Six Papers Banned In Less Than A Week, Race Is Still On

Cairo on 11/8/2009

The Arabic Network For Human Rights Information, ANHRI, stated that the Arab governments from Atlantic to Gulf, have caught the fever of confiscating newspapers. In Yemen, Al Diar and Al Ahali were confiscated on 10/8/2009. Days before, the Moroccan government confiscated the two weeklies Telle Qu'elle and Nichane and followed by Le Monde. The Egyptian government caught the fever as well and confiscated Al Balagh Al Gadid a few days ago.The Moroccan government confiscated Telle Qu'elle and Nichane because they published a public survey about the king's performance on his 10th crowning , followed by confiscating Le Monde ,the wide spread French paper as it published the same survey last week.

In Cairo, the censor of the ministry of information confiscated Al Balagh Al Gadid last issue as it published a report on the violation of rights of the Egyptians detainees in Saudi. Yesterday , the Yemeni government took the torch from the Egyptian and confiscated Al Diar And Al Ahali taking a more exciting track ; confiscation with no reason.

ANHRI stated that "Crossing from Morocco to Yemen passing by Egypt and Sudan, newspaper confiscation has become the first and easiest choice. Al Qadiya , a Yemeni weekly newspaper, according to Elaph and Yemeniat sites, has made an announcement for vacancies in the position of "newspaper dealer" to distribute the paper. The Arabic press is back to square one, where the secret distribution is back to face confiscation."

In the last seven months of 2009, several Arabic papers were confiscated mainly in Sudan ,Egypt, Yemen and Morocco, in addition to hundreds of lawsuits against Arab reporters; a perfect reflection of the animosity of the governments of this dark side of the world towards freedom of press