2022

New York, May 6, 2022 – Oman authorities should drop all charges against journalist Mukhtar al-Hanai and allow the press to work freely and without fear of legal harassment, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. The public prosecutor’s office in Muscat, the capital, informed al-Hanai, a reporter for the news website Atheer, on March…

New York, May 4, 2022 – Sudanese military authorities must immediately and unconditionally release all journalists in custody and ensure that members of the press can work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On April 5, military intelligence officers arrested reporter Mohamed Sulaiman al-Obied and photographers Mutaz al-Naeem Adam and Mohamed al-Fatih at…

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…

On April 26, 2022, forces with the Asayish intelligence agency harassed and obstructed two news crews covering a protest at a U.N. office in the northern Iraqi-Kurdish city of Erbil, according to news reports and journalists who spoke with CPJ. Protesters gathered at the U.N. building to demonstrate against Turkish military operations in the region,…

Beirut, April 27, 2022 – Iraqi authorities must immediately release journalist Matej Kavčič and ensure the foreign press can cover the country freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On April 20, soldiers with the Iraqi 20th Infantry Division arrested Kavčič, a Slovenian freelance reporter, at an army checkpoint in the northern city of…

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…

Washington, D.C., April 26, 2022 – The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes news reports that Egypt has included journalists Mohamed Salah and Abdo Fayed among its latest prisoner releases, but calls on Egyptian authorities to release at least 23 other journalists in custody. “We are pleased that Salah and Fayed are getting some relief after…

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…

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…

New York, April 21, 2022 – Libyan authorities must immediately release journalist Ali al-Rifawi, disclose his location, and ensure that journalists can cover local events without fear of detention, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On March 26, armed officers from the Internal Security Agency, a coalition of armed groups led by the Libyan…