A recent crackdown on journalists and opposition activists has increased fears that Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi will use tactics similar to his ousted predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, to silence dissent. Earlier this month, a group of...
On 21 March, a Tunisian court sentenced rapper Ala Yacoubi (aka Weld El15) to two years in prison in absentia, over an anti-police song and video, Boulicia Kleb published on YouTube. In the song, Weld El15 describes police officers as “dogs” and...
On 21 March, a Tunisian court sentenced rapper Ala Yacoubi (aka Weld El15) to two years in prison in absentia, over an anti-police song and video, Boulicia Kleb published on YouTube. In the song, Weld El15 describes police officers as “dogs” and...
Index on Censorship has called upon the Bahraini government to release 2012 Index Freedom of Expression Award winner Nabeel Rajab and other prisoners of conscience
A 19-year-old Tunisian women’s rights activist, known only as Amina, has come under fire for posting a topless photograph of herself online. Amina is a member of FEMEN, a Ukranian radical feminist group notorious for their topless protests. Weeks ago, Amina uploaded a picture of herself to a website she started for the group in Tunisia, with ”My Body is My Own and Not the Source of Anyone’s Honor” written across her bare chest. Late last week, the Paris-based head of the group, Inna Shevchenko, claimed that Amina had been committed to a psychiatric ward by her family members. Shevchenko told the Atlantic that she last heard from Amina on 18 March. Her disappearance came after a 16 March appearance on Tunisian talkshow Labes to […]
The US Secretary of State is headed for the Middle East and the Gulf. Sara Yasin explains the censorship issues in the region he needs to hear about
Egyptians who took to the streets in mass protests in January 2011 demanding the downfall of Mubarak's authoritarian regime were rebelling --- amongst other things --- against restrictions on their civil liberties and infringement on their rights....
Second anniversary of Bahrain uprising is marked amid violence and scepticism over talks. Sara Yasin reports
OPINION: In June 2010, Israel’s Ynet website reported on the detention, and then six months later on the death, of unknown detainee “Prisoner X” in solitary confinement. A gag order issued by an Israeli court soon after put an end to any reporting on the case, or even reporting of the order itself. “Prisoner X” became a byword in the Israeli media for yet one more of the kind of security-related stories that no-one quite knows the truth of, and probably never will. Nothing more was heard until this week, when an Australian TV documentary claimed that the man in question was one Ben Zygier, a 34-year-old father-of-two and an Australian citizen who had moved to Israel a decade earlier. […]
OPINION: In June 2010, Israel’s Ynet website reported on the detention, and then six months later on the death, of unknown detainee “Prisoner X” in solitary confinement. A gag order issued by an Israeli court soon after put an end to any reporting...