Middle East & North Africa

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…

CPJ joined 15 other media and human rights organizations in a joint letter demanding an end to the forced starvation and targeted killing of journalists in Gaza by Israel. The letter calls on governments, international organizations, the media, and civil society to ensure access for food and medical supplies; end to the blockade on foreign…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, August 5, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Iraqi authorities to free Al-Baghdadia TV’s director and presenter Ali Al-Dhabhawi, who was given a three-year jail sentence on Monday, and to reopen the satellite channel’s office in the capital Baghdad. On July 31, security forces raided the Iraqi-owned station and Al-Dhabhawi’s home, a…

Paris, July 31, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Iranian authorities to explain the grounds on which they have summoned and arrested 98 “so-called citizen-journalists” for having contact with a London-based Persian-language television channel. “Iranian authorities must immediately clarify the legal basis for this mass detention of its citizens and cease treating those who…

Sulaymaniyah, July 30, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists demands accountability in the killing of Suwayda 24 photojournalist Sari Majid Al-Shoufi, who went missing in the early hours of July 14, 2025, while covering armed clashes in the countryside near the southern Syrian city of Sweida. His death was confirmed on July 24 after several days of search efforts. “Sari…

Sulaymaniyah, July 30, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is appalled that Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky will remain in prison for an additional six months following a decision by Iraq’s Duhok misdemeanor court. CPJ reiterates its call for Baroshky’s immediate release. On June 28, 2025, Baroshky’s lawyer, Reving Yaseen, informed CPJ that the court had reactivated a previously suspended…

Washington, D.C., July 29, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the immediate release of journalist Abduljabar Bajabeer, general director of the TV3ad channel, after his July 28 arrest in Yemen’s conflict-torn Hadramout governorate. He was detained on unspecified charges and transferred to the Criminal Investigation prison in the city of Al-Mukalla. His arrest follows…

CPJ joined 35 members of the International News Safety Institute in a July 25 letter calling for Israel to respect the freedom of movement of journalists.  The joint letter called for Israeli authorities to allow Gazan journalists and their families – many of whom, like the rest of the population, are starving and facing extraordinary…

New York, July 24, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely worried about the safety of Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who is being targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign, which he believes is a precursor to his assassination. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee has stepped up his…