BBC News regularly proclaims its supposed editorial principles of fearless, independent, impartial, fair and accurate journalism. In a January 2023 speech to the Whitehall & Industry Group in London, then BBC Chairman Richard Sharp boasted that BBC journalism is the ‘global gold standard’ of credible news reporting.

Two years previously, in 2021, the public broadcaster had proudly published a focused, 10-point plan to ensure the protection of the highest ‘impartiality, whistleblowing and editorial standards’. BBC director general Tim Davie asserted:

‘The BBC’s editorial values of impartiality, accuracy and trust are the foundation of our relationship with audiences in the UK and around the world. Our audiences deserve and expect programmes and content which earn their trust every day and we must meet the highest standards and hold ourselves accountable in everything we do.’

When it comes to the broadcaster’s coverage of Gaza since October 2023, and long before, BBC audiences have seen for themselves the hollowness of such BBC rhetoric.

For example, the BBC’s withdrawal of its own commissioned powerful documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, earlier this year epitomised how much the UK’s national broadcaster bends to the will of the Israel lobby. The BBC dropped the documentary from iPlayer, soon after it was broadcast on BBC Two on 17 February, when it emerged that the film’s narrator, 13-year-old Abdullah al-Yazuri, is the son of Ayman al-Yazuri, a deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza’s government which is administered by Hamas. The film was withdrawn after a campaign by pro-Israel voices, including David Collier, a self-described ‘100 per cent Zionist’ activist, Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, and Danny Cohen, a former director of BBC television, who said that the broadcaster ‘is at risk of becoming a Hamas propaganda mouthpiece.’

Another documentary, Gaza: Medics Under Fire, made by Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmakers, including Ben de Pear, Karim Shah and Ramita Navai, has been held back by the BBC, even though it had been signed off by BBC lawyers. The film includes the testimony of Palestinian doctors working in Gaza under Israeli bombardment. It has been ready for broadcast since February after months of editorial reviews and fact-checking.

Over 600 prominent figures from the arts and media, including British film director Mike Leigh, Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon and Lindsey Hilsum, the international editor of Channel 4 News, have signed an open letter criticising the BBC for withholding the documentary:

‘We stand with the medics of Gaza whose voices are being silenced. Their urgent stories are being buried by bureaucracy and political censorship. This is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression. The BBC has provided no timeline, no transparency. Such decisions reinforce the systemic devaluation of Palestinian lives in our media.’

This, of course, is all part of an endemic pattern of BBC bias towards Israel under the guise of ‘impartiality’; a façade that has now been obliterated. The corporation’s longstanding, blatant protection of Israel, considered an ‘apartheid regime’ by major human rights organisations, has been particularly glaring since Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government ordered genocidal attacks on Gaza in October 2023.

The public has been subject to repetition and amplification of the Israeli narrative above the Palestinian perspective. Moreover, the broadcaster regularly omits ‘Israel’ from headlines about its latest war crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank. Another remarkable feature of the BBC’s performance has been the dismissive treatment by senior BBC management of serious concerns about bias raised by their own journalists. A very brief summary of the BBC’s biased reporting on Gaza, and criticism by some of their own journalists, can be found in this thread on X. The essential conclusion concerning BBC News coverage of Gaza, wrote one dissident BBC journalist, is that of:

‘a collapse in the application of basic standards and norms of journalism that seems aligned with Israel’s propaganda strategy.’ [Our emphasis]

BBC management have ignored or dismissed ‘a mass of evidence-based critique of coverage’ from members of staff. So much for the BBC’s claimed commitment to taking whistleblowers seriously.

Karishma Patel, a former BBC researcher, newsreader and journalist, wrote earlier this year about her reasons for leaving the BBC. She observed ‘a shocking level of editorial inconsistency’ in how the BBC covers Gaza. Journalists were ‘actively choosing not to follow evidence’ of Israeli war crimes ‘out of fear’.

In a follow-up article last month, she observed that:

‘many [BBC] journalists are afraid to speak their minds – to challenge editorial decisions or speak freely to powerful presenters and executives. This isn’t a newsroom environment conducive to robust journalism – a profession all about the pursuit of truth and accountability.’

She added:

‘It’s important the public understands how far editorial policy can be silently shaped by even the possibility of anger from certain groups, foreign governments, our own government, mega-corporations – any powerful actor – and how crucial it is that more junior journalists who see it can speak up.’

‘A Precious National Asset’

Last week, the BBC’s director general warned of a disinformation ‘trust crisis’ that was putting ‘the social fabric’ of the UK ‘at risk’. Tim Davie pointed the finger at social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube where, as a Guardian report on Davie’s speech put it, ‘disinformation can go unchecked’. We have previously written (for example, here and here) about how ‘mainstream’ editors and journalists love to point at social media as prime purveyors of disinformation, diverting attention from their own culpability in much larger crimes of state-approved propaganda that fuels wars, the erosion of democracy and climate catastrophe.

Davie said:

‘The future of our cohesive, democratic society feels for the first time in my life at risk.’

He called for ‘strong government backing’ for the BBC as a ‘precious national asset’ to be ‘properly funded and supported’. The fact that the BBC has itself massively contributed to a ‘trust crisis’ in disinformation and propaganda, encapsulated by its complicity in Israel’s genocide, went unmentioned, of course.

The late, great journalist John Pilger put it succinctly in an interview with Afshin Rattansi:

‘The BBC has the most brilliant production values, it produces the most extraordinary natural history and drama series. But the BBC is, and has long been, the most refined propaganda service in the world.’

Daily examples abound of why the public should regard BBC News with deep scepticism. On 12 May, BBC News at Ten reported the release of US-Israeli dual citizen Edan Alexander by Hamas. Senior BBC reporter Lucy Williamson said that Alexander had originally been ‘kidnapped as a soldier’. The terminology is deceptive: civilians are kidnapped; soldiers are captured. Why did BBC editors approve this loaded use of the wrong word, ‘kidnapped’?

Consider another example. Richard Sanders, an experienced journalist and documentary filmmaker, noted via X on 15 May that the BBC had included this line in one of its news bulletins:

‘Israel says a hospital [in Gaza] along with a university and schools … have become terrorist strongholds for Hamas’.

