CPJ Blog

Press Freedom News and Views

Mohamed Abdel Dayem

CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem has a master’s degree from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He has led CPJ missions to Egypt and Yemen.

2011


Blog

Several tallies, one conclusion on Turkish press freedom

By Mohamed Abdel Dayem/CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator

Press freedom in Turkey is under assault. Thousands of criminal cases have been filed against reporters, the Criminal Code and Anti-Terrorism Act are used routinely to silence critical news coverage, and Kurdish journalists face constant persecution.

Today CPJ released its annual prison census, which tracks cases of journalists jailed for their work globally. (The list counts those who were incarcerated at midnight on December 1, 2011, but does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year.) Since 1990, when we first began compiling this census, Turkey has appeared regularly on the list; in the mid-1990s, it was the world's leading jailer of journalists. Some Turkish journalists have written us to inquire why CPJ's 2011 census lists eight imprisoned journalists in Turkey, while other organizations list as many as 64.

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December 8, 2011 4:13 PM ET | | Comments (18)
Blog | Egypt

Courage in documenting Egypt's revolution

By Mohamed Abdel Dayem/CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator
Soldiers and children celebrate in Tahrir Square. (AP/Ben Curtis)

Today, on its 18th day, the Egyptian revolution has finally achieved its goal, deposing Hosni Mubarak and his regime. Egyptian journalists who have courageously found ways to work under the yoke of Mubarak's censorship and repression are releasing a sigh of relief that they've held in for three long decades. 

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February 11, 2011 5:14 PM ET | | Comments (9)
Blog | Egypt

Government lies are exposed in Egypt's Tahrir Square

By Mohamed Abdel Dayem/CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator
Protesters have created impromptu news theaters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, seen here. (Reuters)

Hosni Mubarak's regime has had 29 years to perfect its always brazen but never convincing justifications for repressing journalists who expose the travesties he and his henchmen regularly visit upon the people of Egypt. It has also long enlisted state-owned media to disseminate the ruling party's half-truths and outright lies. But over the past week, Mubarak's propaganda machine has hit a new low. 

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February 1, 2011 12:18 PM ET | | Comments (1)
Blog | Tunisia

Tunisian TV station's suspension reflects tenuous freedom

By Mohamed Abdel Dayem/CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator

On Sunday, the privately owned broadcaster Hannibal TV was forced off the air for more than three hours. The state-owned news agency Agence Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP) issued a statement stating that an arrest warrant had been issued for the station's owner on charges of "high treason" for an alleged "plot to destabilize national security." The statement accused the owner of using the Hannibal broadcasts to undermine Tunisia's stability. 

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January 25, 2011 11:13 AM ET |
Blog | Tunisia

Freed! Fahem Boukadous released in Tunisia

By Mohamed Abdel Dayem/Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator

For those who have spent countless hours exposing and combating Tunisia's vast press freedom abuses, today is truly a glorious day. Tunisian authorities released the ailing imprisoned journalist Fahem Boukadous, a day after CPJ called on the transitional government to honor its pledge to free all political prisoners. Today, we can loudly proclaim that no journalist or blogger is imprisoned in the government's dungeons and that Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's censorship is no longer imposed on Tunisians. 

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January 19, 2011 9:16 PM ET | | Comments (1)
Blog | Yemen

A year after siege, Al-Ayyam is sorely missed in Yemen

By Mohamed Abdel Dayem/CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator
Bullet holes, bottom right, scar the walls of the now-shuttered newspaper Al-Ayyam. (CPJ/Mohamed Abdel Dayem)

Today marks the anniversary of the beginning of the multiday siege by Yemeni police and security personnel of the compound that houses the offices of the independent daily Al-Ayyam. During its assault on the headquarters of the critical daily, the government used automatic machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy weaponry. The siege and the ensuing violence was apparently initiated in response to journalists from Al-Ayyam and other outlets conducting a sit-in outside the compound to protest the daily's suspension since May. 

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January 4, 2011 4:14 PM ET |

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