“The aim of sending me to prison was to make me suffer as much as possible". APN met with Algerian publisher Mohammed Benchicou one year after he was released from prison.
WAN protests kidnapping of BBC journalist:
WAN has
expressed concern for the safety and well-being of the Alan Johnston, a
BBC correspondent in Gaza, who was kidnapped on 12 March in Gaza City. More
30 April 2007
3 May is World Press Freedom Day:
On 3 May, newspapers around the world will be celebrating World Press Freedom Day. How will your newspaper bring attention to this day? WAN offers a range of materials that media can publish free of charge to celebrate this important day.More
27 April 2007
Latest Press Freedom News From the Region: This week, press freedom violations have occurred in ِAlgeria, Iraq, Jordan, Somalia and Syria. More
26 April 2007
Defamation ABC released in Arabic: ARTICLE 19 has released its publication 'Defamation ABC' in Arabic and French translations. The ABC is intended both as an accessible introduction to the law of defamation, and as a tool for those interested in progressive reform of defamation statutes, whether lawyers or non-lawyers.More
26 April 2007
Arab Women Media Center to Hold Conference: The Amman-based
Arab Women Media Center will be holding its sixth Arab
Women’s Media Conference from June 26 to
28. Entitled, “Arab Women Journalists in between Laws and Ethics”, the
conference will be held at the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, Jordan.More
25 April 2007
Not a day without Al Dustur : In an effort to offer an alternative voice to the Egyptian newspaper readers, the independent weekly Al Dustur got a daily sister newspaper with the same name at the end of March 2007. APN interviewed Ehab Elzelaky, the newspaper’s editor, about the challenges and opportunities of producing a daily newspaper, in a politically challenging context, where diverging voices are not welcome.More
24 April 2007
World Press Freedom Day, 3 May: to Publish or Not? The Dilemma of Uncovering Government Secrets:
The decision to publish government secrets is never an easy one, but has become even more difficult since the September 11 attacks, says Bill Keller, Executive Editor of the New York Times, in an exclusive interview with the World Association of Newspapers that is being offered to newspapers world-wide for publication on World Press Freedom Day, 3 May.
In Jordan,
on 7 April 2007, cameraman Fady Ramhy and reporter Aubaida Dammour who
work for Al Ghad TV, a new television station, were assaulted by
Jordanian General Security officers while covering a strike of bus
drivers at a bus station south of Amman.
Mauritanian Media Put to the Test : Two years
after a military coup that ended nearly 20 years of authoritarian rule,
Mauritanians went to the polls and voted in what became one of the
first tests of the new public media.More
19 April 2007
WAN Denounces UN Human Rights Council Resolution as Suppression of Freedom of Expression :
On 30 March 2007, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on “Combating Defamation of Religions.” Under the guise of protecting religious sensibilities, WAN has denounced this resolution as a facilitator to the attack on freedom of expression.
Courts, press law undermine Moroccan press freedoms: A delegation
from the Committee to Protect Journalists voiced concern about a troubling pattern of punitive judicial sanctions that have
threatened Morocco’s independent press.More
18 April 2007
Free As Ever: Journalist, novelist, and blogger, Sanaa Elaji, 30, has an incisive style. One of her recent articles, Jokes: How Moroccans laugh about religion, sex and politics, published in Nichane resulted in criminal charges being pressed against her, as well as her editor-in-chief, Driss Ksikes, last January.More
17 April 2007
The 60th World Newspaper Congress:
While newspapers throughout the world confront the exciting challenge of creating multi-platform news and advertising enterprises, the media in dozens of African countries still remain engaged in the struggle to finally win freedom and independence.
Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships names 2007 Fellows:
Nine journalists, including two from Egypt and Iraq have been named the Alfred Friendly Press Fellows (AFPF) for 2007 and arrived in the United States 16 March to begin six months of journalism training in American news organizations.
In Syria, Ibrahim Zoro was arrested on 5 April 2007 in Damascus. Zoro was taking part in the organisation of a seminar entitled "The Philosophy of Lies."
Increasing repression by the Tunisian government has caused a "serious deterioration" in press freedom in the country, according to an international coalition of freedom of expression and human rights groups, including the World Association of Newspapers.
A recent poll showed that forty percent of Arabic-language journalists would be more likely to make use of a press release if it was accompanied by a gift.
