Middle East & North Africa

  
Syrian refugees prepare to return to Syria from the Lebanese border town of Arsal, Lebanon, in June 2018. Lebanese authorities detained a journalist after he published a story on refugee women in Arsal. (Reuters/Mohamed Azakir)

Lebanese authorities detain Syrian reporter who reports on refugees

Beirut, November 26, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the imprisonment without charge of Abdel Hafez al-Houlani, a correspondent for the Syrian pro-opposition news website Zaman al-Wasl in the northeastern Lebanese city of Arsal, and called on Lebanese authorities to immediately disclose charges against him or set him free.

Read More ›

Journalists Hamoud al-Jneid (left) and Raed Fares, who were gunned down by unknown assailants in the city of Kafranbel in northwestern Syria on November 23, 2018. (Radio Fresh)

Unknown gunmen kill prominent Syrian radio host and a photographer in northwestern Syria

Beirut, November 26, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the assassination of prominent radio host Raed Fares and photographer Hamoud al-Jnaid and urged local authorities in the northwestern Syrian city of Kafranbel to investigate the murder and bring those responsible to justice.

Read More ›

A man walks through rubble in Damascus in October 2018, caused by years of war. Safety remains a key concern for Syrian journalists. (AP/Hassan Ammar)

Damascus journalist has a million stories but none she can safely report

Joudy Boulos has a million stories she wants to write. But as a Syrian freelance journalist living in Damascus, her ability to report is severely limited by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It is so dangerous that “Joudy Boulos” is a pseudonym the journalist sometimes uses when reporting and to protect her safety.…

Read More ›

Militiamen loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA), Libya's internationally recognized government, keep watch in Tripoli on September 25, 2018. Authorities in Ajilat, a city under GNA rule, are taking legal action against a journalist who reports on corruption. (AFP/Mahmud Turkia)

Libyan authorities charge journalist with defamation, publishing state secrets

New York, November 8, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on authorities in the Libyan city of Ajilat to end their persecution of freelance journalist Mukhtar al-Halak, who is due in court on November 12 on charges of criminal defamation and publishing state security secrets.

Read More ›

Two journalists shot, injured covering effects of Turkish shelling in Syria

Two reporters for the Hawar News Agency (ANHA), Gulistan Mohammad and Ibrahim al-Ahmed, were injured by Turkish gunfire while covering the effects of Turkey’s shelling of the northern Syrian city of Tell Abbyad on the Turkey-Syria border on November 2, 2018, according to news reports, the journalists’ employer, footage provided by Brazilian photojournalist and filmmaker…

Read More ›

CPJ calls on UN to investigate murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi consulate

CPJ calls on U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to request that the United Nations launch an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Read More ›

A Saudi Arabia flag and a surveillance camera are seen in the backyard of the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. Saudi actors are believed to have spied on phone calls and messages between murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi and his friend, Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz. (AFP/Ozan Kose)

How the Saudis may have spied on Jamal Khashoggi

Omar Abdulaziz, a 27-year-old Saudi Arabian dissident, can still remember the time Jamal Khashoggi, the storied Saudi journalist, unfollowed him on Twitter. It was in 2015, and Khashoggi had been tapped to head a new TV network called Al-Arab, a partnership between a member of the royal family and Bloomberg. Abdulaziz started haranguing Khashoggi online,…

Read More ›

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.

Read More ›

A tribute to victims of an April 2018 suicide attack in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, that killed at least nine journalists. (AP/Rahmat Gul)

Getting Away with Murder

CPJ’s 2018 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free By Elisabeth Witchel, CPJ Impunity Campaign Consultant Impunity is entrenched in 14 nations, according to CPJ’s 2018 Global Impunity Index, which ranks states with the worst records of prosecuting the killers of journalists.

Read More ›

Senate Foreign Relations Committee must keep up pressure over Khashoggi

CPJ writes to the leaders of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, requesting that they ensure the Trump administration conducts a quick and thorough investigation into Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, as required by the Magnitsky Act, and that they consider holding independent hearings on Saudi Arabia.

Read More ›