WikiLeaks posts video showing journalists killed in Iraq

06 Apr 10 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost

On 5 April, Wikileaks, the website that publishes sensitive leaked material, released a video showing a 2007 US military airstrike that killed about a dozen Iraqis in eastern Baghdad. Among the dead were a 22-year-old Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. The Pentagon had previously blocked an attempt by Reuters to obtain the video through a freedom of information request. Wikileaks director Julian Assange said his organisation had to break through military encryption to view the footage.

Manga collector sentenced to six months in prison

15 Feb 10 | Index Index, minipost

Christopher Handley, 39-year-old office worker, was sentenced on 11 february to six months in prison for mailing obscene matter, and “possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” Following this sentence, Handley must serve three years of supervised release and five years of probation. Handley was charged under the 2003 Protect Act, which outlaws cartoons, drawings, sculptures or paintings depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

US releases Iraqi photographer

11 Feb 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized

An Iraqi photographer who was arrested in his Mahmudiya home by the US military on 1 September 2008 has been released. Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed was held for 17 months without charge at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad, despite a ruling by Iraq’s central criminal court on 30 November 2008 that he should be released. The US prison authorities claimed the journalist represented a security threat but refused to make specific allegations.

UK: MPs take on CIA over rendition secrets

18 Dec 09 | Index Index, minipost, News and features

A group of MPs has launched legal action against the CIA in a landmark legal case in the United States in an attempt to force the authorities there to release thousands of pages of files about the extraordinary rendition of Islamic terrorist suspects. The group – led by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie – has filed a complaint in a district court in Washington DC after Freedom of Information requests in the US and UK were rejected or where information released was incomplete or heavily redacted. Read more here