Sanders commented:

‘The BBC knows such statements are untrue. Yet that sentence took up more than a third of its 22 sec 7.30 am news bulletin on Gaza – with no rebuttal.’

He added:

‘8am they go to [BBC] correspondent Yolande Knell for a lengthier report. She repeats exactly the same sentence – again, with no rebuttal.

‘The listener is left with the entirely false impression it’s perfectly possible it’s true.

‘Bad, bad journalism.’

And yet this is standard BBC ‘journalism’: the ‘global gold standard’, remember.

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, is supposedly an exemplar of this gold standard. But his capitulation to the Israel lobby is repeatedly apparent in his interviews and articles. Media activist Saul Staniforth captured this clip where a BBC presenter said to Bowen:

‘[Netanyahu is] looking for other countries to take in Gazans’.

Bowen responded: ‘Well, that’s called…’

He then paused momentarily and continued: ‘… that will be called, by Palestinians and by a lot of people around the world, ethnic cleansing.’

Bowen presumably stopped himself simply stating the truth: ‘that’s called ethnic cleansing.’ This is what he would have said in any context involving an Official Enemy, such as Russia, rather than the Official Friend, Israel.

Jonathan Cook dissected an even more egregious example of Bowen’s favouring the Israeli perspective when the BBC journalist interviewed Philippe Lazzarini, head of United Nations refugee agency UNRWA. Before airing the interview, Bowen introduced the Lazzarini interview with a contorted cautionary statement:

‘Israel says he is a liar, and that his organisation has been infiltrated by Hamas. But I felt it was important to talk to him for a number of reasons.

‘First off, the British government deals with him, and funds his organisation. Which is the largest dealing with Palestinian refugees. They know a lot of what is going on, so therefore I think it is important to speak to people like him.’

As Cook observed, Bowen would never preface an interview with Netanyahu in a similar way:

‘The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, accusing him of crimes against humanity. But I felt it was important to talk to him for a number of reasons.’

During the interview, Lazzarini told Bowen that he was running out of words ‘to describe the misery and the tragedy affecting the people in Gaza. They have been now more than two months without any aid’. The UNRWA chief added:

‘Starvation is spreading, people are exhausted, people are hungry… we can expect that in the coming weeks if no aid is coming in, that people will not die because of the bombardment, but they will die because of the lack of food. This is the weaponisation of humanitarian aid.’

Cook noted:

‘Lazzarini’s remarks on the catastrophe in Gaza should be seen as self-evident. But Bowen and the BBC undermined his message by framing him and his organisation as suspect – and all because Israel, a criminal state starving the people of Gaza, has made an entirely unfounded allegation against the organisation trying to stop its crimes against humanity.’

He continued:

‘This is the same pattern of smears from Israel that has claimed all 36 hospitals in Gaza are Hamas “command and control centres” – again without a shred of evidence – to justify it bombing them all, leaving Gaza’s population without any meaningful health care system as malnutrition and starvation take hold.’ [Our emphasis]

As Cook pointed out, it is quite possible that it was not Bowen’s choice ‘to attach such a disgraceful disclaimer to his interview. We all understand that he is under enormous pressure, both from within the BBC and outside.’ But just imagine the huge moral standing and public impact it would have if Bowen resigned from the BBC, citing the intolerable pressure not to speak the full truth about Israel’s genocide and war crimes.

For those with long memories, recall the exceptional courage and honesty when two senior UN officials, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, resigned in 1998 and 2000, respectively, rather than continue to administer the ‘genocidal’ (their term) UN sanctions against Iraq that had led to the deaths of up to 1.5 million people, including around half a million children under the age of five.

One of the most insidious forms of ‘bad’ BBC ‘journalism’ is propaganda by omission, as we have noted in media alerts over the years (for example, see here and here). On 13 May, the investigative news organisation, DropSite, reported that Israeli troops had shot and killed Mohammed Bardawil, a 12-year-old boy. He was one of only four surviving eyewitnesses of the Israeli military’s execution of 15 paramedics, rescue workers and UN staff in Rafah, Gaza, in March 2025.

DropSite noted:

‘Mohammed had testified that some of the paramedics were shot at point-blank range – “from one meter away.” He was also interviewed by The New York Times for their investigation into the massacre, though his most damning claims were omitted from their final report.’

DropSite added:

‘Mohammed had been scheduled for a second round of testimony with investigators, this time with pediatric psychologists present. Instead, the 12-year-old war crime witness was killed by Israeli forces.’

At the time of writing, it is unclear whether he was specifically targeted in an attack, or caught up in an Israeli raid.

This shocking news has been blanked by the BBC, as far as we can see from searching its website. Indeed, our search of the Nexis newspaper database reveals not a single mention in any UK newspaper.

Imagine if Russia had executed fifteen Red Cross medics, first responders and a UN staff member in Ukraine, burying them in a mass grave along with their vehicles, including an ambulance.

Imagine if Russia had lied about this appalling war crime, as proved by footage recovered from the telephone of one of the executed victims.

Imagine if a 12-year-old Ukrainian witness to this Russian war crime was later shot dead by Russian soldiers. His killing would have been major headline news around the world and serious questions would have been asked.

The Fiction of BBC ‘Transparency’

As mentioned, BBC editors love to proclaim their accountability to the public and transparency of their editorial processes. How, then, would they explain their secrecy in holding private meetings with one of Israel’s former top military officers during Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza?

Declassified UK is a small publicly-funded independent news organisation that runs rings around BBC News, and the rest of the ‘mainstream’ media, on UK foreign policy and the impact of British military and intelligence agencies on human rights and the environment. Declassified UK reported earlier this year that BBC, Guardian and Financial Times editors had secret meetings with Israeli General Aviv Kohavi one month after the Gaza bombardment began.

In attendance were Katherine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Richard Burgess, director of news content at the BBC, and Roula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times. According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Kohavi’s itinerary also included meetings with Sky News chairman David Rhodes at the Israeli embassy, and then shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, between 7 and 9 November 2023.

Kohavi had only stepped down from running Israel’s military months earlier. According to Declassified UK’s investigation, Kohavi had subsequently been ‘tasked with cultivating support for Israel as it escalated its brutal military offensive in Gaza.’

