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by MEB Journal Staff
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September
Killed, Jawad al-Daami, journalist for TV station Al-Baghdadiya in Baghdad. Muhammad Ghanem Ahmed of radio Dar Al Salam in Mosul. Abdul Khaliq Nasser by a mortar shell in Mosul.
Extended, a press law in Jordan that allows the monitoring of online publications in same way as print media. The press law provides for heavy fines – up to $43 thousand (JD 30,000) – for those who contravene it. Some criminal penalties, including those covered under state security laws, allow for imprisonment for defamation, insulting religious beliefs, and promoting material that encourages sectarianism or racism.
 Sentenced, Ibrahim Issa, Adel Hammouda, Wael el-Ebrashi, and Abdel-Halim Qandil to one year in prison with labor for defaming Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The four newspaper editors were also ordered to pay fines of $3,540 (20,000 Egyptian pounds) each. Al-Wafd Editor-in-Chief Anwar al-Hawari, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Mahmoud Ghalab, and Politics Editor Amir Salem for publishing news “liable to disturb public security, spread horror among the people, or cause harm or damage to the public interest.” According to the international Committee to Protect Journalists, the charges stem from a complaint filed by 11 lawyers affiliated with the National Democratic Party. The lawyers accused the journalists of “publishing false news and erroneously attributing it to the Minister of Justice, harming the Egyptian judiciary and judges,”
Harassed, Lotfi Hajji, Al-Jazeera correspondent in Tunis, by plainclothes policemen. The incidents took place on each of the four occasions that Hajji went to the headquarters of the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) to report on a hunger strike by its Secretary-General, Maya Jribi. [The strike ended successfully on October 20 and included Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, the Director of PDP’s newspaper Al Mawkif – Editor].
October
Acquitted, Lotfi Chriet and Houria Khater, journalists with Canal Algerie and A3 after being charged with broadcasting blasphemous cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. Canal Algerie said in defense of the accused that a "technical error" had led to the 10-second transmission of the caricatures because the videotape had not been checked in advance.
 Killed, Salih Saif Aldin, an Iraqi journalist for the Washington Post in Iraq, after being shot in the head by gunmen. Saif Aldin was taking photographs on a Baghdad street where several homes had been burned during recent fighting. Iyad Al-Tikriti and two guards working for a daily newspaper in Tikrit were killed in an armed attack on the car in which they were travelling. Jasim Mohhamed Nofaan, Khaled Hamed Nofaan, and Zeyad Tariq al-Dibo, who all worked for Al Watan newspaper, were killed by an unidentified armed group in the public road leading to Kirkuk.
Sentenced, Dhif Talal, correspondent for the Algerian newspaper Al Fadjr in Djelfa, to six months in jail after he was convicted on defamation charges brought against him by the  Ministry of Agriculture. The charges stemmed from an article Talal wrote exposing huge losses of public funds due to poor administration in the local Department of Agriculture. In the same region, Ouahid Oussama, correspondent of the Arabic-language daily Al Bilad, has been summoned to appear before the court on November 19 to face defamation charges after writing a report criticizing the failures of the education system in Djelfa. Another journalist in Djelfa, El-Youm correspondent Hafnaoui Ghoul, has been harassed by authorities for his critical reporting on local government issues. |
Media watch 
