Egyptian author Youssef Ziedan faces a five-year jail term after being accused of insulting Christianity in his prize-winning novel Azazeel...
CATEGORY: Middle East and North Africa
Murder sparks angry protests by Iraqi Kurds
Hundreds of university students assaulted a local parliament building in Erbil, the capital of Iraqs semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on 10 May. The...
Iran sentences journalist Maziar Bahari
Maziar Bahari sentenced by Iran in absentia — 13 years and 6 months in jail and 74 lashes
Iraq: Kurdish journalist kidnapped and killed
Freelance journalist Sardasht Osman was found dead yesterday in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Osman, who was abducted on 5...
Elton John concert banned in Egypt
Elton John was banned from playing a private show on 18 May after the head of Egypt’s musician union denounced his “anti-religious sentiments”....
West Bank: Journalists detained
Twoal-Jazeera reporters were prevented from covering a demonstration in the West Bank on Friday by the Israeli military. They were detained for four...
Egypt: Classic book faces ban
A team of lawyers called for the ban of Arabic classic A Thousand and One Nights on 17 April. The lawyers, from the "Actio popularis" group, filed a...
From the archive: Revolution at the crossroads
Index on Censorship contributor
Fred Halliday has died at the age of 64. Here, we republish a typically insightful Halliday article on the Islamic Republic of Iran from 2001
Editor-in-chief abducted from Baghdad home
The editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper al-Shahid, Saad al-Aossi, was abducted on 14 April. Armed men invaded his home, confiscated his computer...
Yemen: Media company raided for reporting police raid
The building of 14 October, a Yemeni national media company, was overrun by soldiers on 21 April in order to confiscate the latest issue of...