Middle East & North Africa

CPJ Update July 19 , 2004 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists Return to front page | See previous Updates

At Voice of America, changes prompt concerns about independence and credibility.By Frank Smyth

Libertad para Vázquez Portal!

New York, July 1, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the Algerian government’s decision to suspend operations of the local office of the Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera. According to press reports and journalists in the capital, Algiers, the Ministry of Communications ordered Al-Jazeera’s Algiers bureau to suspend its newsgathering operations yesterday.…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned by the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF’s) missile attack in the Gaza Strip on a building that houses several media outlets.

CPJ Update June 21, 2004 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists Return to front page | See previous Updates

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest Wednesday’s decision in the Criminal Court in Cairo to sentence Ahmed Ezzedine, a journalist with the independent weekly Al-Osbou newspaper, to two years in prison.

New York, June 17, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s expulsion from Morocco of Tor Dagfinn Dommersnes and Fredrik Refvem, a reporter and photographer, respectively, with the Norwegian daily Stavanger Aftenbladet. Dommersnes told CPJ that four plainclothes Moroccan security officers woke Refvem and him up in their hotel rooms in Rabat early yesterday…

New York, June 16, 2004—Mohamed Benchicou, publisher of the French-language daily Le Matin, was sentenced by an Algiers court to two years in prison on Monday, June 14, for violating Algeria’s currency exchange laws, according to Youssef Razzouj, Le Matin’s editor. Benchicou was also ordered to pay a large fine, totaling several hundred thousand dollars…