12 Sep 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Lebanese blogger Imad Bazzi was denied entry to Egypt on 5 September, 2011, and sent back to Lebanon. Bazzi, who is also director of CyberACT — an NGO which advocates the usage of social media tools in order to create reforms in the Middle East and North African region — was told that his name “was on a list of people banned from entering at the request of a security apparatus”.
28 Jul 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Lebanese musician Zeid Hamdan was briefly held at the prison of the Palace of Justice in Beirut on Wednesday for defaming President Michel Suleiman, urging him in a song posted on YouTube last year to “go home.” A statement posted on Hamdan’s Facebook page by his lawyer, Nizar Saghieh, noted that the musician had been investigated three times in recent weeks. He was released late on Wednesday, though Saghieh says his client faces a maximum of two years in prison if the prosecutor decides to file formal slander charges against him.
According to the LA Times’ Babylon & Beyond blog, Sagieh called Hamdan’s detention “a blatant violation of the right of freedom of expression.” He added, “this increasingly obvious over-sensitivity of the regime to any form of criticism of the president is the problem of the regime and not the citizen.”
11 Oct 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
State censors in Lebanon have asked Beirut International Film Festival not to show an Iranian opposition film during a visit from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Originally scheduled for screening on 13 October, the day of Ahmadinejad’s arrival, the film “Green Days” documents violent protests in Iran following last year’s disputed elections. Director Hana Makhamalbaf is the daughter of Mohsen Makhamalbaf, who is close to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
03 Aug 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
Al Jazeera is reporting that Assaf Abou Rahhal, a journalist with Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper, was killed today in an exchange of fire between the Lebanese Army and the Israel Defence Forces.
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