Q&A: Syrian journalist Michel Kilo after prison
On May 18, Syrian journalist and pro-democracy activist Michel Kilo was released from prison after serving a three-year sentence for “weakening national sentiment and encouraging sectarian strife.” Kilo, who was a regular contributor to the leading Lebanese daily, Al-Nahar, and the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi among other publications, was detained in May 2006 after writing…
Audio Report: Worst Countries to be a Blogger
In our special report, “10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger,” CPJ names the world’s leading online oppressors. Here, Deputy Director Robert Mahoney explains why CPJ undertook this report and how it arrived at its conclusions. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here to download. (5:34) Read “10 Worst…
Syrian journalist held incommunicado, another on trial
New York, April 22, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Syrian authorities to disclose the whereabouts of a journalist who has been held incommunicado since early April after he was ordered to visit the political security office in Aleppo.
Attacks on the Press in 2008: Middle East/North Africa Developments
ALGERIA | JORDAN | KUWAIT | MAURITANIA | SAUDI ARABIA | SYRIA | TURKEY| UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ALGERIA • In September, the Supreme Court overturned the defamation convictions of Editor-in-Chief Omar Belhouchet and columnist Chawki Amari of the Algiers-based independent daily El Watan, the newspaper’s lawyer, Zoubeir Soudani, told CPJ. The high court ordered a…
Dateline Iraq – Five Years Later: Additional comments by Bobby Ghosh
Bobby Ghosh, Time magazine, world editor On Iraqi staff The journalists arriving in Iraq after that period–let’s say between the spring of 2006 and today–only get to see little slivers of the country, you can see the Green Zone which is not really Iraq, its this sort of strange artificial construct, and you can maybe…