CATEGORY: Middle East and North Africa

Egypt: Classic book faces ban

A team of lawyers called for the ban of Arabic classic A Thousand and One Nights on 17 April. The lawyers, from the "Actio popularis" group, filed a complaint with the prosecutor general, demanding that the book be confiscated and its publishers...

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Editor-in-chief abducted from Baghdad home

The editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper al-Shahid, Saad al-Aossi, was abducted on 14 April. Armed men invaded his home, confiscated his computer and took him to an unknown location. There have been local reports that the men were from the...

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Iran’s reformist movement hit again

Two political parties were suspended, a newspaper banned and three political figures sentenced to prison by the Iranian authorities on Monday. According to the official IRNA news agency, the Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution, the reformist group...

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US approves anti-filtering software for Iran

The anti-internet filtering software, Haystack, received the necessary export license from the US government last week to sell their product to Iran in an effort to help Iranian citizens gain free speech. Inspired by the internet restrictions...

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Bahrain bans sharing news on BlackBerrys

The Bahrain Ministry of Information and Culture announced a ban on sharing local news with BlackBerry mobile devices last week. A ministry official, Abdullah Yateem, said the ban was to prevent the “chaos and confusion caused by such news among the...

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ElBaradei supporters deported from Kuwait

At least 21 Egyptian expatriates have been arrested and deported from Kuwait for supporting Mohamed ElBaradei. The former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency champions political reform in Egypt and is being tipped as a potential...

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Iraq: Car-bomb targets journalist

The head of public relations at Iraq's Al-Rasheed satellite TV station was injured by a car-bomb on 13 April, which took both of his legs and seriously injured two others. Omar Ibrahim Al-Jabouri's car exploded in Doura, a suburb of Baghdad. No...

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