Somali journalists held for photographing military action

War photographer and AFP stringer, Mohamed Dahir and Mohamoud Muktar Koofi, a Universal TV cameraman, were arrested and detained for 48 hours on 28 October after they were seen photographing African Union tanks firing at Bakara Market, Mogadishu. The journalists, arrested by Government police, were held at the presidential palace, Villa Somalia. Their cameras were seized and the images erased.

Yemen: reporter banned for life

Munir Al Mawari was sentenced on 31 October to two years in prison and given a lifelong ban on practising journalism for libelling President Ali Abdallah Saleh. In the same case, editor Samir Jubran received a suspended one-year prison sentence and a ban on practising journalism for a year. Both men work for the independent weekly newspaper Al Madar. Al Mawari had written an article in Al Madar criticising the conduct of the war against Shiite rebels in the north of the country. (RSF)

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Zimbabwe: MDC censored

Zimbabwe’s ministry of Media, Information and Publicity has ordered the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and public newspapers to stop reporting on ministers from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), until Morgan Tsvangirai and his party reverse its decision to withdraw contact with ZANU PF, led by President Robert Mugabe.
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