Press Under Surveillance: WAN launches its 3 May Campaign :
Major terrorist attacks and threats against countries world-wide have led to the widespread tightening of security and surveillance measures which all too often are also used to stifle debate, individual liberties and freedom of the press, according to the World Association of Newspapers.
Sibawayh’s fault: Chérif Choubachy, ex-director of the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram’s Paris office and a former news anchor in Egypt, recently published the book A bas Sibawayh, (Down with Sibawayh), which sparked an outcry in the Arab world. More
07 April 2007
Latest press freedom news from the region:
In Iraq, Khamail Khalaf, who was abducted on 3 April 2007 in Yarmouk district in Baghdad, was found dead in Baghdad's Jamia neighborhood two days after.
Freevoice is looking for a Middle East partner: The Dutch
foundation Free Voice is looking for a partner organization in Egypt,
Jordan or Lebanon to collaborate in one of its projects in the Middle
East.More
06 April 2007
Eighteen Arab Media Managers to win a six-week fellowship in the US :
Arab media managers and supervisors will have a unique opportunity this fall to enhance their leadership skills and find innovative solutions to the challenges they face in media management through a comprehensive six-week fellowship.
Palestinian photographer Mohammed Ballas, from Associated Press, won the third prize singles in the spot news category of the 50th annual World Press Photo Contest.
«Who killed the newspaper?» was the title in September of the British weekly, The Economist. This “obituary” did not leave the World Editors Forum (WEF) impassive, the organization for Editors within the World Association of Newspapers, which wasted no time in polling editors-in-chief, deputy editors and other senior news executives.
au fait is the first free daily to be launched in Morocco, which already has several free weeklies. With a circulation of 10,000 copies, this newspaper is distributed from Monday to Friday by a team of fourteen peddlers in Casablanca and three in Rabat since 1 March 2007, it will soon be available in Marrakech.
Femmes Arabes or the challenges facing an ethnic magazine:
Shortly after the attacks of September 11, Khadija Darid, a Canadian of Moroccan origin who has lived in Quebec for the past 18 years, decided to start a magazine for the Arab community in Canada, whose image had been quite tarnished.
Rugby Board Puts Commercial Interests Ahead of Press Freedom:
A former
director of New Zealand rugby has called on the International Rugby
Board to drop restrictions on press coverage of the 2007 World Cup,
saying the Board is "improperly seeking to interfere in the gathering
and publishing of news in the short term pursuit of the dollar."
Latest Press Freedom News From the Region:
In Syria,
detained writer and journalist Michel Kilo was condemned by a criminal
court in Damascus on 26 March 2007, for signing in May 2006 the
"Beirut-Damascus, Damascus-Beirut" joint statement.More
29 March 2007
Yemen media law under review:
Convened by the independent human rights organisation ARTICLE 19, Global Campaign for Freedom of Expression and the Yemen Female Media Forum, a Media Law Working Group held its first meeting on 21-22 March 2007 in Sanna’a.
Ground-breaking Newspapers in Education Guides Available from WAN:
"Reading & Learning," a ground-breaking series
of Newspapers in Education (NIE) guides that target diversity as a core
element of NIE, has just been published by the World Association of
Newspapers.
With an ever-expanding list of media,
education, information and entertainment channels all competing for the
attention and time of young people, newspapers must continuously
rethink and revisit their traditional approaches and strategies for
engaging young readers.
In Iraq, the editor-in-chief of the daily al-Safir, Hussein al Jaburi, died from his injuries in a hospital in Amman, Jordan on 16 March 2007 where he was taken for treatment after being ambushed outside his Baghdad home on 11 February 2007.
« Women and Islam: Understanding and Reporting » is the theme of the 2007 Elizabeth Neuffer Forum on Human Rights and Journalism. This annual event will be held on March 29, 2007, at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
WAN Protests Against Rugby and Australian Football Media Restrictions:
The World Association of Newspapers and a coalition of the world's leading news agencies today protested against severe restrictions placed on press coverage of this year's Rugby World Cup in France, and said the restrictions imposed by the International Rugby Board "are a serious breach of freedom of the press."
In Morrocco, Azzedin Gaiz, a correspondent for the national daily Yawmiyat Ennass, filed a complaint to the prosecutor's office in the city of Khénifra on 30 January 2007. According to reports, Gaiz had received several anonymous calls in the past month, telling him to stop writing if he wanted to live.
