Democratic Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota joins Democracy Now! to discuss the increasing authoritarianism of the Trump administration, including its crackdown on anti-ICE protesters in Los Angeles, targeting of pro-Palestine students on college campuses and plans for a massive military parade coinciding with Trump’s birthday on June 14. “We are in the midst of the creation of a police state,” says Omar. “It will be a dark day if we do not stand up for ourselves, for our Constitution and for our republic.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

In 2008, the Free Gaza Movement successfully managed to reach Gaza with two vessels.  For the next eight years, five out of 31 boats successfully journeyed to the Strip. Others met no such luck. In 2010, Israeli commandos revealed their petticoats of violence in killing 10 activists and injuring dozens of others on the Mavi Marmara, a vessel carrying 10,000 tonnes of supplies, including school supplies, building materials, and two large electricity generators. It was also operated by the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish NGO, being one of six ships that formed a flotilla. Scandal followed, and the wounds on that issue have yet to heal.

With the Israeli Defense Forces and its evangelical warriors preaching the destruction of Palestinians along with any hope of a viable, functioning state, an impotent collective of nations, either allied to Israel or adversarial in nature, have been unable to minimize or restrain the viciousness of the Gaza campaign. Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen have made largely fruitless military efforts to ease the program of gradual liquidation taking place in the Strip. Given such an absence of resolve and effectualness, tragedy can lend itself to symbolic theatre and farce.

The Madleen enterprise, operated by the Freedom Flotilla, departed from Sicily on June 1 with baby formula, food, medical items, and water desalination kits. It ended with its interception by the Israeli forces in international waters roughly 185 km (100 nautical miles) from Gaza. With a top-billing activist such as Greta Thunberg, a French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament, Rima Hassan, and journalists in the crew, including Al Jazeera’s Omar Faiad, this was not your standard run-of-the-mill effort.

Celebrities, when they throw themselves at ethical and moral problems, often risk trivializing the cause before the bright lights, gilding, if not obscuring the lily in the process. Thunberg, for all her principles, has become a professional activist, a superstar of the protest circuit.  Largely associated with shaming climate change deniers and the officials’ laziness in addressing dense carbon footprints, her presence on the Madleen crew is a reminder that calculated activism has become a media spectacle. It is a model, an IKEA flatpack version, to be assembled on sight, an exportable product, ready for the journey.

This is not to be flippant about Thunberg or the broader purpose involved here. Her presence and those engaged in the enterprise are dangerous reminders to the Israeli project in Gaza. Had they been wise, the bureaucrats would have let the affair play out in stoic silence, rendering it a media event, one filed in the library of forget-me articles that have become the stock and trade of an overly crowded infosphere. But the criminal instinct, or at least one guiltily prone towards one, is garrulous. The chatter can never stop, because the justifications for such behaviour never end.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry, for instance, thought it wise to dismiss the entire effort of what it called the “celebrities yacht” as a “media gimmick for publicity (which includes less than a single truckload of aid) – a ‘selfie yacht’.”  Perfectly capturing Israel’s own abominable record in supplying humanitarian aid in dribs and drabs to the residents of Gaza, when it bothered to, the ministry goes on to fabulize about 1,200 aid trucks and 11 million meals supposedly sent to those in the Strip, never mentioning the killing of those seeking the aid by IDF personnel, the enlistment of rogue Palestinian clans, and the sketchy background of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Defence Minister Israel Katz also issued a statement declaring that Israel would “not allow anyone to violate the naval blockade on Gaza, the primary purpose of which is to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas, a murderous terror organisation that holds our hostages and commits war crimes.”

In responding to the vessel, the Israelis did not disappoint. They added to the scene with accustomed violence, but the publicity wonks were aware that killing Thunberg and treating the rest of the crew like any other member of displaced persons at Khan Younis did not seem kosher. The infliction of suffering had to be magisterially restrained, a gold-class privilege delved out by the superior ones. No missiles or armed drones were used on this occasion.

Instead, the twelve-member crew was taken to the port city of Ashdod, 30km north of Gaza, where prison authorities had been instructed by Israel’s dogmatic National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to hold them in solitary confinement. A number, including Thunberg, have been deported. Others are still being held, purportedly for refusing to sign paperwork authorising their deportation.

As the formalities are being chewed over, the broader designation of the effort by the Madleen and her crew as those of a “selfie yacht” offer the pool’s reflection to Israeli authorities: how the IDF took selfies of their atrocities, filming with haughty and avenging pride the destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructure and the moonscape of their creation; how Israeli officials, such as the former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant felt comfortable claiming the Jewish state was “fighting against human animals”. This was one occasion where a celebrity venture, as small as it was, proved worthy.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The Madleen ship, which had on board climate activist Greta Thunberg and French member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan in addition to the two journalists, Yanis Mhamdi and Omar Faiad, was intercepted and seized by the Israeli forces, after which communication with the crew was completely cut off.

