Syria / Middle East & North Africa

Could you pick out Equatorial Guinea on the world map? Or Turkmenistan, or Eritrea? Probably not at the first attempt. These countries are usually below the radar of the international media, and the autocrats who run them like it that way. It helps them crush press freedoms and keep their population in the dark. That is why the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom group, has drawn up a league table of the world’s 10 most censored countries. We hope that the list, issued on World Press Freedom Day, will shine a light into the dark corners of the world where governments and their political cronies decide what people will read, see, and hear.

CPJ Update May 22, 2006 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists Return to front page | See previous Updates

See updated list of 10 Most Censored Countries at: https://cpj.org/reports/2019/09/10-most-censored-eritrea-north-korea-turkmenistan-journalist.php. North Korea tops CPJ’s list of “10 Most Censored Countries”

By Ivan KarakashianA Yemeni editor’s decision to reprint cartoons of Muhammad sparks government reprisals. Other cases abound.

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…

As legal proceedings begin in France to shed light on the murder of Lebanese journalist and academic Samir Qassir on June 2, hundreds of his friends, students and journalists refuse to forget.

Syria An ongoing state crackdown on political dissent further dulled hopes that President Bashar al-Assad would loosen the shackles on the country’s news media. Bashar promised greater media openness four years ago when he assumed power following the death of his father, the ironfisted Hafez al-Assad. In his first months in office, he injected new…

Although Syrian officials continued to pay lip service to their support for more open media discourse in the country, in practice they failed to exhibit a willingness to tolerate independent news outlets in 2003. President Bashar al-Assad’s first months in office in 2000 witnessed important press freedom gains that included the launching of private and…

An Archive of Special Reports from Around the World 2000-2004

New York, August 5, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the Syrian government’s closure of the privately owned satirical weekly Al-Domari. Anwar al-Bunni, a lawyer representing the paper, told CPJ that the government canceled the newspaper’s license on July 31. On Sunday, August 3, the state-owned daily Tishrin reported that the Ministry of Information…