I say to Al-Azhar and its university and its professors and preachers who stand against anyone who thinks differently to them: 'You are destined for the rubbish bin of history, where you will find no one to cry for you and your regime will end like others have'. The author of these words, Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year old Egyptian blogger, was sentenced last February to four years imprisonment.
“Caricature can be a two-edged blade”, an interview with Hana Hajjar, a young Saudi editorial cartoonist:
Hana Hajjar, 26, is one of the very rare women cartoonists in the Arab world. Born in Saudi Arabia where she studied fine arts, she has been working mainly with the English-speaking Saudi daily Arab News for almost two years now. Each month, between 10 and 15 of her drawings are published in this newspaper.
The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) is seeking nominations from around the world for its 2007 Courage in Journalism Awards and Lifetime Achievement Award.
« Women and Islam: Understanding and Reporting » is the theme of the 2007 Elizabeth Neuffer Forum on Human Rights and Journalism. This annual event will be held on March 29, 2007, at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Arabs are rich, lazy people who always complain of being Israel’s victims. Americans are fat consumers who do not know a thing about the rest of the world. These are just basic examples of widespread stereotypes in the United States and Arab countries.
In Somaliland, Haatuf newspaper chairman Yusuf Abdi Gabobe, editor-in-chief Ali Abdi Dini and journalists Mohammed Omar Sheik and Mohammed Rashid Farah were sentenced by Hargeisa court on 4 March to jail terms ranging from 24 to 29 months.
'Giving in would have meant becoming lapdogs'. An interview with Zakia Daoud, an emblematic figure of Moroccan journalism:
Born Jacqueline
David in 1937 in Bernay, France, in the heart of Normandy, she would
later become Zakia Daoud in 1963, and one of the most emblematic
characters of Moroccan journalism. The reputation of that self-taught
woman who left school when she was 16 is mostly due to Lamalif, an
audacious French speaking publication that she founded in 1966 with her
husband, Mohamed Loghlam.
More
08 March 2007
Enter the Samir Kassir Award contest :
Middle Eastern and North African journalists working in print, radio, television or online are invited to submit entries for the second edition of the Samir Kassir Award for Freedom of the Press by 30 March 2007.
RSF protests outside the Tunisian Tourist Office: As Tunisian lawyer and cyberdissident Mohamed Abbou began his third year in prison, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) activists demonstrated outside the Tunisian Tourism Office in Paris on 1March 2007 to protest against his continued detention. Mohamed Abbou was jailed two years ago for criticising President Ben Ali in online articles.
More
07 March 2007
Global Enquiry Into Journalist Killings Published:
The International News Safety Institute (INSI)
presents the dramatic results of the world’s most comprehensive inquiry
into the deaths of journalists over the last decade in a report called Killing The Messenger: The Deadly Price of News.
Print journalists covering local stories in developing countries and freelancers specialized in foreign reporting have until 15 June 2007 to enter the Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism. The submitted articles should focus on conflict, human-rights concerns, cross-border issues, or any other issue of controversy. The stories must have been published between 1 March 2006 and 30 April 2007.
The contest, which is co-organised by Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an international non-profit media development network, and the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund, celebrates the memory of the American freelance reporter killed in an ambush while on assignment for Reuters in Sierra Leone in May 2000.
Two annual prizes of $5,000 each are awarded - one to to a local journalist in the developing world, and the second to an international freelance journalist covering foreign news. Massoud Ansari from Pakistan and the late Steven Vincent from the US were last year’s winners.
Le Canard Libéré is the name of the latest newspaper to hit the Moroccan newsstands at a price of 8 Dirham (0,7 Euro). The first issue of this French-language satirical weekly was launched on 3 February.
The World Association of Newspapers has joined an international day of action calling for the release of Mohamed Abbou, a Tunisian lawyer and human rights activist, jailed for having exercised his freedom of expression.
A growing number of training programmes in the past year have encouraged Jordanian journalists to be more outspoken, even though the media are still facing a number of problems.