“Israeli authorities must immediately release the humanitarian crew of the Madleen ship, which includes two French journalists, heading to Gaza,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “EU leaders, including French authorities, should pressure Israel to release these journalists and stop all assaults on press freedom and protect journalists.”

The British-flagged yacht, which is operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition, had aimed to deliver a symbolic amount of aid to Gaza later on Monday and raise international awareness of the humanitarian crisis there.

Faiad, a correspondent with Al Jazeera Mubashar, was photographed waving his hands up while the Israeli forces were boarding the ship.

Mhamdi, a journalist with independent French media outlet Blast and a documentary filmmaker, posted on his X account as the ship was being intercepted, “I am a journalist, and after covering the Freedom Flotilla convoy for a week, my arrest by the Israeli army is imminent. Humanitarian workers and journalists should not be arrested. I call on all my colleagues to mobilize.”

A video of Mhamdi was circulated on social media less than an hour later in which he says, “If you are seeing this, I have been detained by the Israeli forces while performing my role as a journalist.”

Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said all passengers will be transported to the port of Ashdod. The government has not yet clarified what it intends for the seized crew and the journalists who were aboard.

CPJ’s email to the North America media desk for the IDF, inquiring about the situation of the journalists and when they and the crew would be released, didn’t receive an immediate response.

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

My first thought on seeing Peter Beinhart’s title — Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (2025) — was: Argh. More Jewish angst, holier-than-thou hand-wringing, but leading nowhere. Half-way through I had completely changing my mind. Angst, yes. But lots of meat to chew on, ok, spitting out some grissle, but it was mostly intelligent, informative, and even inspiring (for a goy no less). Beinhart marshalls statistics that confirm my own extreme anger at not just Jews but anyone who does not mobilize themselves to fight this ongoing, LIVE, genocide.

The West’s indifference to an ongoing genocide is more than shameful. Israel participates in Eurovision, its sports teams compete with only the occasional MUSLIM refusing to spar with his/her competitor from the genocidal state. Almost no one besides Muslims is concerned, donating charity, actively opposing Israel.

None of my five siblings can be bothered, unless buying Palestinian olive oil counts. All of us are ‘rich’. I’m rich, even if I go to a food bank. It’s all in your mind. The poor are always more generous than the rich. Shame on anyone who ignores genocide just because they feel helpless to stop it. Beinhart’s ashamed to be Jewish. I’m just as ashamed as a non-Jew. One of my favourite Muslim hadiths (in my free-verse version): Speak truth to an unjust ruler; if that’s impossible, then talk about it with others; if that’s impossible, then at least think about it, write about it, use any chance to protest.

The whole world is reliving 1930s-40s Germany, 1960s US deep south and Vietnam, though it probably feels even worse now to anyone who cares, as we watch live, day after day, already two years, the IDF deliberately slaughtering civilans (even beheading babies while falsely claiming it is Hamas doing this). How can Israelis, Jews, being so consciously, conscientiously EVIL?

And guess what? Anti-Jewish feelings, acts have gone through the roof. Nice educated college students angrily call out kippa-wearing Jewish classmates as supporters of genocide. Which they are. I’m too polite to ‘speak truth’ there (there is a 0.1% chance the kippa-wearer doesn’t actually like the horrors being perpetrated IN HIS NAME). The Zionist lobby has locked up free speech in the interests of genocide. If you criticize Israel, you are ANTI-SEMITIC, so kippa-wearers are walking targets. Beware. Take it off till the genocide stops or you are fair victim. Better yet, join an encampment, a demo.

Beinhart would be shocked at my savagery. Tsk, tsk. He protests this conflation, but, sorry, the tyrants in power aren’t listening to your sweet nothings. But my bitching and anger will turn to love if Israel stops acting like Nazi Germany. So don’t blame angry goys for not dotting your ‘i’s.

That is one of his weaknesses as a fervent, practicing Jew. Haven’t you figured out yet, Peter, that Judaism is dead? Israel killed it, along with (still counting) millions of dead, millions crippled and millions more displaced Palestinians, not to mention Iraq, Syria, Lebanon. Neturei karta and Satmar are nice but have no effect. They are the token anit-Zionists to prove that all Jews aren’t evil, but what good does that do except hobble what should be fierce pressure on all Jews to do something to stop the madness?

Silver bullet for peace

Beinhart grew up in South Africa under apartheid so he doesn’t need the Israeli version to understand the evil at play. Afrikaners saw black Africa as barbarism and dysfunction, and justified themselves, their violent repression of blacks as second class drudges(not citizens), by arguing the blacks would kill the whites otherwise.

