Middle East & North Africa

Sulaymaniyah, March 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by multiple attacks on journalists reporting on Syria’s worst clashes since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, including bullets being fired at two news teams’ cars, with one journalist shot in the leg, and the assault and detention of a third crew.  “We are appalled by the…

In a joint letter, the Committee to Protect Journalists and 16 other press freedom and human rights organizations called on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ramp up efforts to secure Egyptian-British writer Alaa Abdelfattah’s release. Abdelfattah has spent nearly a decade behind bars and now faces an additional two years in detention—despite Egyptian legal provisions that should have ensured his…

When Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power last December, Syrian journalist Tal al-Mallohi was among the thousands who poured out of the country’s jails. Mallohi was 18 when security police detained her in 2009 after posting on the then-popular Blogger platform poems and articles about Palestinian rights and other political issues. She spent 15…

In a joint letter led by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 50 prominent human rights leaders, Nobel Prize laureates, writers, and public figures have called on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to grant a presidential pardon to Egyptian-British writer Alaa Abdelfattah. The letter, sent Tuesday, highlights that Abdelfattah has spent nearly a decade behind bars…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, March 3, 2025—Kurdistan security forces arrested four journalists from the new digital outlet Media21 on February 28 in the eastern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, confiscating their phones and taking them from their homes. The journalists were identified as Bashdar Bazyani, Dana Salih, Sardasht HamaSalih, and Nabaz Shekhani. Security forces closed the outlet’s office…

The U.K. government must lead on a joint statement addressing Egypt’s human rights crisis, according to a February 19 letter sent by the Committee to Protect Journalists and 24 other press freedom and human rights organizations to U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy ahead of the 58th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The letter…

Washington, D.C., February 21, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the blocking of Egyptian independent media outlet Zawia3, based in Brussels, and calls on Egyptian authorities to end the country’s systematic censorship of independent journalism. “The blocking of Zawia3 is yet another example of Egyptian authorities arbitrarily censoring media without legal justification, using technology to suppress journalism and restrict Egyptians’…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, February 13, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Kurdistan security forces’ assault on 12 news crews covering a February 9 protest by teachers and other public employees over unpaid salaries, which resulted in at least 22 journalists teargassed, two arrested, and a television station raided. “The aggressive treatment meted out to…

The Committee to Protect Journalists, along with 11 other press freedom and human rights organizations, calls on Egyptian authorities to reject the current draft of the Criminal Procedure Code so a new code be developed in line with international human rights standards. The joint statement highlights several problematic provisions in the draft—especially Articles 79, 80, and 116—that…

The Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter to Tunisian President Kais Saied on February 12 asking him to secure the release of journalist Mohamed Boughaleb, whose health is gravely worsening, and to repeal the cybercrime law Decree 54. Boughaleb, a reporter with local independent channel Carthage Plus and local independent radio station Cap FM,…