February 12, 2004, New York—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today called on U.S. President George W. Bush to raise the issue of Tunisia’s deplorable press freedom record in his upcoming meeting with Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, scheduled for Tuesday, February 17. In a letter to President Bush, CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper…
New York, November 19, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the release yesterday of Tunisian Internet journalist Zouhair Yahyaoui, who had been imprisoned since his June 4, 2002, arrest. Yahyaoui, editor of the online publication TUNEZINE.com, was sentenced to 28 months in prison on June 20, 2002, after a Tunis court convicted him of…
New York, October 3, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned that Tunisian authorities have harassed journalist and human rights activist Néziha Rejiba, also known as Om Zeid. According to the Tunisian press freedom group Observatoire de la Liberté de la Presse, de L’Edition et de la Création (OLPEC), Rejiba, who is the…
New York, August 26, 2003— In an August 14 letter to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William J. Burns said that U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed their concern about the ongoing imprisonment of Internet journalist Zouhair Yahyaoui. “In the last week both Acting Assistant Secretary…
New York, April 22, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the health of Zouhair Yahyaoui, an imprisoned Tunisian Internet journalist who began a hunger strike on March 29 to protest his prison conditions. According to a family member who visited Yahyaoui last week, the journalist was placed, naked, in solitary confinement…
Although the Kenya-based East African Standard, one of Africa’s oldest continuously published newspapers, marked its 100th anniversary in November, journalism remains a difficult profession on the continent, with adverse government policies and multifaceted economic woes still undermining the full development of African media.
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…
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…
In May, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali won 99.52 percent approval for constitutional changes that allow him to run for a fourth term in 2004. The poll–condemned by human rights groups inside and outside the country as rigged–did not surprise those familiar with Ben Ali’s 15-year, strongman rule of Tunisia.