On September 19, Libya’s eastern administration ordered local and foreign journalists to leave the city of Derna by noon that day on the grounds that the reporters were impeding the ongoing rescue operations. These restrictions on media access – along with internet and mobile network shutdowns – will likely significantly curtail the availability of information beyond state-controlled channels. In addition, a number of Libyan journalists were reported to have been detained for several hours and interrogated by security forces.
Derna is under the control of military commander Khalifa Haftar. Haftar and the Libyan National Army militia, who are overseeing the humanitarian relief operation, are allegedly using the disaster response to consolidate control of the area, potentially impeding humanitarian assistance.
Local journalists covering this disaster should be aware of the following risks and can minimize hazards by following CPJ guidance:
In advance, consider:
On assignment:
If you are detained/arrested:
Protest preparation
At protests: Positioning
Dealing with aggression: crowds can easily turn against journalists so be prepared:
It is not uncommon for journalists to experience mental distress while reporting on natural disasters and when being exposed to death. This distress can also manifest itself as long-term post-traumatic stress.
It is advisable to follow these steps to manage your mental health:
Take measures to increase your digital safety and communications while working in the region. Journalists may be at risk of detention and having their devices searched. Communications in the area may be restricted, leaving media workers unable to contact editors and sources.
Take the following steps:
For further information about reporting on a natural disaster please see please see the CPJ Safety Note.
Journalists requiring assistance can contact CPJ via emergencies@cpj.org.
CPJ Emergencies has additional information on basic preparedness, assessing and responding to risk, or safety measures when covering civil conflict and disturbances. Journalists can find more safety information here.
]]>On March 26, armed officers from the Internal Security Agency, a coalition of armed groups led by the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, stopped al-Rifawi, a reporter for local independent news channel 218 TV, while he was driving in Sirte city and arrested him, according to news reports, a statement by 218 TV, and Ali Alaspli, the director of local rights group Libyan Crime Watch, who is following the case and spoke with CPJ via messaging app.
As of Thursday, April 21, al-Rifawi is believed to be detained in an unknown location, Alaspli told CPJ, adding that no official charges have been filed against him and al-Rifawi has not yet appeared before a state prosecutor.
“The Libyan Arab Armed Forces’ arrest of journalist Ali al-Rifawi and refusal to disclose his current location for almost a month shows the extent to which authorities are willing to go to muzzle journalists covering local events,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release al-Rifawi and refrain from arresting journalists who are just doing their jobs.”
Al-Rifawi’s arrest comes after Mokhtar al-Madani, the mayor of Sirte, filed a complaint accusing the journalist of influencing public opinion, citing his coverage of corruption issues in Sirte, according to Alaspli.
Al-Rifawi covers corruption and human rights issues, most recently a March 19 protest, where families demanded compensation for those who died during a NATO-led military intervention in 2011, according to news reports.
CPJ was unable to confirm further details about the complaint, including when it was filed and the type of complaint. Local rights groups the Institution of National Commission for Human Rights and Amnesty International released statements calling for al-Rifawi’s release on April 12 and on April 19 respectively.
CPJ emailed the Internal Security Agency, 218 TV Channel, and the Municipality of Sirte for comment but did not receive any replies.
[Editors’ Note: The reason for al-Rifawi’s arrest has been corrected in the title and fifth paragraph. The sixth paragraph was updated to include the topics that al-Rifawi covers.]
]]>Across the Middle East and North Africa, many countries trace a similar arc. Ten years after the Arab Spring, revolutions calling for democratic reforms have resulted in further government repression in Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, and other countries. Meanwhile, civil wars rage in Syria and Yemen, and up until 2017, Iraq. The historic upheaval has had profound, wide ranging, and evolving consequences for press freedom, making journalism a deadlier and more dangerous profession for its local practitioners as well as foreign correspondents based in the region.
Over the past decade, authorities across the region have used novel and traditional means to suppress independent reporting and target individual journalists. Here are seven trends in press freedom that CPJ has documented in the 10 years since the Arab Spring:
As of December 2020, there are 89 journalists jailed in 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the highest number for the region since CPJ began counting in 1992. Most journalists are held on anti-state and false news charges; many are held without charge. In Egypt, most imprisoned journalists are charged but not sentenced, detained for months or years awaiting trial.