A new self-assessment website has been launched, providing journalists and those who work them with a confidential tool to help them determine if they are suffering the effects of post traumatic stress. This unique web-based clinic is now available directly at www.conflict-study.comor through a link on the front page of the website of the International News Safety Institute (INSI) at www.newssafety.com
Conference to Explore Reading Habits Among Young People:
Time is getting short to register for the 7th World Young Reader
Conference, “Making New Connections,” set for 25 to 28 March 2007 in
Washington, D.C., USA.
The event will include the full range of
new approaches, delivery platforms and rethinking we must be doing to
have a hope that newspapers will connect with a generation whose
members are more and more content to find out for themselves what’s
going on and using paths we don’t provide.
First newspaper audit carried out in Oman :
The free
English-language weekly TheWeek in Oman has become the first paper in
the country to provide audited circulation data to its advertisers. The
aim of the audit is to create more transparency in a market which
traditionally does not reveal information about circulation figures.
BPA Worldwide, a non-profit organization based in the United States
carried out the audit for the newspaper. According to BPA, their audits
provide advertisers with assurance that the newspaper they choose to
invest in, does in fact reach target audiences for specific ads.
APN spoke to
Saleh Zakwani, publisher and CEO of Apex Press and Publishing, which
publishes TheWeek, about why the paper decided to carry out an audit
and its overall aims.
Conference on Safety and Training for Arab Journalists: A conference for media professionals from the Arab world will be held in The Hague, the Netherlands in June 2007. Under the title of "Strategy for Training Journalists and Protection of Journalists in the Arab World" a number of Arab and international experts on media, freedom of press and development will meet and discuss the strategy to raise professional journalistic standards, legal awareness and freedom the press in the Arab world. The dates for the conference are 7 to 8 June. More
01 February 2007
WEF Master Class for Arab World:
Editors from across the Middle East gathered in Cairo on 24 and 25 January for "How to successfully reshape Arab newspapers," the second in a series of Master Classes for editors in developing countries from the World Editors Forum.
The two-day event, co-organised with the German-based International Institute for Jouranalism, (InWent), combined strategic advice and case studies on a wide variety of topics of concern to newspapers in the Arab world. Twenty chief editors and senior news executives from newspapers in the region took part in the seminar.
Topics included major press trends, newspaper design, newsroom organisation, reader participation, and convergence with on-line media. The seminar also provided in-depth case studies of innovative developments at Gulf News, As Sabah in Morocco, The Times of India, The New York Times, and the Voralberger Nachrichten in Austria.
Speakers included: Khalid Belyazid, Editor, As Sabah, Morocco; Craig Duff, Consultant Editor, The New York Times, USA; Werner Eggert, Senior Project Manager, International Institute for Journalism, Germany; Bachi Karkaria, Consultant Editor, The Times of India, India; Douglas Okasaki, Regional director for Middle East, Society of News Design, UAE and Bertrand Pecquerie, Director, World Editors Forum, France.
APN will shorty carry stories from the event.
The WEF began its Master Class series last year in Hanoi, Vietnam. For more information on the Master Classes, contact Bertrand Pecquerie, WEF Director, at bpecquerie@wan.asso.fr
Prison
sentences, physical attacks and publication bans are among the press
freedom violations that occurred in Egypt last year. In its annual
report on press freedom in Egypt, the Arab Press Freedom Watch (APFW)
reports on a high number of press freedom violations in this country
which at the same time is the home to a vibrant press, including over
two hundred independent publications. Many of the violations were
linked to political events in Egypt, in connection to which the media
were among the main victims. Several politicians filed suits against
journalists, among them the former Minister of Housing, Eng. Mohamed
Ibrahim Soliman who filed 35 suits, most of them resulting in
sentences.
In a country
where working for a media outlet has become synonymous with threats,
kidnappings and killings, Iraqi Kurdistan remains a relatively safe
area. Media outlets in the autonomous entity, located in northern Iraq,
also have a longer tradition of independence than the rest of Iraq.
However, running a newspaper in Kurdistan is still a challenge,
characterized by issues similar to those in other parts of Iraq, or
other places in the world where media are under pressure.
Tunisia: New Breaches of the Right to Freedom of Expression:
WAN and the IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group express their serious concern that Tunisian authorities arbitrarily ordered Dar Assabah not to issue its new weekly magazine L'Expression and banned the French magazine Historia Thématique. These are the latest acts in a campaign of state harassment of the media, a campaign that includes censoring publications and jailing journalists, the coalition of 16 press freedom and freedom of expression organisations said.
More