Middle East: This week’s free expression news

Parliamentary elections are Sunday in Egypt, so here’s a heavily Egypt-centric collection of related links, plus some other happenings around the region In advance of parliamentary elections in Egypt, the regime is cracking down on opposition politicians and harassing journalists. One journalist was rounded up covering street protests in Alexandria and is being held on […]

Press freedom and Egypt’s state security

It started out as a routine night on the Egyptian parliamentary campaign trail, and ended as a clear lesson in the methods that a police state uses to control, intimidate and generally confuse journalists. Along with several colleagues, I traveled to Shubra Al-Kheima — a grim industrial Cairo suburb — on Sunday night at the […]

Egyptian blogger released after four years in jail

Online free expression activists around the world are rejoicing at the news that jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer has been freed and had returned to his family’s Alexandria home. Amer won the Hugo Young Award for Journalism at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression awards in 2007. Amer’s four-year jail sentence actually ended on […]

Middle East media round up

Morocco’s on-again off-again ban on the Al Jazeera satellite news channel is apparently on again. The kingdom is famously touchy about certain issues — last year it banned a magazine for publishing an opinion poll about King Mohammed II’s popularity. The poll actually showed a 91 per cent approval rating, but the palace felt it […]

Egypt tightens the screw

These are uncertain times in the Arab world’s most populous nation. President Hosni Mubarak is 82, fresh from major gall bladder surgery and in uncertain health. There’s a parliamentary election coming next month, a crucial presidential vote next year and a general sense of uncertainty about everything. It’s an unfamiliar feeling in a country where […]

Middle East: A bad month for media freedom

It’s not going well for maverick, boundary-pushing journalists this month. In Morocco edgy magazine Nichane closed its doors, with the publisher claiming it was the victim of an advertising boycott ordered by the royal palace. In Syria, a young female blogger who was mysteriously arrested 10 months ago, has officially been accused of being a […]

Editor’s prediction comes to pass

Ibrahim Eissa, the iconic editor-in-chief of Egypt’s al Dostour daily newspaper, practically telegraphed his own professional demise. In a column last week, discussing the recent shutdown of a satellite news programme, Eissa made ominous predictions about a looming press crackdown. Parliamentary elections are coming this autumn with a presidential vote next year. President Hosni Mubarak […]

Egypt’s “Emergency Law Martyr”

Protests in Egypt tend to follow a familiar rhythm. As a veteran observer of more public demonstrations than I can remember, you get a sense of the routine.