Stark regional differences are seen as jailings grow significantly in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of journalists are held without charge, many in secret prisons. A CPJ special report


Stark regional differences are seen as jailings grow significantly in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of journalists are held without charge, many in secret prisons. A CPJ special report

New York, September 15, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the growing censorship of newspapers in Sudan. In the past two weeks alone, the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) halted the distribution of four different opposition newspapers without cause.
New York, June 29, 2011--The Sudanese government continues to aggressively target individual journalists and publications through contrived legal proceedings, politicized criminal charges, and confiscations, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
New York, June 6, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Sudan to drop criminal charges and abandon all other tactics of harassment employed against at least 10 journalists who have reported on the alleged rape and torture of a youth activist. The activist said she was raped after participating in a demonstration in January.
New York, May 26, 2011--The government of Southern Sudan must immediately release radio reporter Mohamad Arkou, who has been in detention for 15 days with no official charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Security agents arrested Arkou, a reporter with the U.S.-backed Sudan Radio Service and the Darfur News and Information Service, on May 11 in Wau, the capital of Western Bahr-el Ghazal State in southern Sudan, the Sudan Radio Service reported.
New York, April 1, 2011--Security agents of the semi-autonomous government of Southern Sudan confiscated 2,500 copies of the independent biweekly newspaper, The Juba Post, on Wednesday, according to Chief Editor Michael Koma.
When The Juba Post's star reporter, Apollonia Mathia, told me that so-called "tong tong" rebels had attacked again near Gumba, in southern Sudan, I looked at her warily. "Let me get the camera I'll check it out," she said. Apollonia planned to hop on our rickety motorbike to cover a story about the infamous Ugandan rebels, the Lord's Resistance Army. Locals in the current capital of what will soon be South Sudan, Juba, call the Ugandan rebels "tong tong," which literally means "cut cut," because of their notoriously brutal machete attacks. It was getting late in the day, but I knew there was no point in trying to convince Apollonia out of a story.
By Mohamed Abdel Dayem
Relying on an extensive network of sources in the military, government, and Islamist groups, Yemeni freelance journalist Abdulelah Shaea had become a frequent and pointed critic of the administration's counterterrorism efforts. By July, President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government had enough, dispatching security agents to seize and roughly interrogate Shaea for several hours about his reporting.