Full Coverage: North Africa

30.03.2005 The UN Security Council is due to vote today on a resolution addressing the crisis in Darfur. It has some catching up to do if credibility is to be restored.

30.03.2005 On 31 March 2005, members of the IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG) will highlight the worrying state of freedom of expression in Tunisia at a panel discussion in Geneva during the annual session of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

18.03.2005 It is with a sense of shock and profound sadness that we have received news of the departure of Zouhair Yahyaoui, a genuine fighter for human rights and freedom of expression.

15.03.2005 Concerns about the suitability of Tunisia as the venue for November's World Summit on the Information Society will not be allayed by the death of the country's leading cyber-dissident at the age of 36. Zouhair Yahyaoui had been active in drawing attention to the country's poor record in freedom of expression on the internet.

15.03.2005 Fighting and famine have been a large part of the lives of the South Sudanese, but differences are being channeled into healthy competition during a regional sporting competition and festival. "There is less fighting between the tribes and people are learning to resolve their differences without resorting to guns and violence" as a result of the event, said one local organizer.

08.03.2005 The international aid group Doctors Without Borders treated over 500 rape victims in the last six months alone in Darfur Sudan, and this is believed to be just a small fraction of the total number of victims. The situation is no better in the Congo. More must be done to treat the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable, the group said Monday.

07.03.2005 International dithering over the deteriorating situation in Darfur is in part caused by disagreement as to whether the Sudanese government's actions should be classed as genocide. This analysis examines how the intricacies of history and politics stand in the way of any clear-cut definition of the genocide word.

07.03.2005 The website of Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), the opposition party in Tunisia, is blocked by the government authorities. PDP’s website is the latest in the long list of websites, including Reporters Sans Frontiers’ (RSF) http://www.radionongrata.org , blocked by the Tunisian government.

03.03.2005 As long as Sudanese government officials believe that they are immune from punishment for the ever-rising tolls of death and destruction in their country, the attacks on villages, killings of civilians, rapes, pillaging and forced displacement will continue, say humanitarian aid workers. Refugees International offers several recommendations to move forward and end the atrocities.

02.03.2005 International freedom of expression organisations have expressed grave concern about the poor state of freedom of expression in Tunisia, host country for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which is to be held in Tunis in November 2005.

02.03.2005 IFEX members are calling for open debate on freedom of expression in Tunisia as the country prepares to host the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005. This comes in response to a decision by the WSIS organisers to restrict the distribution of a report on free expression in Tunisia at the recently concluded preparatory committee meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

01.03.2005 How many more appeals will it take for the UN Security Council to recognise that it must intervene in Darfur? Jan Engeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, has repeated his message that violence and displacement continue unchecked.