Authorities use imprisonment as a tactic to prevent or silence reporting on political issues and human rights violations, and to muzzle dissenting opinions. They also use imprisonment to quash coverage of unrest: in Egypt, Bahrain, and Syria journalists have been arrested while documenting uprisings.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are notable for dramatic spikes in imprisoned journalists. In 2012, the year after the initial Egyptian uprising, CPJ did not count a single journalist in prison there. Under the government of Abdel Fateh el-Sisi – who rose to power in a 2013 coup and was elected the year after – Egypt has put numerous journalists behind bars. In Saudi Arabia, there were no journalists imprisoned in 2011; the country arrested journalists in 2012 following pro-reform protests, and as of late 2020 there were at least 24 journalists held in Saudi prisons.
Authorities in several countries have used new vague censorship laws to restrict online media, as CPJ has documented. Website blocking is common across the region; in Jordan, authorities have blocked websites for allegedly lacking proper registration; in Egypt and Algeria websites have been blocked due to “false news” allegations; and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have blocked sites funded by Qatar. Authorities don’t always give explanation or warning before taking sites offline; in Egypt in 2017 news sites were blocked without prior notification; in Algeria in 2020 no governmental body claimed responsibility for blockages.
CPJ named Saudi Arabia and Iran as two of the world’s most heavily censored countries in its 2012, 2015, and 2019 reports on censorship. (The 2019 report is its most recent.) Under a 2011 regulation in Saudi Arabia, news sites and blogs must have a license from the Ministry of Culture and Information, as CPJ has documented. Iranian authorities maintain one of the toughest internet censorship regimes in the world with blocks on news and social networking sites, according to a 2018 report by CPJ.
Over the past 10 years, governments in the region increasingly charged journalists using “false news,” anti-state and terrorism laws rather than publication or media laws.
Egypt leads the world in jailing journalists on false news charges. A 2018 Egyptian law fines or suspends publications that publish “false news.” Recently, Egypt outlawed news outlets from publishing unofficial sources on the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other “sensitive” issues, as a way to quash independent reporting on the crisis.
In Morocco, journalists are often slapped with anti-terror or other criminal charges in retaliation for their work. Since 2016, Moroccan authorities have arrested local journalists on anti-state charges for reporting on anti-government protests in the northern Rif region, as CPJ documented. (The country deported foreign journalists working on the same story.) In 2019 and 2020, authorities arrested at least three journalists working for independent media on charges of undermining state security, rape, and illegal abortion, and arrested another under investigation for money laundering, without providing proper evidence, as CPJ documented.
In Algeria in late 2019, anti-government demonstrations ousted censorious President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. But his replacement, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, has also gone after journalists; the country has two journalists imprisoned under anti-state laws, according to CPJ’s 2020 prison census. In 2020, the country also criminalized “false news.”
Since the Arab Spring, conflicts across the region have heightened the danger of reporting, resulting in a steep increase in the number of journalists killed. According to CPJ’s research, since 2011, 154 journalists have been killed in crossfire or while reporting on dangerous assignments in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. That figure accounts for more than half of the total number of journalists killed worldwide (258) in the same two scenarios during the same period.
Of the three countries, Syria is by far the deadliest, a relatively new title. Between 1992 and 2010, CPJ did not record a single journalist killed in the country; in the past decade Syria has counted 110 crossfire and dangerous assignment deaths. Most of those deaths are due to airstrikes and bombings by military forces, including the Syrian Army and its allies and Turkey.
In both Yemen and Iraq, clashes involving political groups, including Islamic State, militias, and Ansar Allah (the Houthis) accounted for the majority of journalist deaths due to crossfire or reporting on dangerous assignments.
The last decade has seen 50 murders of journalists in the region, including two high-profile state killings for which the perpetrators have not been brought to account. CPJ defines murders as those journalists targeted in direct reprisal for their work.
In the most notorious murder cases, state officials killed journalists in a manner seemingly designed to mock the idea of justice. In October 2018, Saudi intelligence and military officials killed and dismembered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. And in December 2020, Iran executed Roohollah Zam, editor of the Amad News Telegram channel, after intelligence officials seized the journalist in Iraq. Both journalists had criticized their governments from abroad and reported on domestic protest and reform movements.
