On 9 June, hundreds of Kuwaitis attend a rally to call for the release of opposition journalist and lawyer Mohammed Abdel Qader Al-Jassem. Accused of harming the national interest and undermining the Kuwaiti ruler, al-Jassem has been held in...
CATEGORY: Middle East and North Africa
Iran: Beyond Twitter, the new revolution
Iran’s green movement will be reborn in small media, says Mahmood Enayat
US soldier arrested over Wikileaks Iraq video
Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted that he had given a classified US combat video and top secret State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks. Brad Manning is alleged to have leaked a video...
Bahrain bans advisor’s memoir
The diary of a British advisor to Bahraini government has been banned after new material was added to the latest edition. The 600 page book narrates historically significant events during Charles Belgrave's time in the country from 1926 to 1957....
Mordechai Vanunu jailed again in Israel
Mordechai Vanunu, the former Israeli nuclear plant technician who spent 18 years in prison for exposing the country’s nuclear arsenal, was jailed again on 23 May. He was found guilty of “unauthorised meetings with foreigners” which include...
Egypt: Minister accuses journalist of libel
Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit filed a lawsuit against opposition writer Hamdi Kandil for insult and libel on 19 May. Kandil wrote an opinion piece in Al-Shuruq newspaper, entitled Huan al Watan Wa Huan Almutan (Humiliation of homeland...
Bahrain suspends al-Jazeera
Al-Jazeera was suspended from operating in Bahrain on 19 May. The government said the news channel was "flouting the laws regulating the press and publishing" in the country and did not comply with “professional norms.” The bureau's suspension...
Film-maker’s arrest an “attack on art”
Film-maker Jafar Panahi has been imprisoned in Iran since 1 March after the government accused him of making a documentary about last year’s presidential election. He was to be on the Palme d’Or judging panel at the Cannes film festival this week...
Kuwait: Hunger strike journalist hospitalised
A Kuwaiti journalist was hospitalised over the weekend after refusing medication and beginning a hunger strike in protest at his 11 May arrest. Government critic, Mohammed Abdel Qader al-Jassem, claims he was arrested for political reasons. The...
Kuwaiti media banned from reporting on Iran ‘spy ring’
The Kuwaiti media have been banned from reporting on the dismantling of an Iranian spy network by prosecutor-general Hamed Saleh Al-Othman. The spy ring--- which was publicly revealed on 1 May--- was gathering information about Kuwaiti and US...