Journalists attacked in UAE since 1992
UAE documents by Year:
Serbian journalist denied entry to United Arab Emirates
January 10, 2020 8:30 AM ET
On December 17, 2019, authorities at Abu Dhabi International Airport denied entry to Stevan Dojčinović, a Serbian national and editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, an investigative news outlet, according to Dojčinović, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, and news reports....
CPJ concerned by report that UAE 'Project Raven' surveilled journalists
January 30, 2019 3:49 PM ET
New York, January 30, 2019--At least four journalists were surveilled under Project Raven, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) cybersurveillance and hacking operation, Reuters reported today. The UAE hired former U.S. National Security Agency employees to assist in deploying a surveillance tool called Karma that exploited a vulnerability in the...
Saudi control of Arab media, lamented by Khashoggi, shapes coverage of his death
October 30, 2018 2:59 PM ET
It is a cruel irony that Jamal Khashoggi's last unpublished column for The Washington Post was a call for press freedom in the Arab world.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....
CPJ Safety Advisory: Pegasus spyware used to target journalists, civil society
October 1, 2018 5:34 PM ET
[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...
Undiscoverable: How Al-Jazeera's Snapchat channel disappeared from three Gulf nations
September 10, 2018 12:35 PM ET
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...
Press at risk as EU-based companies export surveillance software to hostile regimes
October 10, 2017 6:02 PM ET
In August, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told the daily newspaper Information that the government had authorized sales of online surveillance software to several Middle Eastern countries. While acknowledging the potential for human rights violations that could result from the use of these tools, the minister said that Denmark...
Dubai suspends magazine for one month
July 31, 2017 5:42 PM ET
Beirut, July 31, 2017--Authorities in Dubai should immediately reverse their one-month ban on the print and online editions of the weekly magazine Arabian Business, and should cease censoring the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today....
Calls to shutter Qatari media show contempt for press freedom
June 28, 2017 3:10 PM ET
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt to drop demands that Qatari-funded media be closed as a condition for the lifting of the partial blockade they have imposed on Qatar.
Amid Gulf tensions, press is used as a political pawn
June 8, 2017 5:38 PM ET
Today Bahrain became the latest Gulf nation to put pressure on news outlets amid political tension, when its Interior Ministry announced that anyone publishing support or sympathy for Qatar faces up to five years in prison. The announcement came the day after the United Arab Emirates used the threat...
UAE threatens 15 years in prison for expressions of 'sympathy' with Qatar
June 7, 2017 3:28 PM ET
New York, June 7, 2017--Authorities in the United Arab Emirates should clearly and immediately repudiate Emirati Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi's threats to imprison and fine anyone who criticizes the United Arab Emirates' stance toward Qatar or who expresses any "sympathy" for Qatar, the Committee to Protect Journalists said...