Committee to Protect Journalists – Defending Journalists Worldwide.

34 rights groups decry Egypt’s journalist arrests

A police vehicle drives around Cairo's Tahrir Square in November 2022. Since March 2024, Egyptian authorities have arrested four journalists and taken them to unknown locations. CPJ and other rights groups have called for their immedate release. (Photo: AFP/ Khaled Desouki) — A police vehicle drives around Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2022. Since March 2024, Egyptian authorities have arrested four journalists and taken them to unknown locations. (Photo: AFP/ Khaled Desouki)

The Committee to Protect Journalists and 33 human rights and press freedom organizations have released a joint statement condemning the recent arrests and enforced disappearance of four Egyptian journalists — Ashraf Omar, Khaled Mamdouh, Ramadan Gouida, and Yasser Abu Al-Ela — and called for their immediate release.

The statement also urged Egyptian authorities to drop all charges against the journalists, cease targeting them for their work, end the practice of concealing the status or location of those in custody, investigate allegations that at least two of the journalists were tortured or treated inhumanely, and hold those responsible accountable.

This new wave of arrests highlights the troubling record of Egyptian authorities in targeting journalists and independent media. Egypt has remained in the top 10 jailers of journalists worldwide in recent years, according to CPJ data.

CPJ, partners call for release of slain Nigerian journalist’s body

Nigerian reporter Onifade Emmanuel Pelumi was found dead in a mortuary in southwestern Lagos state in 2020. Nearly four years after his death, CPJ has joined others in a renewed call for justice. (Screenshot: YouTube/Gboah TV)

The Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, and the Media Foundation for West Africa released a joint statement on September 3 calling on Nigerian authorities to ensure the body of slain journalist Onifade Emmanuel Pelumi is released to his family and that those responsible for his death are identified and held to account.

Pelumi, an intern at Gboah TV, was shot on October 24, 2020, while covering the #EndSARS protests in Ikeja, the capital of Nigeria’s southwestern Lagos state. The injured journalist was reported to have been seen in the custody of the police; his body was found in a mortuary a week later.

Read the full statement

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