Soran Rashid

Soran Rashid joined CPJ as a Kurdish consultant in February 2022, before becoming a MENA correspondent in June 2024. Rashid continues working in journalism, contributing as an editor to multiple media outlets in Iraq. Before joining CPJ, Rashid served as the newsroom manager at NRT TV, one of the most-watched channels in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, until 2018. He also held the position of editor-in-chief at NasKurd and led digital media operations at Zoom News TV. With a focus on politics, wars, conflicts, and environmental issues, Rashid has built a reputation for delivering in-depth coverage of complex topics across the region.

Israeli soldiers guard the Israeli-Syrian border, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams, on July 17, 2025. (Photo: AP/Leo Correa)

Israeli forces chase, hold, and shoot at journalists in southern Syria

Journalists in southern Syria are being chased, detained and intimidated by live fire by members of the Israeli Defense Forces, according to reporters who spoke to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The months-long escalation of harassment raises concerns about press freedom and has sometimes forced journalists to play a dangerous game of hide-and-seek to protect…

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This overturned General Security Forces vehicle in Sweida was struck by an Israeli drone on July 15, 2025, according to journalist Nadim al-Nabulsi.

Journalists killed, wounded, media office damaged in Syria violence

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, July 22, 2025—Journalists were killed, wounded, shot at, and blocked from entering the southern city of Sweida as sectarian violence spread across the region last week, according to multiple journalists who spoke to CPJ. An Israeli airstrike also damaged a media outlet in Damascus. “The violence against journalists in Sweida — including injuries, intimidation, and…

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Al Jazeera camera operator Ryad Alhussein holds a makeshift tourniquet around his right thigh after being shot while covering clashes near Jableh on Syria’s west coast on March 6, 2025.

In Syria, 3 news crews shot at, assaulted while covering deadly clashes

Sulaymaniyah, March 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by multiple attacks on journalists reporting on Syria’s worst clashes since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, including bullets being fired at two news teams’ cars, with one journalist shot in the leg, and the assault and detention of a third crew.  “We are appalled by the…

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Slemani News Network camera operator Sivar Baban struggles to breathe after being teargassed during a Kurdistan teachers’ protest on February 9.

Dozens of Iraqi Kurdistan journalists teargassed, arrested, raided over protest

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, February 13, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Kurdistan security forces’ assault on 12 news crews covering a February 9 protest by teachers and other public employees over unpaid salaries, which resulted in at least 22 journalists teargassed, two arrested, and a television station raided. “The aggressive treatment meted out to…

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