Middle East & North Africa

In Tunisia, at least four journalists and commentators sentenced to prison over the last year remain free, trying to work and carry on with their daily lives while knowing they could be arrested and taken into custody. Two others are in exile, unable to return home without risking imprisonment. Whether they will eventually be forced…

New York, August 31, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Tunisian authorities to immediately release journalists Zied el-Heni, Mourad Zghidi, and Borhen Bsaies, as reports of prisoner deaths amid an extreme heatwave raise grave concerns about life-threatening conditions in the country’s overcrowded prisons. At least 10 prisoners have died in recent weeks, as temperatures…

On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Committee to Protect Journalists, together with press freedom and human rights organizations, calls on all parties to the conflict and the de facto authorities in Yemen to immediately end the use of enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention against journalists and media workers, and to…

Arrest, prosecution, and censorship have long shaped the media landscape in Iran. Currently, nine journalists are known to be imprisoned for doing their job, including Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh, who was detained in September 2024 and is currently serving 10 years in prison. But members of the press interviewed in August by the Committee to…

New York, August 21, 2026 – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) joined 67 other civil society organizations in calling on the UN Human Rights Council to extend the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan (FFM) for two years and provide it with adequate resources to investigate grave violations and support…

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined partner organizations on Wednesday to strongly condemn the arrest and enforced disappearance of at least 36 Shi’a Muslims in Egypt, including journalist Haidar Qandil, and called for their immediate release. Qandil was arrested on June 22, 2026, outside the offices of Al-Dostor newspaper in Giza, Greater Cairo, and taken…

Washington, D.C., August 11, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Kuwaiti authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Kuwaiti political commentator Mohammed Saleh al-Sabti.  Al-Sabti was arrested in July after taking part in an interview on Saudi-owned channel Al-Arabiya, according to the independent media outlet Newsroom, as well as a Kuwaiti blogger and a rights…

New York, August 6, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists is renewing its demands for immediate accountability for the killing of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil. This follows an Amnesty International investigation concluding that the Israeli strike that killed her should be investigated as a war crime. Khalil was murdered in southern Lebanon on April 22, 2026,…

New York, August 5, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the immediate release of freelance journalist Alrayah Isam Gaksa, a contributor to local news website Hekaiyat and Baankhi Press, who was detained by the Sudan Shield Forces, an armed group allied with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), while returning from a work assignment in…

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined partner organizations on Thursday to call for an end to the unjust imprisonment of journalists and other human rights defenders in Tunisia. In a joint statement to Tunisian authorities, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), along with CPJ, and 45 other organizations denounced Tunisia’s ongoing crackdown on freedom…