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CPJ’s launch yesterday in Cairo of our 2008 edition of Attacks on the Press received widespread coverage in the Egyptian, regional, and international media. But not from the state media, which made little mention of Egypt’s ongoing repression of the country’s press, or of the astonishing number of lawsuits the government has pending against journalists,…
The Georgia-Russia crisis in August diverted international attention from another strategically important Caucasus country–oil-rich Azerbaijan. The authoritarian president, Ilham Aliyev, gained a new term in a flawed October 15 vote. Aliyev, who effectively inherited the presidency from his father, Heydar, in 2003, defeated six virtual unknowns after top opposition parties boycotted the October vote to…
The kidnapping and torture of two journalists and a driver working undercover in Rio de Janeiro exposed the risks to Brazilian journalists, especially those reporting on organized crime in urban areas. Throughout the country, journalists covering mayoral and legislative campaigns faced legal and physical harassment.
Egypt took a lead role in developing a regional charter designed to restrict satellite broadcasting throughout the Arab world. At the behest of President Hosni Mubarak, parliament extended the 27-year-old Emergency Law, keeping intact for two additional years a key tool for stifling free expression. In this environment, journalists continued to fend off a rash…
Eleven journalists were killed because of their work, making Iraq the most dangerous nation for the press for the sixth consecutive year. Nevertheless, the figure was the lowest yearly toll since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003–and two-thirds lower than the annual figures for 2007 or 2006.
With a shaky six-month truce coming to an end in late year, Hamas rocket attacks on Israel were met with the largest bombardment of the Gaza Strip since 1967. The headquarters of Hamas-controlled Al-Aqsa TV was destroyed and at least two journalists were injured amid massive airstrikes by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). As 2008…
This deeply divided country reached the brink of full-scale conflict in mid-year after political and religious leaders used the news media to inflame sectarian divisions and failed to abide by the consensual style of government agreed upon at the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. A battle of words that began in December 2006 with…
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…
Morocco continued to backslide on press freedom as independent journalists and news outlets were targeted in a series of politicized court cases. In May, the National Syndicate for Moroccan Press noted a “dangerous trend” in which authorities were “imposing exaggerated fines in defamation cases, resorting to preventive arrest of journalists … banning newspapers and instructing…