Middle East & North Africa

  
Journalist and activist Omar Radi waits outside court in Casablanca, Morocco, on March 12, 2020.

Morocco denies jailed journalist Omar Radi post-surgical care in hospital

New York, October 17, 2023—Moroccan authorities must immediately release journalist Omar Radi, and transfer him to a hospital to recover from surgery on a broken arm, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On Wednesday, Radi—who is serving a six-year jail term—broke his right arm in prison in Tiflet and was transferred to a hospital…

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Reuters' journalist Issam Abdallah takes a selfie picture while working in Maras, Turkey,

Journalist killed, others injured in southern Lebanon strike 

New York, October 13, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Friday shelling in southern Lebanon from the direction of Israel that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injured six other journalists. Those wounded include two other Reuters journalists, Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, two Al-Jazeera TV staffers, Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, and Agence France-Press journalists Christina Assi…

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Saad Bouakba

Algerian prosecutor requests 5-year prison sentence for journalist Saad Bouakba

New York, October 12, 2023—Algerian authorities must drop all charges against journalist Saad Bouakba and refrain from prosecuting members of the press over their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. At a court hearing in Algiers on Wednesday, the state prosecutor requested a five-year prison sentence and a fine of 500,000 Algerian dinars…

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Tipping the scales: Journalists’ lawyers face retaliation around the globe

The smears began the day Christian Ulate began representing jailed Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora: tweets accusing the lawyer of being a leftist or questioning his legal credentials. He began to fear he was being surveilled.  Ulate had taken over the case in August 2022 from two other lawyers, Romeo Montoya García and Mario Castañeda,…

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CPJ calls for investigation into killing of Sudanese journalist Halima Idris Salim

New York, October 12, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Sudanese authorities to investigate and hold to account those responsible for the Tuesday, October 10 killing of Sudanese journalist Halima Idris Salim, and urges all parties to the ongoing armed conflict in the country to respect the press and guarantee journalists’ safety. “We are…

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Moroccan policemen

Moroccan authorities briefly arrest journalist Abdelmjid Amyay, ban Abdellatif al-Hamamouchi from traveling

On October 5, 2023, Moroccan police arrested journalist Abdelmjid Amyay, director of local independent news website Chams Post, at a coffee shop in the northeastern city of Oujda and detained him for one night for sharing articles about corruption in the city on his personal Facebook page, according to news reports. The following day, authorities…

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Palestinians remove a dead body from the rubble of a building after an Israeli airstrike Jebaliya refugee camp, Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ramez Mahmoud)

3 Palestinian journalists killed, 1 injured, 2 missing, in Gaza-Israel conflict

New York, October 9, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday that it was deeply disturbed by reports that at least six journalists were among the civilians who were killed, injured or missing in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. On Saturday, two Palestinian journalists were shot dead while out reporting—Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi,…

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Rockets are fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.

CPJ calls for investigation into killing of Palestinian journalist Mohammad El-Salhi in Gaza

New York, October 7, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Israel to investigate the killing on Saturday of Palestinian journalist Mohammad El-Salhi, make its findings public, and take immediate action to ensure the safety of media workers reporting on the biggest attack on Israel in years by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. In Saturday’s assault, Hamas…

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Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi

On fifth anniversary of Khashoggi murder, CPJ joins call for Biden administration to prioritize human rights in Saudi Arabia

Five years have passed since the heinous murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, in an operation that US intelligence found to have been approved by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).

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Morocco expels French journalists Quentin Müller and Thérèse Di Campo

Around 3 a.m. on September 20, about 10 plainclothes police officers arrested French journalists Quentin Müller and Thérèse Di Campo in their hotel in Morocco’s largest city, Casablanca, and expelled them for their reporting on the rule of King Mohamed VI – a topic considered taboo in the country. Müller, a staff reporter with the…

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