Eleven people were injured, two of them police, during a protest in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa last Thursday. The protesters were calling for a boycott of upcoming elections. Five were injured by police, and a further 18 arrested. Read more here
CATEGORY: Middle East and North Africa
Iran: media crackdown continues
Bahman Totonchi, a journalist for the former Kurdish weekly Karfto, was arrested on 18 November following a house search by intelligence agents. The authorities had been harassing the journalist since the closure of Karfto on 29 December last year,...
Iran: reformist weekly shut down
Shahvrand-e Emrouz ('Today’s Citizen'), an Iranian reformist magazine, has been temporarily closed by the country’s press watchdog after the unauthorised publication of political content. The magazine had been critical of the present...
Youth jailed for king ‘insult’
A schoolboy in Morocco has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for insulting the country's monarch. The 18-year-old allegedly changed the 'God, Fatherland, King' national slogan on his school blackboard to 'God, Fatherland, Barcelona'. Read...

Kalima website hacked; Index award winner attacked again
The independent Tunisian online magazine Kalima has suffered an attack that has completely destroyed its web content, and in a separate but related incident, its editor – Index Award winner Sihem Bensedrine – has been abused by police in the street.
Iraq: journalist killed
Diyar Abbas Ahmed, a reporter with private news agency Ain, was shot by unidentified gunmen in the northern city of Kirkuk on Friday. Read more here
Eissa pardoned
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has said that editor Ibrahim Eissa will not have to serve a two-month jail sentence. Read more here

Egypt: press union will appeal Eissa sentence
Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Eissa has been sentenced to two months imprisonment. But the case is far from over. Index on Censorship reports The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate has said it will appeal the sentence of two months imprisonment passed on...
Yemen: Al Khaiwani released
Jailed Yemeni journalist Abdul-Karim Al Khaiwani has left jail after the nation's president granted him an amnesty and cancelled his six-year sentence. Al Khaiwani was imprisoned for allegedly supporting rebels in Sa'ada, north of Yemen and...
Tunisian journalist sues over Facebook censorship
Blogger and journalist Ziad El Heni last week filed a lawsuit against the Tunisian Internet Agency for blocking the social networking website Facebook. He sees the blocking, which took place on 18 August, as a violation of his rights to freedom of...