Middle East & North Africa

New York, April 26, 2013--The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the health of editor Amara al-Khatabi and calls on Libyan authorities to allow him to travel in order to receive urgent medical assistance abroad. 

In a welcome move Wednesday, Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah offered to shelve Kuwait's controversial draft media law, according to news reports. The announcement came in what the official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) called a "candid, frank, and expanded meeting with chief editors of Kuwaiti press." 

That is a bogus @ap tweet.

-- AP CorpComm (@AP_CorpComm) April 23, 2013

More than a quarter million Twitter accounts have been hacked worldwide, the social media company disclosed in February, but Tuesday's attack on The Associated Press's verified account, @AP, had unusual effect. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 143 points after someone hijacked the AP's account to falsely tweet that two explosions at the White House had wounded President Barack Obama. The market recovered, but the hacking--just the latest in a series of attacks on news organizations--sent shudders through a profession that's grown accustomed to breaking its news on Twitter.

On April 8, the Kuwaiti cabinet approved a draft media law that would severely undermine press freedom in the country. But it is not too late to prevent a bad bill from becoming a bad law.

New York, April 23, 2013--At least 13 journalists were attacked amid clashes between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition Friday in Cairo and Alexandria. Demonstrators supporting the Muslim Brotherhood were calling for reform of Egypt's judiciary, while opposition groups were protesting the Brotherhood and the government it leads. 

New York, April 19, 2013--The Bahraini government ordered three journalists from the British television network ITV to leave the country today, according to news reports citing an ITV spokesman. The journalists, who were also briefly detained on Thursday, are in the process of leaving the country.

Two years ago this week, on the central boulevard of the Western Libyan city of Misurata, freelance photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed by mortar rounds from government forces. Hondros lost consciousness almost immediately. Hetherington bled out in the back of a pick-up truck as he clutched the hand of a Spanish photographer. 

New York, April 18, 2013--The cases of an Iranian blogger imprisoned for seven months without trial and a prominent freelance journalist whose health has deteriorated in prison illustrate the ongoing abuses being perpetrated by Iranian authorities, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

New York, April 18, 2013--Yemeni authorities must investigate a series of assaults on the press in the past two weeks and ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A bomb was discovered at a building that houses media outlets and three journalists received death threats, according to news reports and journalists who spoke to CPJ.