Khashoggi and Zam’s brutal killings highlight a broader trend of impunity in journalist murders. The perpetrators ranged from weakened but still dangerous state actors like the Syrian government, to non-state groups such as the Islamic State, whose most high-profile murders – including those of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff– were recorded and presented to the world in a ghastly, cinematic fashion. Many perpetrators remain unknown. Syria and Iraq ranked second and third, respectively, on CPJ’s 2020 Global Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free.
Non-state actors such as militias have become prominent political players across the Middle East and North Africa, and their emergence has further threatened press freedom.
In 2014, taking advantage of the weakening of state authority and power vacuums stemming from armed conflict, militant groups Islamic State and the Houthis seized large swathes of territory in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen and became de facto authorities. They also imposed a tight grip on the media; for example, Islamic State took control of media outlets in Mosul, including the broadcasters Al-Mosuliya and Sama Mosul, and detained many journalists, while forcing many others underground, to impose a de facto media blackout.
Many journalists who dared to report critically of either group ended up in jail or killed. As CPJ has documented, the Houthis have detained dozens of Yemeni journalists; four were sentenced to death and remain in custody.
Islamic State and other political groups killed 65 journalists in Iraq and Syria and abducted many others, 19 of whom remain missing. The ousting of Islamic State from Iraq and Syria in 2017 and 2018, however, hasn’t made local journalists feel safer, as CPJ has documented.
Conflict in Syria led to the emergence of a vast array of opposition armed groups that have little regard for press freedom. Al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which controls large areas in northwestern Syria, has detained journalists, at least one of whom is still being held; the group is suspected of having killed at least two.
To defeat Islamic State, Iraq relied largely on Shia militias grouped under the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are now the main threat to Iraqi journalists. Libya has also seen journalist deaths at the hands of non-state actors; at least five journalists have been killed by militias and militant groups, including the Islamic State, since 2011.
After the 2011 protests rocked the region, authorities redoubled their efforts to monitor the activities of journalists and others whom they saw as potential threats to their power. Governments imported surveillance experts from the U.S. to develop their own monitoring infrastructure and collaborated with allies and erstwhile enemies, such as Israel, to buy and sell surveillance technologies, CPJ has documented.
The United Arab Emirates has become a regional epicenter of surveillance; government operatives allegedly deployed Israeli-based company NSO Group’s technology against journalists with Qatar links, and the country created a surveillance tool with the help of former U.S. government staff, as CPJ documented in December 2020 and January 2019, respectively. (In December, CPJ requested comment from NSO Group via email; the group declined to provide a comment that could be attributed to a named spokesperson.)
Other governments around the region are suspected of having deployed spyware targeting journalists: the Saudi government allegedly monitored several close contacts of Khashoggi before its agents murdered him.
On August 23, men in military uniforms affiliated with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord detained al-Sharif, the director of local broadcaster Al-Jawhara Radio, while he was covering anti-government demonstrations in Tripoli, the capital, according to a report by his employer, news reports, and a statement from the Libya Center for Freedom of Press, a local press freedom group.
The Government of National Accord has not acknowledged al-Sharif’s arrest or disclosed any reason for his detention, according to the Libya Center for Freedom of Press. CPJ emailed the government’s Ministry of Interior for comment, but did not immediately receive any response.
“Libyan authorities must immediately disclose whether they are holding journalist Sami al-Sharif and, if so, release him unconditionally,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “The Libyan Government of National Accord must do its utmost to protect journalists from harm, and ensure that government groups are not harassing, abducting, or obstructing the press.”
According to a statement by Al-Jawhara Radio on Facebook, eyewitnesses saw members of the Special Operations Force of the Nawasi Battalion, a group affiliated with the Government of National Accord, arrest al-Sharif and take him to Bu Laila, a military compound that also houses detainees.
Protests over corruption and poor living conditions have escalated in recent days, and demonstrators have been wounded and abducted during the protests, according to Reuters.
]]>In a secret trial proceeding held in May 2020, a military court in Benghazi, a city in eastern Libya controlled by the self-styled Libyan National Army–led by Khalifa Haftar–sentenced al-Zway to 15 years in prison, according to a July 31 post on Twitter by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and an August 4 statement the regional human rights group Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. The court charged al-Zway with “communicating with a television channel that supports terrorism,” according to a July 31 statement signed by four local press freedom groups, the Libyan Organization for Independent Media, the Libyan Center for Freedom of Press, Aswat Media Network, and the Libyan Association for Investigative Journalism, and news reports.