A journalist who was working for the BBC at the time of the visit told Declassified UK:

‘I don’t recall any internal correspondence about the meeting, which the BBC would ordinarily send out if there was a high-profile visit of this kind. I also find it very difficult to believe that the organisation would hold an equivalent meeting with the Hamas government.’

The journalist, who requested anonymity, added:

‘Not only is Kohavi’s visit unprecedented but it’s also outrageous that one of the most senior editors at the BBC should court company with a foreign military figure in this way, especially one whose country stands accused of serious human rights violations.

‘It further undermines the independence and impartiality that the BBC claims to uphold, and I think it has done irreparable damage to any trust audiences had in the corporation.’

Des Freedman, a professor of media at Goldsmiths, University of London, told Declassified UK he could find no mention of General Kohavi in any BBC, Guardian or FT coverage since 2023, when searching on the Nexis database.

He added:

‘Obviously off the record briefings have a place in journalism. However, meeting secretly with a senior IDF representative in the middle of a genocidal campaign as part of an organised propaganda offensive raises serious questions about integrity and transparency.

‘You would hope that news titles would go out of their way to avoid accusations of bias by rejecting the offer to meet privately and instead to put such meetings on the record. In reality, editors at the Guardian, BBC and FT appear willing to open their doors to Israeli spokespeople – no matter how controversial and offensive – in a way which is denied to Palestinian representatives.’

Conclusion: ‘Palestine Is The Rock’

The function of the major news media, very much including BBC News, is not to fully inform or educate the public about what our governments or other elite forces in society are doing. Their primary role is to maintain structures of state and corporate control that keep the public away from the levers of power.

Jason Hickel, a professor of anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, made these cogent observations recently via X:

‘Palestine is the rock on which the West will break itself.

‘Put yourself in the shoes of people in the global South. For nearly two years they have watched how Western leaders, who love to talk about human rights and the rule of law, are happy to shred all these values in the most spectacular displays of hypocrisy in order to prop up their military proxy-state as it openly conducts genocide and ethnic cleansing against an occupied people, even in the face of *overwhelming* international condemnation.’

He continued:

‘What do you think people in the South are supposed to conclude from this?  What would *you* conclude from this in their position?  Decades of Western propaganda have been shattered, this time in full technicolour. Western governments have made it clear that they do not care about human rights and the rule of law when it comes to people of colour, the global majority.’

In fact, Western governments do not even care about human rights and the rule of law in their own countries, where these conflict with the requirements of power and control by elites. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out over many decades, ‘there is a very elaborate propaganda system’ in capitalist societies:

‘involving everything, from the public relations industry and advertising to the corporate media, which simply marginalizes a large part of the population. They technically are allowed to participate by pushing buttons every few years, but they have essentially no role in formulating policy. They can ratify decisions made by others.’

(Noam Chomsky and James Kelman, Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime: Why Ideas Matter, PM Press, 2021, p. 159)

BBC News is a crucial component of this elaborate propaganda system. No amount of self-serving managerial rhetoric about ‘trust’, ‘transparency’ and ‘impartiality’ can refute that fundamental reality.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Media Lens.

SIPRI is the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, established in 1966. Read about it here and see how it has twisted its aims to not include the words ‘peace research.’ Because here is what it should do according to § 2 of its statutes: “…to conduct scientific research on questions of conflict and cooperation of importance for international peace and security, with the aim of contributing to an understanding of the conditions for peaceful solutions of interstate conflicts and for stable peace. (My italics).

The low intellectual level is indicated by the statement that “SIPRI’s vision is a world in which sources of insecurity are identified and understood, conflicts are prevented or resolved, and peace is sustained.” Sources of insecurity shall not be removed, they shall just be identified and understood. Conflicts shall be prevented – what an absurd idea since any dynamic organisation will always have conflicts; what we shall prevent or reduce is, of course, not conflicts but violence in all its forms and shapes. And peace is ‘sustained’ – such nonsense sounds like a marketing firm formulation. Excuse us all: How shall that peace come about before it is sustained?

I’ve written about SIPRI as a totally lost institution for peace and disarmament, conflict-resolution, mediation and the outlining of peaceful proposals since 2016. It’s a parody of peace for more than a decade. Read here, here and here.

Editorial offices and journalists in Sweden and elsewhere never took up this criticism. It’s so natural in these militarist times that the world’s perhaps most well-known “peace” research institute – originally a pride of the Swedish government and ‘ranked among the most respected think tanks worldwide’ – simply drops its mandate and becomes yet one more former peace research institute devoted to military-based security issues in total contrast to what it was supposed to do.

The reason is simple: for years, it has had no creative or moral leadership with any understanding of peace, and it is mainly financed by NATO member governments. Its kind of “peace” is NATO “peace.” In addition, the concept/word – and discourse – of ‘peace’ has been deliberately cancelled in Western societies.

I’ve therefore suggested a change of name to SIMSI, Stockholm International Military Security Institute. A bit of honesty instead of continued faking would be appropriate.

You may ask what peace research is, and there are many definitions and approaches. But one overarching element can be formulated this way: an intellectual effort to understand all kinds of violence with the aim of devising strategies to reduce every kind and outline strategies for intelligent conflict-resolution with the least possible use of violence – on the road to more peaceful, nonviolent futures for the whole human being and all human beings.

Now, keep that in mind and then click here to see today’s front page of SIPRI – “the independent source on international security” accompanied with images, headlines, titles and texts filled with arms…

And it’s extremely deceptive that this institute calls itself independent. Just look at its funding here.

To continue the decay and get even further away from anything called peace, SIPRI has just appointed a new director. His name is Karim Haggag, and you can read about this Egyptian career diplomat and his role at the The American University in Cairo here – a servant, one can safely assume, of US military interests with close relations to hawkish people like Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger of the Albright Stonebridge Group – that, by the way, goes unmentioned in SIPRI’s official announcement about him here.

In case you want to know more about Madeleine Albright, she served as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, masterminded the fake negotiation at Rambouillet about Kosovo with the NATO bombings that followed and thought, as she stated it, it was acceptable to kill half a million Iraqi women and children by the US economic sanctions.

