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| Latest Press Freedom News from the Region | ||||
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Last week, a high number of press freedom violations occurred throughout the Arab world, in: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. In Algeria, the correspondent of the Arabic-language daily Ennahar's Noureddine Boukraa was charged and placed under judicial control by a local court on 4 March as a result of a complaint by Draï Messaoud, the public security chief in the region of Annaba. The police have questioned Boukraa several times in recent months about an article published on 12 November 2007 in which, on the basis of leaked documents, he had accused members of the police of influence-peddling. Also in Algeria, Houari Mohammed, bureau chief of the national daily El Khabar in the city of Mascara, was questioned by a judge on 17 March about an article in which he claimed that a police officer had been arrested for corruption. Mohammed was released provisionally after interrogation. In Egypt, Abdul-Jalil Al-Sharnouby, editor-in-chief of the Ikhwanonline website (the official site of the Muslim Brotherhood) and a member of the Egyptian Syndicate of Journalists (EJS), has had his home raided by security forces twice in the past weeks in connection to the Ikwanonline's coverage of the upcoming municipal elections. In a letter to the board of the EJS, Al-Sharnouby said security forces invaded his home in the early morning of 12 March while he was absent. They confiscated books, paper work and other belongings. "It scared my wife and my young daughters," he said. He has now gone into hiding out of fear that he will be arrested. In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's bodyguards attacked journalists working for the pan-Arab satellite TV station Al-Arabiya and Iraqi TV station Al-Sumariya in Babel on 20 March. Police officers guarding the Prime Minister reportedly hit the journalists, smashed a camera and confiscated their footage. Also in Iraq, Mohammed Saleh Hajji Taha, the editor of the Kurdish daily Rahsen, was freed on bail on 19 March after being held for three days. He was arrested in Dahuk on 16 March for articles criticising the penal code of Iraq. No date has been set for his trial. In Jordan, five journalists were sentenced to three months in prison by the Court of First Instance in Amman for alleged violations of the penal code on 16 March, in two separate legal cases. In the first case, two of Jordan's main dailies, Ad-Dustour and Al Arab Al Yawm, were prosecuted for publishing a news item about a lawsuit filed by a Jordanian against a court decision to deprive him of his citizenship in 2006. The two newspapers were sued, as well as their editors-in-chief and their representatives: Usama Sharif of Ad-Dustour and Taher Al Udwan of Al Arab Al Yawm. The three-month sentence was also applied to two reporters with the dailies: Fayez al Lawzi and Sahar Al Qasem, working respectively for Ad-Dustour and Al Arab Al Yawm. The second case was related to an article by satirical writer Abdul Hadi Raji Majali, published in the Al Rai daily. The article which was about the Higher Media Council, was deemed slanderous and its author was sentenced to three months in prison. In Morocco, a court convicted Rachid Ninni, the director of the Al Massae group, for libel on 25 March and ordered him to pay damages of six million dirhams (524,000 euros/816,000 dollars) to four different prosecutors. The Rabat court also told Ninni, who is equally the managing editor of the Arabic-language Al Massae newspaper, to pay 120,000 dirhams as a fine to the state, and ruled that the verdict must be published in four newspapers, including his own. Ninni, who did not attend the hearing, has 10 days to appeal. Four prosecutors took action against the paper after one of them was accused of sexual perversion in a report about a private party held in November in the town of Ksar el Kebir. In Saudi Arabia, a religious edict issued on 14 March by a radical Saudi cleric calls for the trial of two writers for their "heretical articles" and their death if they do not repent. The two articles, written by Yousef Aba al-Khail and Abdullah bin Bejad, were published earlier this year by the daily Al-Riyadh. In Syria, a military tribunal adjourned the trial of journalist Mazen Darwish, head of the Syrian Centre for Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression, on 15 March after questioning him. The new date for the trial is 15 April. Darwish is accused of "libelling and defaming the state's bodies" by publishing a report about the January 2008 riots in Damascus, and for criticizing the failure of the security bodies to protect the citizens killed in thz riots. Arrested on 12 January while covering these incidents, Darwish was released three days later. Also in Syria, the authorities refused on 20 March to give Bahia Mardini, the correspondent of the news website Elaph (www.elaph.com), accreditation for the Arab League summit taking place in Damascus on 28-29 March. In Tunisia, the distribution of Al Maoukif, the newspaper of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), was disturbed on 14 March. Plain-clothes agents reportedly bought or seized most of the copies at newsstands throughout the country. The editor-in-chief of the weekly thinks that the authorities are punishing the newspaper for campaigning in favour of Ahmed Néjib Chebbi, Director of Al Maoukif, leader of the PDP and a presidential candidate. In Yemen, the authorities banned the distribution of the first issue of the monthly Abwabon on 14 March 2008. The publication, printed in Dubai, was seized on arrival at the airport of the capital Sanaa. The editor of the magazine reportedly said that the cover, which showed President Ali Abdallah Al-Saleh, was deemed disrespectful to the president. Also in Yemen, the website http://www.aleshteraki.net, the mouthpiece of the main opposition party, is inaccessible since 12 March. SOURCES: Reporters without Borders (RSF), Paris Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), New York Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo), Cairo Arab Archives Institute (AAI), Amman International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Brussels Press Release of Al Maoukif Agence France Presse, AFP, Rabat
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