NEW YORK (Reuters) - journalists have been deleted in popular uprisings in the Middle East and the North Africa in attacks more than 500, some of them fatal, according to rights watchdog media.
Mohamed Abdel Dayem, program coordinator for the Committee to protect journalists in the Middle East and the North Africa, said the number of attacks on the media in the region since the beginning of the year was "unprecedented."
"This has has come before, not with this intensity and not with this frequency", he said.
Photojournalist Tim Hetherington, Co-Director of the documentary war named the Oscar "Restrepo", was killed in the besieged city Misrata on Wednesday, Libyan and other photographers injured.
Dayem said 14 journalists were killed in the world this year, with 10 of these deaths in the Middle East and North Africa. Hundreds of other assaults on the media in the region included detentions, destruction of material and death threats.
While the Committee on freedom of the press has improved since the evicted demonstrators the Presidents of the Egypt and the Tunisia, he described the situation as "horrendous bad graduate."
Social access to networking tools like Facebook and Twitter will help counteract the tight censorship in the region, say experts, but it is uncertain whether the unrest in the Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, the Libya and Saudi Arabia will lead to more democracy.
"It is not possible to stuff a sock in that mouth many," said Dayem. "There were once at a time where the number of mouths was limited and (Governments) could close all places all the time.". This model is not sustainable. ?
The Committee to protect journalists called on the authorities to the Yemen to explain why they have held prominent journalist Ali Salah Ahmed since Tuesday without revealing its location or of a crime.
CENSORSHIP LESS EFFECTIVE
Joe Stork, Director Assistant of the northern part of Human Rights Watch Africa division said that the recent uprisings have led to a "net gain" for the freedom of the media in the region.
"It is possible to disseminate information in places such as the Syria or Bahrain, in a manner that was not possible 10 years ago. "It's just the day and night comparison", said stork.
"On balance, certainly, there more free information but Exchange not because Governments are to--because they did not understand how to control."
Restrictions on the media will be much more difficult to maintain, because access to mobile phones and Internet, said Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations.
"It is also because the revolts of Arab abolished censorship even more, just as they delegitimize election stealing and stealing public money," said Abrams.
"Many Governments continue to try to intimidate journalists physically or through phony prosecution... but it will be less effective."
But Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International Director for the Middle East and the North Africa, said that some protesters have been demanding more freedom for journalists, it was too early to say what progress could be made.
"We have seen the emergence of the blogger, the citizen journalist broken...,"he says. ".
Stork said while Egypt appears if moving in a positive sense, freedom of the press had been laid a coup when the military Council of the decision of the country demanded last month that Egyptian newspapers coverage had to be approved by the Direction of the Affairs of moral and military intelligence.
"Military clearly don't like criticism or critical discussion and they asked the media not to engage in the it and certainly that the main points of sale have respected", he said.
Dayem warned that if no there was no change of Government in some countries, it could result in more severe treatment of the media, referring to an unsuccessful uprising in Iran in 2009.
He said "Certainly did not leading to a more open media,". "In fact, it resulted in a more severe climate for the media in Iran and led almost directly in Iran being worst jailer of journalists in 2010 in the world."
(Edited by Mark Egan and Christopher Wilson)
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