Haggag holds only a master’s degree in War Studies from King’s College, London, and has served as a career diplomat most of his life, in Washington. Here is his official CV at the American University Cairo – which indicates two selected publications ten years ago and his academic interests in “security.” Nothing indicates any knowledge, experience or interest in the academic discipline of peace and conflict research.

In short, surely the right mainstream man for the former peace research institute SIPRI, in the year 2025.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jan Oberg.

Murad, who works as a reporter for Urdu News and runs the independent news site Pakistani24, later appeared  before the Judicial Magistrate Islamabad (West) court, where he was placed in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for two days under Pakistan’s cybercrime laws for allegedly posting “intimidating content” online, according to a copy of the court order, reviewed by CPJ.

“The shocking overnight raid on the home of seasoned journalist Waheed Murad is part of a disturbing trend of enforced disappearances and detentions of journalists by Pakistan’s security agencies,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must allow Murad to resume reporting without fear of detention, threats, or intimidation.”

Murad’s mother-in-law, Abida Nawaz, said that the unidentified men who abducted the journalist did not say where they were taking him. Before Murad appeared in court, she had filed a petition with the Islamabad High Court seeking his recovery. The petition states that the journalist had raised his voice about the disappearance of exiled journalist Ahmed Noorani’s two brothers in Islamabad.

Noorani’s brothers have been missing since March 18, when individuals identifying themselves as police forcibly entered their family home. In addition, journalist Asif Karim Khehtran disappeared from his home district of Barkhan on March 13, and Farhan Mallick, founder of the independent online media platform Raftar, continues to be held in FIA detention after being detained on March 20 in Karachi.

CPJ’s text messages requesting comment from Information Minister Attaullah Tarar received no response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Mallick, founder of the independent online media platform Raftar, was arrested on accusations of running “several programs against the security establishment.” The FIA had visited Raftar’s office a day earlier, harassed Mallick and his staff, and verbally summoned him to appear at their offices on Thursday, according to a post by Raftar on social platform X. Upon his appearance, he was detained without any official legal notice.

“The alarming detention of prominent journalist Farhan Mallick, along with the disappearance of journalist Asif Karim Khehtran and the abduction of exiled journalist Ahmed Noorani’s brothers, shows how the Pakistani government has no regard for press freedom and independent journalism. This must stop, and the state of Pakistan should respect the law,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Officials must immediately and unconditionally release Mallick and allow him and his media outlet to independently carry out their work.”

On Friday, Mallick appeared before the Judicial Magistrate (East) court in Karachi, where the magistrate ordered him placed in FIA custody for four days. The journalist’s lawyer told the court that he was detained despite previous orders from the Sindh High Court preventing any legal action against him.

In late 2024, Mallick said that FIA agents briefly detained him at Karachi’s airport and stopped him from boarding a flight to Doha, telling him after the flight left that he was on a travel ban list. After being subjected to two FIA inquiries the month before, he had petitioned the Sindh High Court to stop the harassment, he said.

Raftar, whose YouTube channel has about 750,000 followers, describes itself as “a dynamic platform dedicated to driving social change through the power of storytelling.” The outlet produces reports and documentaries on economic, political, and security issues in Pakistan. Mallick was previously news director of privately owned TV channel Samaa TV.

CPJ’s messages for comment to Information Minister Attaullah Tarar have received no response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Around midnight on March 18, about two dozen individuals, identifying themselves as police, forcibly entered and searched Noorani’s family home in Islamabad. They assaulted the journalist’s two brothers, Mohammad Saif ur Rehman Haider and Mohammad Ali, dragged them into vehicles, and took them to an undisclosed location, according to Noorani, his mother, and a copy of a petition about the abductions  filed by the family’s lawyers with the Islamabad High Court, which CPJ reviewed. Noorani and the petition identify the abductors as agents of Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.

Khehtran disappeared on March 13 from his home district of Barkhan in Balochistan province, and there has been no information about his whereabouts, according to independent news outlet ANI news and human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari, who is following the case and spoke to CPJ.

“It is deeply concerning that journalist Asif Karim Khehtran, as well as Mohammad Saif ur Rehman Haider and Mohammad Ali, brothers of journalist Ahmed Noorani, have been forcibly disappeared. This is indicative of a severe media crackdown in Pakistan,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must ensure their safety, immediately release them, and respect the rule of law.”

On March 17, Noorani published an investigative report detailing the alleged control that Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, has consolidated since assuming the country’s top military position in 2022. Both Noorani and the petition filed on behalf of his family in the Islamabad High Court claim that this report led to the enforced disappearance of his brothers.

In 2024, Khehtran had faced persistent threats from military authorities, who pressured him to halt his reporting on human rights issues in Balochistan. His family members had previously been forcibly disappeared, as well, according to Mazari.

Noorani is a journalist with the investigative news website FactFocus, which extensively publishes on Pakistan, and Khehtran has worked with Daily Awami and Quetta Voice.

Abductions and forced disappearances of journalists in Pakistan have been widely documented, including the high-profile cases of Imran Riaz Khan and Sami Ibrahim, who were abducted in May 2023 and later released.

CPJ’s messages for comment to Information Minister Attaullah Tarar have received no response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“In yet another example of the lawlessness and harassment of media in Azerbaijan, journalist Shahla Karim was forcibly removed and transported hundreds of kilometers away from her reporting site to prevent her from covering elections and related protests,” said CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. “Azerbaijani authorities must quickly identify and hold those to account for detaining Karim and ensure that she gets her journalistic equipment back.”

Karim, a freelance journalist for several independent news outlets, was reporting on opposition candidate Vafa Nagi’s (Nagieva) protest of alleged election fraud in Azerbaijan’s September 1 parliamentary elections when around 10 plainclothes men in surgical masks forcibly detained the journalist, the candidate, and the candidate’s aide in the southeastern city of Neftchala. The three were driven to the capital Baku, around 180 kilometres (110 miles) away, where they were released, according to news reports and Karim, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app. Karim also posted about the incident on Facebook.

