The escalating attacks on critical journalists in Tunisia
Committee to Protect Journalists
CPJ Blog
Press Freedom News and Views
Kamel Labidi
CPJ consultant Kamel Labidi is a veteran journalist and human rights defender, specializing in the Middle East and North Africa.
While high-ranking Arab officials are not held accountable for misinforming or misleading the public, critical journalists in their respective countries are increasingly dragged into courts and handed harsh jail sentences following unfair trials for “spreading false news.”
On Saturday,
Two weeks ago,
Ministers and
officials representing some 20 Western and Arab governments and international
financial institutions declared themselves “friends of 
“When people want to live, destiny must surely respond. Darknesss will disappear, chains will certainly break!”
Journalist Taoufik
Ben Brik, 49, spurred admiration among his relatives and lawyers at a
As Col. Muammar Qaddafi, 67, celebrates the 40th anniversary
of his ascent to power this week, it is unlikely that any of the numerous
international guests will venture to ask the Libyan dictator or his aides what
happened to journalist Abdullah Ali
al-Sanussi al-Darrat after his arbitrary arrest 36 years ago. Al-Darrat, a
journalist and writer from
The
government's cruel treatment of Tunisian journalist Abdallah Zouari came to an
end on August 1, a reminder that even the most autocratic regimes will yield to
international pressure for press freedom. Zouari, a former reporter
for the now-defunct Islamic weekly Al-Fajr, had been forced to
live under a form of house arrest since his release from prison in 2002
following an 11-year term. Living under what was called "administrative control," Zouari was subjected to strict
police surveillance and forced to reside in the suburbs of the southern city of
On May 18, Syrian journalist and pro-democracy activist
Michel Kilo was released from prison after serving a three-year sentence for
"weakening national sentiment and encouraging sectarian strife." Kilo, who was
a regular contributor to the leading Lebanese daily, Al-Nahar, and the
London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi among other publications, was
detained in May 2006 after writing articles calling for the
normalization of Lebanese-Syrian relations and an end to a spate of political
assassinations in 
Sudan's execution this week of nine men found guilty of involvement in the 2006 assassination of editor Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, left, is seen by many there as an outrageous miscarriage of justice, spurred by a thirst on the part of President Omar al-Bashir's regime for settling scores with the rebellious region of Darfur.
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