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The state of the Turkish media is rather troublesome. Today, pro-government outlets dominate both electronic and written media. The recent seizure of the Akşam daily by the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund and its quick sale to the Ciner Group further consolidated pro-government supremacy over public discourse. The appointments to the Akşam daily have left little doubt as to what sort of line the paper will take. It is no wonder that Reporters Without Borders recently ranked Turkey 154th out of 179 countries in terms of press freedom. According to a report published by the main opposition party, there are 64 journalists under arrest in the country and another 123 facing trial on charges of terrorism. This is, of course, not healthy and is extremely worrying for a country that has been seen as an inspiration for many others in the Arab and Islamic world.

there are extremely vocal oppositional views expressed in papers such as Sözcü and Taraf, but these are far from able to reach mainstream Turks. Also, there are some successful online media outlets, such as T24, that have welcomed Hasan Cemal and many other alternative pens. However, these are unable to penetrate the Anatolian heartland

such contradiction with what the AK Party stood for in 2002

Journalist Khaled El Balshy — a keen defender of freedom of expression and a democracy advocate, deputy head of the Egyptian Press Syndicate and head of the syndicate’s Freedom Committee — has been vigorously campaigning for the release of jailed journalists in Egypt. This week Balshy himself faced prosecution and risked being imprisoned on charges of “inciting protests, insulting the police and inciting to overthrow the regime.”

On April 6 the Interior Ministry, which had filed the legal complaint against him, was forced to withdraw the lawsuit following an outcry from fellow journalists, free speech advocates and rights organizations

Minutes after hearing of the warrant for his arrest, he boldly declared in a Facebook post: “If they want to arrest me, I’m in my office. I’m not better than those who are imprisoned.”

maintenance of the pre-revolutionary media landscape: No new TV station has been allowed. Just as no daily newspaper has emerged. New titles are edited by political parties and appear as weeklies, most of which incorporate the standard of the tabloid press. After a 9-days hunger strike by Radio Kalima’s manager, Omar Mistiri, twelve regional radios out of 74 candidates were finally selected in late June by the National Authority for Information and Communication Reform (INRIC), a temporary media advisory board. Now, the selected radios are waiting for the governmental permission. At the institutional level, the disappearance of the Communication Ministry does not lead, right now, to more media autonomy. Pre-revolutionary media managers are mainly the same: CEOs, Editors and Chairmen of Board moved from flattery of the ousted president and his system to a doubtful celebration of the “revolution”. In the state-owned media, the turnover of managers is conducted without any transparency just like under the dictatorship. Changes look more like a consequence of power balance between the different clans in the current government than a nascent process towards a democratic media system.

field reporting, which was longtime banned from or depreciated in the official media

The legal status of old private media, especially those belonging to the former president family, is still unclear. Some of them are under jurisdictional managers, but INRIC excluded them for the moment from any ethical obligations. Hannibal TV, owned by a relative to Leila Trabelsi, was involved in many ethical infringements to the Ethical Code like slandering or fake news, before and particularly after the revolution. Larbi Nasra, the Hanibal TV owner, seems to play a political role by receiving political leaders and airing many reports about his own charitable actions. Fethi Houidi, Information Minister under Ben Ali, is still Nessma TV’s CEO. Moez Sinaoui, former Nessma PR man, was nominated as the Interim Prime Minister’s spokesman

"The trial of Dundar and Gul is a test for the rule of law in Turkey," said Christophe Deloire, secretary general of press freedom group Reporters Without Borders. "These are two journalists, not dangerous terrorists."

Almost 2,000 people have been prosecuted for "insulting" Erdogan since the former premier became president in August 2014, Turkey's justice minister said earlier this month.

“Before the revolution Touati had a pro-Ben Ali editorial line, which showed in the columns that he wrote. Now he is absolutely pro-Ennahdha,”

“I think that we should judge the political intention behind these appointments. It is a strategy to strike down press freedom again. We need reform and not manipulation of the media,”

“I am here to support freedom of the press. We suffered from the same issue, with press being controlled, during the regime of Ben Ali. Now the government is resorting to the same practices once again,”

Katatni confirmed that the FJP appreciates the role of the press and the media as a watchdog to state and government institutions, while keeping in mind the best interests of Egypt and Egyptians who offered huge sacrifices in order to attain their freedom.   He pointed out that rumours circulated by some media outlets during the last few days alleging that the party will close down papers or restrict publications are false. "Such actions are not reflective of the FJP's policies which acknowledge the freedom of press in particular, and basic freedom in all its forms", he stated

While the economic crisis related to the fall of oil revenues has caused political and social tensions, the Algerian authorities are showing increasing intolerance towards criticism, already under attack since the start of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s fourth term in April 2014.