Karim told CPJ that she repeatedly identified herself as a journalist, as is audible in video she posted of the incident, and said she believed the men were law enforcement officers because uniformed police at the scene did not intervene. The men said “those were the orders” when Karim asked why she was detained, and the men seemed to be receiving orders by telephone, according to the journalist.

After around four hours, the men dropped them off in a Baku suburb and returned their phones, but kept Karim’s microphone, she said.

In a similar September 2022 incident, Baku police detained journalist Sevinj Sadygova and the wife of jailed journalist Polad Aslanov while the latter was protesting her husband’s imprisonment and released them after driving them outside the city. 

Azerbaijani journalists covering the elections have reported being forcibly ejected from polling stations, having their cameras struck by election officials, and cell phones snatched by individuals allegedly committing electoral fraud. The ongoing crackdown against the press has seen 13 independent journalists charged with major economic crimes, leaving independent media unable to adequately cover the elections, said several journalists. 

CPJ emailed the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which oversees the police, for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Ana Segovia (Mexico), Huapango Torero (‘Huapango Bullfighter’), 2019.

The skin is the largest organ of the human body. It covers our entire surface, at some points only as thin as a piece of paper and at other points about half as thick as a credit card. The skin, which protects us from all manner of germs and other harmful elements, is fragile and unable to defend humans from the dangerous weapons we have made over time. The ancient blunt axe will break the skin with a heavy blow, while a 2000-pound MK-84 ‘dumb bomb’ made by General Dynamics will not only obliterate the skin, but the entire human body.

Despite a 24 May order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Israeli military continues to bomb the southern part of Gaza, particularly the city of Rafah. In blatant disregard of the ICJ’s order, on 27 May Israel struck a tent city in Rafah and murdered forty-five civilians. US President Joe Biden said on 9 March that an Israeli attack on Rafah would be his ‘red line’, but – even after this tent massacre – the Biden administration has insisted that no such line has been violated.

At a press conference on 28 May, communications advisor to the US National Security Agency John Kirby was asked how the US would respond if a strike by the US armed forces killed forty-five civilians and injured two hundred others. Kirby responded: ‘We have conducted airstrikes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where tragically we caused civilian casualties. We did the same thing’. To defend Israel’s latest massacre, Washington has chosen to make a startling admission. Given that the ICJ has ruled that it is ‘plausible’ that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza, could it be said that the US is guilty of the same in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Ficre Ghebreyesus (Eritrea), Map/Quilt, 1999.

In 2006, the International Criminal Court (ICC) began to assess the possibility of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then, in 2014 and 2017, respectively, opened formal investigations into crimes committed in both countries. However, neither Israel nor the United States are signatories to the 2002 Rome Statute, which established the ICC. Rather than sign the statute, the US Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act – known informally as the ‘Hague Invasion Act’ – which legally authorises the US government to ‘use all means necessary’ to protect its troops from ICC prosecutors. Since Article 98 of the Rome Statute does not require states to turn over wanted personnel to a third party if they have signed an immunity agreement with that party, the US government has encouraged states to sign ‘Article 98 agreements’ to give its troops immunity from prosecution. Still, this did not deter ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda (who held the post from 2012–2021) from studying evidence and issuing a preliminary report in 2016 on war crimes in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan joined the ICC in 2003, giving the ICC and Bensouda jurisdiction to conduct their investigation. Even though it signed an Article 98 agreement with Afghanistan in 2002, the US government fervently attacked the ICC’s investigation and warned Bensouda and her family that they would face personal repercussions if she continued with the investigation. In April 2019, the US revoked Bensouda’s entry visa. Days later, a panel of ICC judges ruled against Bensouda’s request to proceed with a war crimes investigation in Afghanistan, stating that such an investigation would ‘not serve the interests of justice’.

Staff at the ICC were dismayed by the court’s decision and eager to challenge it but could not get support from the justices. In June 2019, Bensouda filed a request to appeal the ICC’s decision not to pursue the investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan. Bensouda’s appeal was joined by various groups from Afghanistan, including the Afghan Victims’ Families Association and the Afghanistan Forensic Science Organisation. In September 2019, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC ruled that the appeal could go forward.

Dawn Okoro (Nigeria), Doing It, 2017.

The US government was enraged. On 11 June 2020, US President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13928, which authorised his government to freeze ICC officials’ assets and ban them and their families from entering the United States. In September 2020, the US imposed sanctions on Bensouda, a national of Gambia, and senior ICC diplomat Phakiso Mochochoko, a national of Lesotho. The American Bar Association condemned these sanctions, but they were not revoked.

The US government eventually repealed the sanctions in April 2021, after Bensouda left her post and was replaced by the British lawyer Karim Khan in February 2021. In September 2021, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said that while his office would continue to investigate war crimes by the Taliban and the Islamic State in Afghanistan, it would ‘deprioritise other aspects of this investigation’. This awkward phrasing simply meant that the ICC would no longer investigate war crimes committed by the United States and its allies from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The ICC had been sufficiently brought to heel.

Alexander Nikolaev, also known as Usto Mumin (Soviet Union), Friendship, Love, Eternity, 1928.

Prosecutor Khan again demonstrated his partial application of justice and fealty to the Global North ruling elites when he rushed into the conflict in Ukraine and began an investigation into war crimes by Russia just four days after its invasion in February 2022. Within a year, Khan would apply for warrants for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, which were issued in March 2023. Specifically, they were charged with colluding to abduct children from Ukrainian orphanages and children’s care homes and take them to Russia, where – it was alleged – these children were ‘given for adoption’. Ukraine, Khan said, ‘is a crime scene’.

Khan would use no such words when it came to Israel’s murderous assault on Palestinians in Gaza. Even after more than 15,000 Palestinian children had been killed (rather than ‘adopted’ from a war zone), Khan failed to pursue warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his military subordinates. When Khan visited Israel in November–December 2023, he warned about ‘excesses’ but suggested that since ‘Israel has trained lawyers who advise commanders’, they could prevent any horrendous violations of international humanitarian law.

Ayoub Emdadian (Iran), The Sapling of Liberty, 1973.

