Committee to Protect Journalists – Defending Journalists Worldwide.

CPJ calls on new Syrian leaders to hold Assad’s media persecutors to account

People celebrate with the Syrian opposition flag in Damascus on December 10, 2024, after Bashar al-Assad's oppressive regime was toppled and the former president fled to Russia. (Photo: AFP/Omar Haj Kadour) — People celebrate with the Syrian opposition flag in Damascus on December 10 after Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime was toppled and the former president fled to Russia. (Photo: AFP/Omar Haj Kadour)

As Syria transitions to a new government following the December 8 toppling of Bashar al-Assad, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities to take decisive action to ensure the safety of all journalists and hold accountable those responsible for the killing, imprisonment, and silencing of members of the media during the country’s 13-year civil war.

“Scenes of journalists rushing to cover Syria’s post-Assad regime raise hope for the start of a new chapter for the country’s media workers,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “While we wait for the missing to return and the imprisoned to be released, we call on the new authorities to hold the perpetrators to account for the crimes of killing, abducting, or jailing reporters.”

CPJ is also urging Syria’s new leaders to allow journalists and media workers safe access to information and locations to cover events. Syria has long been one of the world’s deadliest and riskiest countries for journalists, with CPJ documenting 141 journalists killed there between 2011 and 2024.

At least five journalists were imprisoned in Syria at the time of CPJ’s 2023 prison census. One of them, Tal al-Mallohi, a blogger detained since 2009, was released after the ousting of Assad. The fate of other prisoners, including U.S. journalist Austin Tice – abducted in Syria in mid-August 2012 – remains unknown.

Read more

The Afghan journalists bypassing the ‘Taliban firewall’

Faisal Karimi (right) and Wahab Siddiqi run an exile newsroom focused on Afghan women’s stories. (Photo: CPJ/Ananya Bhasin)

Faisal Karimi and Wahab Siddiqi, who lead the Afghanistan Women’s News Agency, were among the first journalists to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country in August 2021. After escaping the country undetected, they made their way to a refugee camp in Albania. Then, they got to work rebuilding the newsroom they had left behind.

More than three years later, the two journalists run the agency from exile in the United States. In a an interview with CPJ, they spoke about the importance of hearing women’s voices in Afghanistan and how they keep their in-country staff safe amid Taliban hostility to women journalists and the exile press.

The Committee to Protect Journalists promotes press freedom worldwide.

We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

Journalists Attacked

Myat Thu Tan

MURDERED

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local news website Western News and correspondent for several independent Myanmar news outlets, was shot and killed on January 31, 2024, while in military custody in Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State.

He was arrested on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under a broad provision of the penal code that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news for critical posts he made on his Facebook page. Myat Thu Tan had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death.

The journalist’s body was found buried in a bomb shelter, with the bodies of six other political detainees, and showed signs of torture.

Myanmar’s military junta has cracked down on journalists and media outlets since seizing power in a February 2021 coup.

Learn more about Myat Thu Tan