Security authorities raided into the office of reformist newspaper Shargh on 7 December and detained journalists Keyvan Mehregan, Farzaneh Roostayi...
CATEGORY: Middle East and North Africa
Iranian “blogfather” released on bail
According to Iranian news website Mashregh, Hossein Derakhshan, known as Iran's "blogfather" has been released on a bail of $1.5 million after 26...
Iranian web designer sentenced to death
Iranian authorities have sentenced a web designer to death for allegedly creating a pornographic website. Canadian resident Saeed Malekpour, 35, was...
International day of the endangered lawyer
Lawyers in Rome, Madrid, Paris, The Hague and Berlin will today protest against the wrongful imprisonment of their colleagues in Iran. On this the...
Iran’s students prepare for 16 Azar
Reading The Economist's Bagehot blog, earlier this week its writer's dismissal of Britain’s student protests with “The revolution will be along...
Egypt keeps journalists and monitors out of parliamentary polling stations
For months in advance of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Egyptian officials waged a rather strident campaign to fend off calls to allow...
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...
What’s in a name
Index on Censorship today launches Iran Uncut, a special initiative to unearth and revitalise the plethora of archives of literary, artistic,...
Iran: Arrest warrant for Rafsanjani’s son
An arrest warrant has been issued for the son of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Mehdi Hashemi, whose father is an influential cleric and former president...
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...