By May 2024, the sheer scale of Israel’s brutality in Gaza finally forced the ICC to take up the issue. The orders from the ICJ, the outrage expressed by numerous governments of the Global South, and the cascading protests in country after country together motivated the ICC to act. On 20 May, Khan held a press conference where he said that he filed applications for the arrest of Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his head of military, Yoav Gallant. Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said that the ICC accusations against Netanyahu and Gallant are ‘baseless’ and that Israel will not comply with any ICC warrant. For decades now, Israel – like the United States – has rejected any attempt to apply international humanitarian law to its actions. The ‘rules-based international order’ has always provided immunity for the United States and its close allies, an immunity whose hypocrisy has increasingly been revealed. It is this double-standard that has provoked the collapse of the US-driven world order.

Buried within Khan’s press statement is an interesting fragment: ‘I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence the officials of this Court must cease immediately’. Eight days later, on 20 May, The Guardian – in collaboration with other periodicals – published an investigation that revealed Israel’s use of ‘intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear, and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries’. Yossi Cohen, the former head of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, personally harassed and threatened Bensouda (Khan’s predecessor), warning her, ‘You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family’. Furthermore, The Guardian noted that ‘Between 2019 and 2020, the Mossad had been actively seeking compromising information on the prosecutor and took an interest in her family members’. ‘Took an interest’ is a euphemistic way of saying gathered information on her family – including through a sting operation against her husband Philip Bensouda – to blackmail and frighten her. These are clichéd mafia tactics.

Hamed Abdalla (Egypt), Conscience du sol (‘The Consciousness of the Earth’), 1956.

As I followed these stories of the blood and law, I read the poems of Chechnya-born Jazra Khaleed, writing in Greek in Athens. His poem ‘Black Lips’ stopped me in my tracks, the last stanzas powerful and bleak:

Come let me make you human,
you, Your Honor, who wipe guilt from your beard
you, esteemed journalist, who tout death
you, philanthropic lady, who pat children’s heads without bending down
and you who read this poem, licking your finger—
To all of you I offer my body for genuflection
Believe me
one day you will adore me like Christ

But I’m sorry for you sir—
I do not negotiate with chartered accountants of words
with art critics who eat from my hand
You may, if you desire, wash my feet
Don’t take it personally

Why do I need bullets if there are so many words
prepared to die for me?

Which words are slowly dying? Justice, perhaps, or even humanitarianism? So many words are thrown about to assuage the guilty and to confuse the innocent. But these words cannot muffle other words, words that describe horrors and that demand redress.

Words are important. So are people, such as Gustavo Cortiñas, who was arrested by the Argentinian military dictatorship on 15 April 1977, never to be seen again. He became one of the 30,000 people whom the military killed between 1976 and 1983. On April 30, two weeks after Gustavo was arrested, his mother, Nora Cortiñas (or Norita, as she was lovingly known), joined other mothers of the disappeared to protest in front of the government house Casa Rosada, at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, the first in what became a regular feature.

Norita was a co-founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which courageously shattered the wall of misleading words that tumbled out of the mouths of the military Junta. Though her son was never found, Norita found her voice looking for him – a voice that was heard at every protest for justice and spoke with great feeling about the pain in the world until the weeks leading up to her death on 31 May. ‘We say no to the annexation of Palestine’, she said in a video message in 2020. ‘We oppose any measure that tends to erase the identity and existence of the Palestinian people’.

Norita leaves us with her precious words:

Many years from now, I would like to be remembered as a woman who gave her all so that we could have a more dignified life… I would like to be remembered with that cry that I always say and that means everything I feel inside me, that means the hope that someday that other possible world will exist. A world for everyone. So, I would like to be remembered with a smile and for shouting loudly: venceremos, venceremos, venceremos! We will win, we will win, we will win!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

The Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday urged Iraqi authorities to swiftly identify the attackers who attempted to kill Karim and hold them to account. Karim and his wife, Ghada Al-Amily, were uninjured in the attack.

Karim, publisher and editor-in-chief of Al-Mada newspaper, was on his way home after attending a book fair organized by the Al-Mada Foundation for Media, Culture, and Arts in the capital, Baghdad. Al-Amily is the director of the foundation.

The February 22 attack took place around 9 p.m. in the Al-Qadisiyah area of Baghdad, a highly secure area containing offices for Iraqi government security agencies and officers near the Green Zone, which hosts foreign embassies in Iraq.

Karim, 81, is a prominent politician and journalist who served as an advisor to the former Iraqi president Jalal Talbani and was a vocal opponent of the former Iraqi dictator and president Saddam Hussein, according to those sources. His outlet, Al-Mada, is seen as one of the only remaining critical newspapers in Iraq.

“The attempt to kill Al-Mada publisher Fakhri Karim in a highly secure area of Baghdad sheds a bright light on the darkness Iraq and its journalists are increasingly facing,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Iraqi authorities should publicly announce the perpetrators and those who stand behind them and bring them swiftly to justice.”

In a Facebook statement released Friday, February 23, Al-Mada described the event as a “cowardly assassination attempt” and called for a criminal investigation. 

Iraq’s Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari said in a statement covered by media outlets on Friday that he directed the formation of a specialized security team to “intensify the security and intelligence efforts to reach the perpetrators and bring them to justice to receive their punishment.”

CPJ’s app messages to Karim and email to the Al-Mada Foundation for comment about the reasons behind the attack did not immediately receive any response.

CPJ emailed the Iraqi Interior Ministry for updates about their investigation but did not immediately receive a reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Saturday, police in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, arrested Muradli, a presenter for the popular online broadcaster Kanal 13, on charges of minor hooliganism and disobeying police orders. Later the same day, the Khatai District Court in Baku sentenced him to 30 days’ detention on those charges, according to news reports and a copy of the court verdict reviewed by CPJ.

Muradli denies the charges, Kanal 13 chief editor Anar Orujov told CPJ. Orujov said the allegations against the journalist are “absolutely not credible” and are a part of Azerbaijani authorities’ ongoing crackdown against Kanal 13 and other independent media.

Muradli’s detention came four days after authorities ordered Kanal 13 director Aziz Orujov, who is Anar’s brother, to be held in pretrial detention for three months on charges of illegal construction, which his lawyer said were in retaliation for his journalism. Four members of anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media have been detained on financial crime accusations since November 20.

