CPJ joins call for Biden administration to withhold $300 million in military aid to Egypt
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 19 other civil society organizations on Monday, August 8, in an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, urging the Biden administration not to provide its full proposed military aid to Egypt due to the country’s treatment of journalists and…
CPJ joins call urging Egyptian government to respect human rights ahead of COP27
In a joint open letter on July 14, 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 20 other civil society groups in urging German officials meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to press the Egyptian leader to reopen civic space in the country. The letter is addressed to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and State Secretary…
‘The war eats you alive’: Gaza journalists on the toll of covering Israeli attacks
Since May, Palestinian journalists have endured two traumatizing events: the killing of their colleague, Al-Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh, and the one-year anniversary of an Israeli airstrike that destroyed a Gaza City building housing The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera, along with other offices and residential apartments, during an Israeli military campaign against militant groups in Gaza. That war…
Inspired by Shireen Abu Akleh, journalist Shatha Hanaysha was an eyewitness to her killing
Al-Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, whose body was laid to rest in Jerusalem Friday, was an inspiration to a generation of female Palestinian reporters – including one who witnessed Abu Akleh’s killing on May 11. Shatha Hanaysha, a 29-year-old correspondent for news website Ultra Palestine and contributor to regional news website Middle East Eye, was next to Abu Akleh in the Israeli-occupied West…
Imprisoned Egyptian journalist Alaa Abdelfattah’s sister Sanaa Seif: ‘Since the book is out, his voice is out too’
When Egyptian journalist Alaa Abdelfattah was re-arrested in September 2019 for sharing a tweet with allegations of wrongdoing by a state security officer, he ended up back in prison under the same watchful gaze of authorities who had warned him a few months prior to stop reporting, or he would “regret it.” However, Abdelfattah did…
As World Cup nears, Qatar and FIFA face fresh scrutiny on press freedom commitments
Exactly one year before the scheduled start of the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar, plainclothes officers from the Gulf state’s Criminal Investigations Department arrested Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani, a sports reporter and cameraman respectively for Norwegian state broadcaster NRK, as they were leaving their hotel in the capital of Doha. The NRK journalists…
‘When you stop writing, they win’: Exiled after attacks, Lebanese journalist Mariam Seif Eddine is still reporting
When a teenager’s burned body was discovered in Mariam Seif Eddine’s neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburb in September 2020, the journalist knew she had to report the story, even if it meant crossing Hezbollah. The Shia political party and militant group likes to keep tight control on information coming out of its strongholds, she told CPJ. “Hezbollah…
Iraqi Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky: Press freedom ‘an illusion’ in the region
Freelance journalist Omed Baroshky spent 18 months in jail over social media posts that were critical of the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan. One of four Iraqi Kurdish reporters listed in CPJ’s 2021 prison census, his incarceration marked yet another low point for a region that has seen a sharp deterioration in the environment for the…
Israeli journalists call for spyware exemption after Israel denies illegal Pegasus use
As Israel grapples with the aftermath of explosive allegations that police illegally spied on dozens of Israelis, the country’s journalists are calling to be exempt from possible future legislation to oversee surveillance of citizens through spyware. Israel’s justice ministry last month denied a report by Israeli tech site Calcalist about the allegedly unlawful use of…
Syrian journalist Amer Matar on facing his torturer in court
Syrian journalist Amer Matar was regularly blindfolded, handcuffed, and beaten with cables, whips, and fists during the eight months he was held in a Syrian prison. When a German court sentenced one of his torturers – Syrian army colonel Anwar Raslan – to life in prison earlier this month, Matar finally felt that at least…