New York, July 1, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the prosecution of Mansour al-Jamri and Hussein Khalaf, editor and reporter, respectively, of the independent Bahraini daily Al-Wasat. Today was the second hearing in a trial that began on June 21, and is to resume in September. The case against Al-Jamri and…
The Arab world continues to lag behind the rest of the globe in civil and political rights, including press freedom. Despotic regimes of varying political shades regularly limit news that they think will undermine their power. Hopes that a new generation of leaders would tolerate criticism in the press have proved illusory, with many reforms…
In 2002, Bahrainis went to the polls for the first time in three decades. Municipal and parliamentary elections, held in May and October, respectively, were the result of King Hamed Bin Issa al-Khalifa’s much anticipated political reforms, which are aimed at bringing limited democracy to this tiny Persian Gulf archipelago. Although the elections represented a…
While the press is largely free within Israel proper, the country’s military assault on the Occupied Territories fueled a sharp deterioration in press freedom in the West Bank and Gaza during much of 2002. Despite vocal international protest, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed an assortment of press freedom abuses, ranging from banning press access…
Major political reforms augured well for press freedom in the tiny Persian Gulf country of Bahrain, which was plagued by social tension and political unrest for part of the 1990s. In a mid-February referendum, voters overwhelmingly approved Emir Sheikh Hamed Bin Issa al-Khalifa’s national charter, which seeks to transform the country into a constitutional monarchy…