“The sixth Azerbaijani journalist arrested in less than two weeks, Rufat Muradli appears to have been sentenced on charges every bit as spurious and pretextual as those facing his colleagues,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in New York. “Azerbaijani authorities should release Muradli and the other unjustly jailed journalists immediately and stop their crackdown on independent reporting.”

According to the court verdict, two police officers approached Muradli just after midday on a street in Baku’s Khatai district because he was “shouting obscenities.” When police “called him to order,” the journalist “did not obey,” so the officers arrested him. The verdict did not provide any additional detail.

An associate of Muradli told regional outlet Caucasian Knot that Muradli had dropped him and two other individuals off outside a café, saying he would park the car and meet them inside, but he never returned. Muradli’s lawyer quoted the journalist as saying that police arrested him in the car park without explanation. The court convicted Muradli “effectively without a hearing” and did not allow the defense to speak, his lawyer told Caucasian Knot.

Azerbaijani authorities commonly use trumped-up charges of hooliganism against government critics, according to rights organizations, including in numerous cases involving journalists. In February, photojournalist Vali Shukurzade was sentenced to 30 days in jail on charges of hooliganism and disobeying police orders, which his lawyer said were fabricated.

Muradli is also a deputy chairman of the unregistered Azerbaijan Democracy and Prosperity Party, whose chairman, Gubad Ibadoghlu, has been detained since July on charges widely criticized as politically motivated. However, Orujov told CPJ the timing of Muradli’s arrest amid a wave of journalist detentions, including Kanal 13’s director, strongly suggests it is related to his journalism. Orujov said Muradli is well-known as the presenter of Kanal 13’s political show on its Azerbaijani-language YouTube channel, which has more than 400,000 subscribers.

Separately, on Monday, police in Azerbaijan’s southwestern city of Lankaran detained Shahla Karim and Aytaj Mammadli, freelance reporters on assignment with U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, while they were conducting street interviews, on the grounds that the pair lacked press IDs, according to news reports and Karim, who spoke to CPJ. Karim said police deleted video footage from Mammadli’s cell phone and attempted to delete footage on Karim’s camera storage card, but stopped and returned her storage card when she called the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Police released both journalists after about an hour and a half.

CPJ emailed the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Justice for comment but did not immediately receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The simple answer is that the United States is making every effort to lure away from Russia one of its key allies in the region, while Astana, which has recently demonstrated a willingness to distance itself from Moscow, is fully aware of its advantageous geopolitical location and will be looking at who can offer it more favorable conditions for cooperation. A more complicated answer: Kazakhstan may have sensitive information about American President Joe Biden and may be testing the waters for its most profitable use. Given the upcoming US elections, it is safe to assume that all three countries are extremely interested in what President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has to say.

To better understand the situation, we need to return to the events of 2020, when the son of the US President Hunter Biden carelessly left his laptop at a computer shop. The leaked information revealed many dark secrets about the Biden family’s shady money laundering activities. Kazakhstan played an important role in this back at 2010s. Hunter Biden’s “track record” in Kazakhstan includes lobbying the interests of Chinese corporations, money laundering, receiving “gifts” in the form of material assets and large sums in offshore accounts, as well as cooperation with two of the richest people in Kazakhstan, Kenes Rakishev  and Karim Massimov, who at that time served as Chairman of the National Security Committee of the republic. Given the well-known high level of corruption in the post-Soviet republics, we can safely say that not only these people participated in the dark schemes of Hunter Biden, but also that behind them, most likely, stood influential representatives of the political establishment of Kazakhstan, who now may want to take the lead and sell the information profitably, under the agreement that they themselves will not appear in it.

It is also no coincidence that Karim Massimov has been in prison for more than a year. Thus, President Tokayev, who at that time already held high government positions, could either silenced the bearer of compromising information, or, conversely, could have long ago pulled out dirty secrets on the family of the American leader.

Be that as it may, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev knows about Hunter Biden’s activities in Kazakhstan more than any media outlet, and can use this information as a leverage on the White House. Any new piece of information about the dark schemes of the Biden family could become decisive in the ongoing investigation against the President and lead to his impeachment. We can safely predict that Tokayev will try to get most from any of the parties interested in the information.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kevan Soto.

New York, August 20, 2023 – The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Egyptian authorities to immediately release journalist Karim Asaad following his arrest on Saturday, August 19.

The day before Asaad’s arrest, Matsda2sh published reports alleging that a number of people affiliated with the Egyptian security services had been arrested in Zambia, and a private plane carrying them had been seized.

As of the time of publication, authorities had not disclosed where the journalist is being held or the reason for his arrest, according to a local journalist familiar with his case, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

On August 5 and August 6, Asayish security forces in several locations in Iraqi Kurdistan interfered with the work of at least 20 journalists and media workers with detentions, harassment, raids, and the closure of at least one media outlet, according to multiple news reports, local press freedom groups Kurdistan Journalists’ Syndicate, the Metro Center for Journalists Rights and Advocacy, and the Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq, and several journalists affected who spoke to CPJ. 

All of the journalists were covering or preparing to cover demonstrations on August 6 by the opposition party New Generation Movement over taxes, fuel prices, and employment opportunities, according to those sources. 

“Authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan have reached a new low with their detention and harassment of reporters and media workers seeking to cover civil unrest,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator Sherif Mansour, in Washington, D.C. “Iraqi Kurdistan was once a haven for the free press in the Middle East but now the region is a prime perpetrator of press freedom violations.” 

On Friday, August 5, the day before the demonstrations, security forces detained Taif Goran and Biryar Nerwayi, reporters at privately owned television broadcaster NRT, in front of the channel’s office in the city of Duhok in western Iraqi Kurdistan, according to the broadcaster’s report, and Goran, who spoke to CPJ on the phone. Goran told CPJ that “the security forces didn’t tell us any legal reason behind our arrest” and that the two were released without charge on bail after 27 hours in custody. Goran said that the forces also confiscated equipment from the office including five cameras, two livestream boxes, five microphones, and two tripods, which were all returned when the journalists were released.

NRT is owned by the Kurdish businessman Shaswar Abdulwahid, the leader of the New Generation Movement, who called for the protests.

