2025

Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh has spent more than a year imprisoned in Iran, enduring severe psychological torment and relentless interrogations for the simple fact that he is a journalist. Initially detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, his already dire situation deteriorated significantly after a devastating Israeli attack on the facility. Valizadeh was transferred to the dangerously overcrowded and medically inadequate Fashafouyeh Prison, where extreme neglect and inhumane…

Paris, August 28, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the mayor of Tehran, Alireza Zakani, to respect the Tehran Journalists’ Association’s right to function without undue interference after the mayor’s office of the Iranian capital city ousted the organization, in what the group described as retaliatory action. “We strongly oppose the forced closure of…

New York, August 28, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an independent investigation into Monday’s killing of five journalists by multiple Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza. A preliminary Israeli military report said “it appears” that a Hamas camera was the target of the attack and named six “terrorists who were…

New York, August 25, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Israeli strikes that killed five journalists in Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza and calls for the international community to hold Israel accountable for its continued unlawful attacks on the press. Journalist Hussam Al-Masri, a Reuters contractor; Al Jazeera camera operator Mohammed Salama; Mariam Abu…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, August 20, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Kurdish authorities to immediately release freelance Iraqi Kurdish journalist Sherwan Sherwani after an Erbil court handed him an additional four years and five months in prison.  “Sentencing Sherwani for a third time on dubious charges and imposing the maximum penalty shows the authorities’ determination to silence his critical voice and keep him behind…

Washington, D.C., August 19, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the August 16 arrest of Yemen News Agency journalist Hamoud Hazz’a after security forces raided his home in Al-Jufaina camp, Marib Governorate, confiscated his mobile phone and laptop, and took him to an undisclosed location without legal justification. Before his arrest, Hazz’a warned in an August 16 Facebook post that security personnel…

CPJ joined 103 global organizations in a letter calling on Israel to stop weaponizing bureaucratic registration rules that have prevented most major international non-governmental organizations (INGO) from delivering a single truck of lifesaving supplies into Gaza since March 2, while Palestinians starve. Millions of dollars’ worth of food, medicines, water, and shelter items lie stranded…

New York, August 10, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is appalled by Israel’s killing in Gaza on Sunday of four Al Jazeera staff — correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal —  and two freelancers, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammad al-Khaldi. The six journalists were killed and two others were injured by a targeted…

Washington, D.C., August 8, 2025—Qatari authorities should reconsider the implications of an amendment to the country’s cybercrime law, which could be used to prosecute journalists, photojournalists, and bloggers for doing their jobs, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. On August 4, Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani approved an amendment to a 2014 cybercrime law that adds a new provision that criminalizes publishing…

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…