2020

New York, December 29, 2020 – Moroccan authorities must immediately release journalist and press freedom advocate Maati Monjib, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Security forces arrested Monjib, a contributor to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi as well as other outlets, today at a restaurant in the capital Rabat, according to a Facebook post by independent journalist and Moroccan…

In this unforgettably tumultuous year, journalists across the world covered the ongoing pandemic, dangerous protests, natural disasters, active conflicts, elections, and other life-changing events. The reporters, anchors, photographers, camera operators, producers, and technicians who brought 2020’s biggest stories to the public often risked their own physical safety and psychological well-being and found themselves the subjects…

New York, December 27, 2020—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Jordanian authorities to release Jamal Haddad, publisher of the news website Alwakaai, and condemns the use of a national security prosecution to censor coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.  On December 24, Haddad was summoned and detained pending investigation under the country’s anti-terrorism law…

Retaliatory killings of journalists worldwide rose significantly in 2020 from the previous year, but deaths covering war dropped sharply. A CPJ special report by Jennifer Dunham December 22, 2020 NEW YORK The number of journalists murdered in retaliation for their work more than doubled in 2020, as criminal gangs and militant groups targeted reporters working…

New York, December 21, 2020 – Egyptian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release blogger Shadi Abu Zeid, and cease jailing members of the press for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On November 21, a Cairo appeals court sentenced video blogger Abu Zeid to six months in prison after convicting him of…

New York, December 21, 2020 – NSO Group’s advanced Pegasus spyware was identified on phones of at least 36 journalists and media executives in July and August 2020, according to the University of Toronto-based Citizen Lab, which said the surveillance product was installed via a vulnerability in the iPhone messaging application. Most targets were affiliated…

New York, December 16, 2020 — Lebanese authorities should do their utmost to identify and hold to account those responsible for the attack on the Beirut office of independent broadcaster Al-Jadeed TV, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesterday evening, a group of about 10 people wearing masks gathered at Al-Jadeed TV’s Beirut office…

Authorities in Hadramout Governorate, Yemen, in late September 2020 threatened to file a number of charges against Yemeni journalist Mohammed al-Yezidi, and he went into hiding after unknown individuals twice tried to abduct or detain him, al-Yezidi told CPJ via messaging app. Authorities in Hadramout—who are aligned with the Yemeni government—repeatedly attempted to arrest al-Yezidi,…

Editor’s note: In 2019, CPJ published a new database of attacks on the press. Numbers for each subsequent prison census are liable to adjust yearly as CPJ learns of arrests, releases, or deaths in prison. For the most recent data, see cpj.org/data/imprisoned/. The number of journalists jailed globally because of their work hit a new high in 2020…