On Saturday August 6, Asayish forces raided the privately owned website and TV outlet Rast Media office in the city of Duhok and shut it down without giving any reasons, according to the outlet’s Facebook post and Omed Baroshky, director of Rast News, who spoke to CPJ on the phone. Baroshky told CPJ that “we have completed all the legal procedures to work freely as a media outlet, but they asked us to shut it down and go home anyway.” As of August 9, the office has remained closed. 

On the same day at 10:00 a.m. in Erbil, the regional capital, five plainclothes security officers raided the home of Ayub Ali Warty, a reporter at broadcaster Kurdish News Network, which is affiliated with the opposition Gorran party, and detained the journalist, according to Warty, who spoke to CPJ over the phone and posted about the incident on Facebook. The officers escorted him to Asayish headquarters for investigation before releasing him at midnight, he said. Warty said he was verbally abused, but did not provide details of the insults. 

“During the investigation, I was told that if I want to live as a critical journalist, Erbil is not the right place,” he said. He said that he was forced to sign a blank paper without knowing the reason, and was told the paper “could put me in jail for 300 years.” When he was released without charge, Warty said the officers told him he was arrested “by mistake.” 

Also on Saturday in Erbil, NRT reporters Rizgar Kochar, Omed Chomani, and Hersh Qadir were detained by officers in plain clothes, according to two videos posted on Facebook by the broadcaster and Qadir, who told CPJ via phone that the officers also raided his home. Qadir said they were arrested in front of their office, and when they asked about the officers’ identity “they stressed that they are Asayish forces and we have to go with them.” He said the officers turned the journalists over to armed security forces who placed them in hoods and took them to the Asayish headquarters in Erbil. He said he believes that “the only reason was to prevent us from covering the demonstrations.” Qadir said the three were released without charge after six hours and after they were forced to sign documents without being allowed to read them. 

Also on Saturday, NRT reporters Diyar Mohammed and Soran Mohammed and NRT cameraman Mahmoud Razgar were arrested by security forces while covering a protest in the town of Chamchamal, in Sulaymaniyah governorate in eastern Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a Facebook post by the broadcaster and Soran Mohammed, who spoke to CPJ on the phone. Soran Mohammed told CPJ that security forces blocked the crew’s camera, ordered the journalists to go with them to their headquarters in the city, and seized their equipment including two cameras, one tripod, and two microphones. The officers told the journalists that they would remain in custody until the demonstrations were dispersed, he said. The three were released without charge three hours later, but the officers kept their equipment until Sunday, he said. 

On the same day in the city of Sulaymaniyah, a crew with independent news website Westga News, made up of chief editor and owner Sirwan Gharib, photographer Zanyar Mariwan, and editors Hevar Hiwa and Arkan Jabar, was arrested by security forces while covering demonstrations, according to a Westga News statement and Gharib, who spoke to CPJ via phone call. In the statement, Westga News said “the team was there to cover the demonstrations in an impartial and professional manner, and their arrest is against the laws and freedom of the press.” Gharib said the crew was detained for almost four hours before it was released without charge. 

In the same city on Saturday, Zhilya Ali, reporter for the privately owned internet television channel and news website Diplomatic, was detained with the outlet’s cameraman Azhi Abdulqadir the moment they stepped out of a taxi when they arrived to cover a protest, Ali told CPJ via phone. In a Facebook post, Ali said the two were arrested and brought to Asayish headquarters in order “to be prevented from covering the demonstrations.” Ali told CPJ that the security forces confiscated her phone, which they returned after she and the cameraman were released without charge two hours later. 

Also on Saturday, Hardi Osman, reporter for the independent website Peregraph was detained for five hours while he was trying to cover the protests in Sulaymaniyah city, according to a tweet by his employer and the reporter who spoke to CPJ over the phone. He said that the forces took him to Asayish headquarters before transferring him to a section of Kani Goma prison. 

He said that the forces also seized his equipment, including his phone, his microphone, and a voice recorder, and forced him to fill out a form asking “very personal questions” — details of which he did not provide to CPJ — before he was released without charge and without the equipment. He said he retrieved the equipment from Asayish headquarters on Tuesday.

Also in Sulaymaniyah city on Saturday, Awder Omer, video reporter for news website NasKurd, was covering a protest live on the website’s Facebook page when two members of the Asayish forces seized his phone and confiscated and broke his mobile internet modem, he told CPJ via phone. “They told me to leave and not cover the protests,” he said. 

On the same day in the city of Kalar, in Sulaymaniyah governorate Mohammed Mahmood, reporter for the independent broadcaster Radio Deng, was detained by security forces while covering a protest and held for five hours before he was released without charge, according to a Facebook post by the radio station and Mahmood, who spoke to CPJ via phone. 

Mahmood said that security forces interrupted his reporting on Facebook Live for Radio Deng and asked him to delete his footage. When he refused, he said they beat him on his legs and arms and took him to Asayish headquarters, where they asked him to sign a paper which they would not allow him to read. When he refused again, he said they beat him again. 

On Saturday also in Sulaymaniyah, journalist Snur Karim and camera operator Mohammed Azad Majeed of the U.S.-Congress funded Voice of America Kurdish were detained by Asayish security forces for two hours while covering a protest on Facebook Live for the outlet, according to an email from Voice of America public relations officer Anna Morris and a VOA statement provided to CPJ. 

In the statement, VOA said the team had received permission from local authorities to report there but was detained for “several hours.” Their mobile phones and microphone were seized and later returned, Morris said. 

Morris told CPJ the two were taken to a prison where Karim was forced to sign a “pledge” without being allowed to read it and was asked personal questions about her family, car, lifestyle, and political views. 

When contacted by CPJ via messaging app for comment on the arrests, raids, closures, and alleged beatings, Sulaymaniyah governorate Asayish security forces spokesperson Yasin Sami directed CPJ to a Facebook post by the Sulaymaniyah security directorate, a committee representing local government, police, and Asayish forces, denying the arrests. CPJ called Duhok Asayish director Zeravan Baroshku who said security forces were acting on a “court order” but would not comment further. CPJ also contacted Erbil Asayish spokesperson Ashti Majeed for comment via messaging app and phone call, but didn’t receive any response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.