Hassina Oussedik, director of Amnesty International’s chapter in Algeria, says the attacks on freedom of expression have been "constant". "In 2015, not a month has passed without witnessing cases of people being oppressed as they try to express themselves peacefully. The authorities rely on poorly formulated or ambiguous laws to arrest people," she told Middle East Eye. "They use provisions of the penal code that criminalise 'contempt', 'insult' or 'defamation' aimed against representatives of the state and other institutions in order to restrict freedom of expression, including humour, expression on the internet and on the street."

But an Algerian police officer, in charge of monitoring public demonstrations, said claims of repression were excessive and defended his activities."Repression? Dictatorship? Censorship? All of this is much exaggerated and is far from the truth," he told MEE. "If we did not do our job of monitoring and surveillance, Islamists and terrorists would feel omnipotent. In the 90s, this led us to chaos! Is it normal to insult the state, the president, the police or the army with impunity?"

Tawfiq Okasha, a talkshow host recently turned MP

Okasha launched his political career by inviting the Israeli ambassador, Haim Koren, on to his television show.The blossoming friendship was cemented last week when both were pictured after a three-hour meeting

Egypt's parliament voted on Wednesday to annul his membership.It was a spectacular fall that was perhaps helped by as series of articles in the Egyptian press, most mnotably in Al-Youm7 newspaper, which is owned by some businessmen in Egypt and often loyal to the establishment and the army

not necessary for a newspaper to run images of the dead and injured in a manner that seemed blatantly disrespectful and dehumanising

Part of the issue people had with the editorial response was that it seemed to imply that the images were published because the attack in Nairobi was a "special" isolated incident, one that required especially gruesome images to depict "the truth" of what happened. 

Kenyans were neither fooled nor placated. Many others in the Global South agreed, as they, too, had experienced - many times over - how powerful news organisations from the geopolitical West present what happens in their communities and countries in two-dimensional ways, often with little regard for how their words and images would affect those who were depicted

Attalah is the chief editor of Egypt’s only independent media outlet, with 124,000 followers on Twitter and 241,000 on Facebook. But Mada Masr isn’t alone. It’s among a growing number of independent Arabic digital outlets that are emerging as fresh sources of news in a region where tyrants and oligarchs have for decades controlled the media.

Some, like Al Jumhuriya (The Republic) and Syria Untold, are run by exiled Syrian intellectuals from Germany, Turkey and Lebanon. Others, like Daraj (Stairs) — with 135,000 followers on Facebook — are providing pan-Arab coverage from Lebanon, where most traditional newspapers are party-affiliated. Still others, like 7iber (pronounced “hiber,” and meaning Ink) and Sowt (Voice), are offering nuanced coverage to readers in Jordan despite the threat of censorship. 7iber has 120,000 followers on Twitter and 341,000 on Facebook.

grief, limited resources and threat of censorship haven’t dissuaded these outlets from revolutionizing Arabic-language journalism

CPJ's 10 most censored countries Eritrea North Korea Turkmenistan Saudi Arabia China Vietnam Iran Equatorial Guinea Belarus Cuba

"The internet was supposed to make censorship obsolete, but that hasn't happened," Joel Simon, CPJ executive director, said in a statement. "Many of the world's most censored countries are highly wired, with active online communities. These governments combine old-style brutality with new technology, often purchased from Western companies, to stifle dissent and control the media,"

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is launching Tracker-19 to monitor and evaluate the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on journalism and to offer recommendations on how to defend the right to information.

Called “Tracker 19” in reference not only to Covid-19 but also article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this project aims to evaluate the pandemic’s impacts on journalism. It will document state censorship and deliberate disinformation, and their impact on the right to reliable news and information. It will also make recommendations on how to defend journalism.

without journalism, humankind could not address any of the major global challenges, including the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, discrimination against women and corruption.

“They just want to see your visa,” a British embassy official told me on March 18, passing on a message from Egyptian security officials at the country’s visa and immigration office. I knew what that meant: Other journalists had been called to the same authority to have their visas revoked. Later that day, the British official called me again as I sheltered in a hotel room, after a lawyer advised me to flee my apartment in case it was raided by police. The security services had spoken to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had passed a second message to the British embassy. “They’re asking you to leave,”

I dodged the meeting at the visa authority by sending a lawyer in my place, after officials at the German embassy in Cairo—I’m a dual national—warned me I could be arrested or deported there. We think it’s best you get on a plane, they said. 

The number of infected people has become a metric for evaluating the Egyptian government’s control of the disease; the possibility that more people could be infected has become almost blasphemous in the eyes of the authorities. Even now, as confirmed COVID-19 cases in Egypt top 7,000, the size of the outbreak remains an inflammatory subject, with fear and nationalist pride working alongside a state that is practiced at concealing information