morocco

For the second year in a row, the number of journalists imprisoned for their work hit a historical high, as the U.S. and other Western powers failed to pressure the world’s worst jailers–Turkey, China, and Egypt–into improving the bleak climate for press freedom. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

Protests and violence have broken out in several cities over President Donald Trump’s announcement on December 7 that the U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, according to reports. As well as unrest in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, protesters demonstrated in Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco, and Indonesia, reports said. Several journalists covering…

In August, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told the daily newspaper Information that the government had authorized sales of online surveillance software to several Middle Eastern countries. While acknowledging the potential for human rights violations that could result from the use of these tools, the minister said that Denmark has an interest in the fight…

New York, September 29, 2017–Moroccan authorities should lift any restriction on journalist Saeed Kamali Dehghan’s ability to travel to the country, and allow all journalists to report freely on matters of public interest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Plainclothes policemen on September 27 detained Dehghan while he was reporting on the anti-corruption Al-Hirak…

New York, June 20, 2017–Moroccan authorities should cease harassing Hamid al-Mahdaoui, the editor of the news website Badil, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Moroccan Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit has filed a criminal defamation complaint against al-Mahdaoui, and the editor says he was questioned for six hours last week regarding a video the website…

Moroccan security forces on June 6, 2017, arrested Mohamed al-Asrihi, a video journalist and the director of the opposition news website Rif24, from the home of activist Mohsen Athari in the northern town of Trogout, where he was hiding, according to news reports and a statement from Rif24.

Today Bahrain became the latest Gulf nation to put pressure on news outlets amid political tension, when its Interior Ministry announced that anyone publishing support or sympathy for Qatar faces up to five years in prison. The announcement came the day after the United Arab Emirates used the threat of prison to demarcate how journalists…

New York, June 5, 2017–Bahraini authorities should revoke an order barring the independent news outlet Al-Wasat from publishing and stop harassing the newspaper and its journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Ministry of Information Affairs yesterday ordered Al-Wasat to cease publishing in print and online indefinitely, the outlet’s editor-in-chief Mansoor al-Jamri, told…

There was poignancy to the Paris summit of the Open Government Partnership, as leaders from government and civil society took the stage to defend a political ideology under siege: liberal democracy. French President François Hollande, who amid weak public support announced he will not seek re-election in 2017, called democracy “so fragile and so precious.”…