Al Jazeera’s Kabul bureau chief has been brought before an Israeli military court a week after he was arrested and detained by Israeli officials. Al Jazeera reported that Samer Allawi was yesterday charged with being a member of Hamas. He was arrested on 10 August, while crossing the border between Jordan and the West Bank. He was attempting to return to the Afghan capital Kabul after a three-week holiday in his hometown of Nablus.
An Egyptian judge has banned state-owned TV cameras from filming the rest of Hosni Mubarak’s trial. Even though state TV cameras were allowed in the courtroom for the first two hearings, Judge Ahmed Rifaat made the decision to ban live coverage before witnesses testify in court “in protection of the general interest”. According to Al-Masry Al-Youm, the decision was met with outrage and suspicion from many members of the public.
Three pastors allegedly assaulted three journalists and a panellist in Accra, Ghana on 8 August. The three pastors were angered by comments made during a broadcast of Nya Asem Hwe, a local current affairs programme on radio station Hot FM. Reverend Bishop Daniel Obinim, Kofi Akweitey, and Kingsley Baah were angered by their exclusion from the broadcast, which involved a discussion about a sex scandal involving Obinim and the wife of another pastor. According to reports, the pastors “angrily stormed” the station’s studios and assaulted the hosts of the programme, along with other staff members. The men were released on bail on 9 August.
Shokhrukh Saipov, the Osh-based editor and publisher of news website Uz Press, was last week attacked by unidentified individuals. Saipov had been attending a media seminar in Osh, and was found unconscious with his nose and several teeth broken on a street in the village of Aravan, 17 miles outside of the city. Family members have said Saipov was hospitalised overnight and diagnosed with a severe concussion and partial memory loss. The journalist is also the younger brother of Alisher Saipov, the prominent reporter killed in southern Kyrgyzstan in October 2007, and whose murder remains unsolved.