Al-Zway has been held in Al-Kwayfiya prison, in the suburbs of Benghazi, since he was detained on December 20, 2018, as CPJ has documented and according to Karim Salem, a Libya researcher at Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. Al-Zway was detained for allegedly working for Al-Nabaa, a privately owned Libyan news channel broadcast from Turkey, CPJ documented.
The court did not allow al-Zway to contact his lawyer during the secret trial or notify his family about it, according to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies statement, the statement by the press freedom groups, and news reports.
“Employing secret trials and prosecuting journalists in a military court controlled by a militia is unacceptable. This ridiculous sentence alone exposes the injustice of such a military regime,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “The Libyan National Army must immediately and unconditionally release Ismail Abuzreiba al-Zway and allow journalists to live and work safely.”
Major General Ahmed al-Mesmary, spokesperson for the Libyan National Army, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via his official Facebook page.
Two of al-Zway’s relatives, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on the condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said that they were not aware of al-Zway’s trial in May. They said they have not been in contact with him since his arrest.
Libya is split between rival governments led by the Libyan National Army in the east and the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord based in Tripoli, Libya’s capital.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya condemned al-Zway’s detention and secret trial on the basis that they are in violation of Libyan and international laws, according to the mission’s statement on Twitter.
The four Libyan press freedom rights groups condemned al-Zway’s sentence and said that the photojournalist did not participate in any acts of violence and that he was within his rights, according to their statement.
]]>On December 14, security forces affiliated with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord detained al-Bom near Tripoli’s Mitiga International Airport, according to news reports. Al-Bom is a freelance investigative journalist and founder of the Libyan Organization for Independent Media, a local press freedom group, according to those reports.
Yesterday, the Libyan Ministry of Interior issued a statement, posted to Facebook, denying that al-Bom was in the ministry’s custody, and saying that he was abducted by a government-affiliated intelligence organization.
No charges against al-Bom have been made public, Karim Salem, a Libya researcher at the regional human rights group Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, told CPJ via phone after talking to the journalist’s lawyers.
“Libyan authorities must immediately secure the release of Rida Fahil al-Bom and publicly commit to allowing journalists to work freely without fearing for their safety,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “The Libyan Government of National Accord must do its utmost to protect journalists from harm, whether from terrorist groups or rogue branches of the government.”
Al-Bom was detained after he returned to Libya from Tunisia, where he had participated in a press freedom workshop, according to a close friend who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. Al-Bom passed through customs and was detained once he left the airport, the friend said.
Al-Bom won widespread recognition for his 2016 reporting on human rights and LGBT issues in Libya, according to news reports. In 2018, he founded the Libyan Organization for Independent Media, which has called for amending the county’s publication laws, and proposed a press code of conduct, according to the group’s website.
CPJ contacted Libya’s Presidential Council, whose chairperson oversees the government’s intelligence agencies, for comment via the group’s official Facebook page, but did not immediately receive any response.
Yesterday, the U.N. Support Mission in Libya issued a statement calling for al-Bon’s release. Today, the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights issued a statement on Twitter calling for his unconditional release.
]]>Turkia told CPJ via messaging app that he was embedded with Government of National Accord forces at the time of the incident, and was filming the clashes when the building he was in was hit by machine-gun fire. He said two bullets passed through a wall and struck him, one in his finger and one in his left thigh. Turkia said he does not know whether the shots were fired by Government of National Accord or Libyan National Army forces. The journalist was wearing a press vest and a helmet at the time of the incident, according to his colleague, Agence France-Presse Middle East and North Africa video coordinator Nicolás García, who communicated with CPJ via email.
The journalist administered first aid to himself at the scene and was then taken to a field hospital and later a clinic, and has recovered from his wounds, according to Turkia and García.
García told CPJ that Turkia has regularly contributed to AFPTV, the agency’s video arm, as a freelance video journalist since 2014.
