afghanistan: journalism under the Taliban

The Taliban are hardly press freedom champions. Even so, Afghan journalism is showing signs of life.

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Court suspends Yemeni opposition weekly for inciting “sectarianism” and “regionalism”

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly protests the closure of the opposition weekly newspaper Al-Haq.

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Three freed Egyptian journalists still face criminal charges

New York, N.Y., December 6, 1999 — Three Egyptian journalists jailed for libel in August were freed late Sunday night after an Egyptian appeals court overturned their sentences. Magdy Hussein, editor in chief of the opposition biweekly Al-Sha’b, Saleh Bedeiwi, a reporter for Al-Sha’b, and Essam Eddine Hanafi, a cartoonist for the paper, were convicted…

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Iran: Two leading reformist editors sentenced

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to condemn the three-year prison sentence handed down on Saturday against Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, editor of the reformist daily Asr-e-Azadegan. We are also greatly alarmed by the conviction and jailing of Abdullah Nouri, the former Interior Minister and publisher of the daily Khordad, which also took place on Saturday.

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