Bahrain / Middle East & North Africa

  

Ten years after the Arab Spring, the region’s media faces grave threats. Here are the top press freedom trends

In early February 2011, Alaa Abdelfattah was in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, documenting and participating in the nascent pro-democracy uprising that would topple the government and transform the country and the region. Today, he is in prison on anti-state and false news charges, which his family believes are partly retaliatory for his work. Abdelfattah is one of…

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Belarus journalist detained

Record number of journalists jailed worldwide

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…

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A screen shot of an audio message by imprisoned Bahraini journalist Mahmoud al-Jaziri posted April 7, 2020, on a YouTube channel run by Bahraini dissidents, in which he described conditions in Jaw Prison amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bahrain puts imprisoned journalist in solitary confinement after reporting on COVID-19 danger

New York, April 10, 2020 – Bahraini authorities should immediately stop retaliating against imprisoned journalist Mahmoud al-Jaziri for reporting on conditions inside Bahraini prisons and should free all journalists imprisoned for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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A police cruiser is seen on the outskirts Manama, Bahrain, on March 13, 2020. CPJ joined a letter calling on Bahrain to release all its imprisoned journalists. (AFP/Mazen Mahdi)

CPJ joins letter calling on Bahrain to release all journalists, citing COVID-19

The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined other human rights and free expression organizations in a letter calling on the Bahraini government to release all imprisoned journalists and other political prisoners.

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A man reads the Akhbar Al Khaleej newspaper in Manama, Bahrain, on June 22, 2009. A columnist at the paper has recently disappeared and is believed to be in government custody. (AFP/Adam Jan)

Bahraini journalist Ibrahim al-Sheikh believed to be detained on false news charges

New York, April 17, 2019 — Bahraini authorities must immediately clarify whether they are detaining Akhbar al-Khaleej columnist Ibrahim al-Sheikh and, if so, release him immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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A protester wears a mask depicting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman with painted hands next to people holding posters of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during the demonstration outside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 25, 2018. (AFP/Yasin Akgul)

Saudi control of Arab media, lamented by Khashoggi, shapes coverage of his death

It is a cruel irony that Jamal Khashoggi’s last unpublished column for The Washington Post was a call for press freedom in the Arab world. His homeland, Saudi Arabia, has spent the last three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that never happens.

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Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui holds her mobile phone during a press conference in Mexico City in 2017 about governments using spyware to target journalist. (AFP/Alfredo Estrella)

CPJ Safety Advisory: Pegasus spyware used to target journalists, civil society

[EDITOR’S NOTE: See CPJ’s updated safety advisory here https://cpj.org/2019/11/cpj-safety-advisory-journalist-targets-of-pegasus-.php.] In a report published on September 18, Citizen Lab said it had detected Pegasus, a spyware created for mobile devices, in over 45 countries. Pegasus, which transforms a cellphone into a mobile surveillance station, could have been deployed against a range of journalists and civil society…

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A Snap banner covers the facade of the New York Stock Exchange in March 2017. The social media company's transparency report shows it received and complied with three government takedown requests for the Al-Jazeera Discover channel. (AFP/Bryan R. Smith)

Undiscoverable: How Al-Jazeera’s Snapchat channel disappeared from three Gulf nations

Search for “Al-Jazeera” on Snapchat, and the first result that comes up is a ubiquitous publisher channel in the app’s famed vertical layout. That is, unless you are in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), or Bahrain. Users in these counties are instead offered a list of stores and restaurants that bear a similar…

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Former Gambia President Yahya Jammeh, pictured in November 2016, is among the suspected human rights abusers to be penalized under the U.S. Magnitsky Act. (Reuters/Thierry Gouegnon)

Mixed first year, but Global Magnitsky Act could be strong tool in fight for justice

In December, the U.S. government announced the names of those it will penalize under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights and Accountability Act.

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Journalists and protesters hold placards outside an Istanbul court on October 31, 2017, calling for the release of jailed colleagues, including Turkish reporter Ahmet Şık. Turkey is the worst jailer of journalists in 2017. (AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Record number of journalists jailed as Turkey, China, Egypt pay scant price for repression

For the second year in a row, the number of journalists imprisoned for their work hit a historical high, as the U.S. and other Western powers failed to pressure the world’s worst jailers–Turkey, China, and Egypt–into improving the bleak climate for press freedom. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

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