23 Apr 12 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Index condemns the arrest and deportation of foreign journalists covering demonstrations against the Bahrain Grand Prix this past weekend.
Three journalists from Channel 4, including foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller, were arrested while filming a demonstration on Sunday. The arrest of the journalists, along with a local driver and prominent Bahraini human rights activist was reportedly “aggressive”.
Bahrain’s Information Affairs Authority (IAA) tweeted today that the journalists were in violation of “media rules” for entering the country without accreditation.
International media was given limited access to the country during the controversial race, as journalists from Sky News, Financial Times, CNN, and Reuters were denied entry. According to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Japanese journalists from Asahi Newspaper were detained while covering protests. Local fixers and journalists are also under threat — photojournalist Mazen Mahdi claimed that police threatened to break his camera while covering a protest yesterday. Blogger and activist Mohammed Hasan was arrested and detained on Friday, and arrested once again Sunday with journalist Colin Freeman of the Sunday Telegraph. He was reportedly beaten during his initial arrest.
While the IAA has claimed that it allows the foreign media and workers to monitor ongoing unrest freely, this has not been the case. Journalists and rights workers were barred from entering Bahrain in the time leading up to the anniversary of Bahrain’s unrest, 14 February.
Bahrain should allow foreign media to have unfettered access to the country, and local fixers and activists should not be targeted for working with international journalists.
20 Apr 12 | Azerbaijan Letters, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Index on Censorship joins the call for an immediate, independent and transparent investigation into the brutal attack on investigative journalist and Index award winner Idrak Abbasov
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19 Apr 12 | Index Index, minipost
Four citizen journalists have been killed in Syria, despite the recent ceasefire. Ahmed Abdallah Fakhriyeh, Samir Shalab Al-Sham Abu Mohamed, Alaa Al-Din Hassan Al-Douri and Khaled Mahmoud Kabbisho were killed in the last week. Fakhriyeh was shot dead on his way to film the arrival of Syrian army in a the village of Dmeir on 14 April. On the same day Al-Sham, who worked for the Syrian News Network, died shortly after a mortar round hit the building he was filming in on Tuesday. On 17 April, activist Kabbisho was summarily executed after being questioned in the North West of the country. It is reported his head was crushed by a tank. Leading rights activist Al-Douri was hit by a bullet at a roadblock to the North-West of Hama. His body was handed over to his family on Tuesday (17 April), and is believed to show signs of torture.
19 Apr 12 | Middle East and North Africa
The fraud squad questions the publishing director of an e-magazine over an opinion piece which criticised a Tunisian financial institution.
The police accused Hamza Lakhoua from the French-speaking Espace Manager of “publishing false information” and “damaging the reputation of a financial institution, and that of the country”.
Lakhoua refused to reveal to Index on Censorship the name of the financial institution he criticised “to avoid more problems”. He said: “In my opinion piece I criticised the institution’s management policies”.
Lakhoua explained: “They are accusing me of damaging the reputation of Tunisia, because this institution has major transactions with other international institutions such as the World Bank”.
He also told Index that while interrogating him, the fraud squad did not adhere to the press code, tell him “electronic journalism is still not considered as journalism in Tunisia”.
If convicted Lakhoua could face a fine and a jail term.