]]>Amara was shot in his right thigh as he started to cover clashes for Reuters between militias and the Libyan National Army, in the Tripoli suburb of Ain Zara, according to reports and a person familiar with the situation, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak. It was not immediately clear what the source of fire was, according to the person familiar with the situation.
The self-styled Libyan National Army, led by the military leader Khalifa Hifter, is based in the east of the country. It is fighting militias loosely allied with the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord to take control of Tripoli, according to reports.
A Reuters security adviser took Amara to a field hospital, and the photojournalist was later transferred to a hospital in Tunis, Tunisia, to have a bullet removed from his leg, according to the person familiar with the situation.
In an email to CPJ on May 17, 2019, a spokesperson for Reuters confirmed that Amara was wounded while working in Tripoli, and said that he was receiving treatment at a hospital.
]]>Libya Alahrar lost contact with al-Qurj, a reporter, and al-Shibani, a photographer, while the journalists were covering clashes in Tripoli, according to a statement by the broadcaster and news reports. According to those reports, the journalists’ whereabouts are unknown.
In its statement, Libya Alahrar alleged that the journalists had been abducted by the self-styled Libyan National Army, led by Khalifa Hifter. On May 3, a Facebook page attributed to a Libyan National Army brigade claimed to have the journalists in custody.
Libya Alahrar did not respond to an email and Facebook message from CPJ. CPJ’s emailed request for comment to the Libyan National Army and message to the brigade’s Facebook page went unanswered.
“Intensified fighting in Libya can only make a very dangerous environment for journalists worse. We call on all sides to take every step to protect journalists and respect their status as civilians,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “Whoever is holding Mohamed al-Qurj and Mohamed al-Shibani–be it the Libyan National Army, its affiliates, or any other group–should release them immediately.”
On May 3, the foreign ministry of the Government of National Accord, the country’s internationally recognized government, which opposes the Libyan National Army, released a statement accusing Hifter’s forces of detaining the journalists, deeming it “contradictory to all international laws and accords that protect journalists during turmoil and wars.”
Since the journalists’ disappearance, protests demanding their release were held in Tripoli, as seen in social media posts by local activists.
In January, freelance photographer Mohamed Ben Khalifa was killed while reporting from Tripoli, as CPJ reported at the time.
]]>Ben Khalifa, 35, was accompanying a militia patrolling the Qaser Ben Ghashir area south of Tripoli when the group came under attack, according to news reports. Ben Khalifa died of wounds sustained by shrapnel from a shell fired at the militia, according to the reports. The reports did not specify which outlet Ben Khalifa was on assignment for at the time of the attack, or specify which militia he was accompanying. A friend of the photojournalist, who requested anonymity, told CPJ that Ben Khalifa was accompanying a militia known as the Tripoli Protection Force, which is loyal to the Tripoli-based U.N.-backed Government of National Accord.
Since Libya’s uprising began in 2011, at least 12 journalists were killed in relation to their work, of which 10 were photographers or camera operators, according to CPJ research.
“Mohamed Ben Khalifa’s death is a reminder of the utter lack of protection for journalists in Libya, as well as of the dangers to photojournalists on the battlefield, ” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour in Washington, DC. “Libya’s Government of National Accord should take immediate steps to hold those responsible to account and ensure the safety of the press covering the ongoing war.”
Ben Khalifa was killed during a clash between the Tripoli Protection Force and the Seventh Brigade from Tarhuna, a town southeast of Tripoli, according to news reports. At least 12 people were killed and dozens injured amid fighting between the two militias last week, a spokesperson for the Government of National Accord’s Ministry of Health told media.
In response to Ben Khalifa’s death, protests condemning violence against journalists were held in Tripoli, Benghazi, Sabha and Zuwara, according to the independent advocacy group, the Libyan Center for Freedom of the Press, and news reports.
Ben Khalifa started working in photography after Libya’s 2011 uprising, according to news reports. He contributed photography and video footage to several news organizations, including the AP, the news agency IRIN, and Ruptly, a video agency belonging to Russian government funded outlet RT, according to the news agencies. Ben Khalifa covered issues in Libya including the migrant crisis, militia clashes, terror attacks and civilians’ day-to-day lives.
Ben Khalifa was buried in his hometown of Zuwara, according to news reports and mourners’ posts on social media. The journalist is survived by his wife and a seven-month-old daughter, according to the AP.
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