Now, looking back, he sees the same false story in northern Ireland and in the US south. And the proof that this story is false is that in each case, when the oppression ends with liberation, the armed resistance movements of the blacks in Africa and the US, the Catholics in northern Ireland melted away. That’s what even our pathetic Conciliation Commission in Canada with our genocided natives was all about. We Canadians have done a half-assed job of reconciliation, but still the natives don’t slit our throats.

He sees the proof in Israeli Palestinians, who are still second class drudges but CITIZEN drudges. That’s the key. They have a vote, political parties, even representation in the government on rare occasions. That’s all the Gazans and West Bankers want. To be treated like human beings, citizens, even if still second class. That is still wrong, but is a huge step forward. Imagine if Israel made everyone citizens. The thought of a liberated Middle East (NOT Trump’s Club Med) is exhilarating. Do Israelis need reeducation camps, like in Vietnam after the liberation in 1975? Maybe. Certainly new history books. Not their perverse history of victimhood, as Beinhart jokingly summarized in his chapter one title: They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.

Beinhart was/is himself a Zionist, though now recondite. He loves Buber and others who promoted a caring Zionism. Sorry, Peter. That gentle version never had a chance before Israel was declared the Jewish State, and certainly has no chance now. There were similarly National Socialists who promoted a less toxic Nazism, Strasserism, but they were purged by Netanyahu (sorry, Hitler) or fled abroad. Speaking of which, Toronto has the largest Israeli population outside the ‘fatherland’. Now hundred(s) of thousands of Israelis are abandoning ship, the nicer ones, who, if they had stayed, might have tried stopping the madness. Instead they leave behind the bloodthirsty, murderous settlers, toxic American, British and Russian fanatics, not taking any responsibility themselves as Jews for their Jewish tribe’s crimes.

You can’t have your Purim cookie and eat it

Purim celebrations: Israelis’ love of genocide derives from the Purim story of the slaughter of 75,000 Persians ‘in self-defense’, using Esther (concubine/ prostitute) as a honey-trap. The cookies represent tyrant Haman and his sons’ ears.

Judaism used to be the exalted granddaddy of monotheism. Christians took the Old Testament (OT) with all its Jewish supremacism as the truth. Though Jews were feared and reviled as outsiders, usurers, schemers, the religion was always respected, along with the prophecy that Jews will ‘go back’ in the endtimes.

This vague notion became a fact in the 1820s, a British imperial project, a 9th Crusade, a proto-Israel in the minds of British Christian Zionists, whose love-hate for Judaism-Jews convinced them to export all Jews to the Holy Land. Israel was conceived as the pet project of (very anti-Jewish) Christian-Zionist Lord Palmerston, which came to life with the invention of the steamship, the leading-edge tech. Palmerston immediately used it to — guess what? — wage war, obliterating Akka (Crusader Acre, Hebrew Akko) in 1840 with British cannons and this new fangled hot air machine (the Brits needed Mount Lebanon’s high-grade coal to fuel their steamships). ‘Not a sign of endtimes but as a new era of prosperity.’¹

The new war-tech allowed Britain to seize control of Egypt (the Suez Canal) by the 1870s. Capitulations to French, British, Russian and US trade and Christian agents in the Levant under the Ottomans prepared the way for divvying up the Ottoman spoils when the time was ripe (1918). So when wealthy Rothschilds-type Jews decided they would like to dabble in creating their own nation, it was readily accepted by imperial Britain. From the first Zionist conference in 1897 to the Balfour declaration in 1917, Israel became the key actor in a new Crusade to ‘free’ the Holy Land (and its oil riches).

The Brits could get rid of their Jews, and those rich Jews could have their very own Jewish state. Win-win. WWII was the final touch, the get-out-of-jail card, a passport to a racial state for the Chosen People, a state without morals, i.e., f*#k the world, international law, kill, kill, steal, steal, dispossess, trick, torture until – poof! – no more natives standing in your way. That was more or less British colonial policy anyway. There were no ‘nays’, or at least none that got any traction in Westminster or the mainstream press.

In the process, Judaism has been reduced to just an old boy’s club, a way to get the edge over goys, who have no rich, influential tribe to help them move up the greasy pole. Hillel House won’t have a speaker who criticizes Israel, Zionism, but undermining belief, promotion of atheism? No problemo.

Wake up Peter! You admit that even US Jews, the heretics, are arrested now, deplatformed, kicked out of university for protesting Israel, excommunicated from the tribe, but still argue that there is no justification for targeting Jews as A TRIBE. But Israel preempted you. Israel wants kippa-wearers to be targetted. Which means that kippa-wearing Jews who parade their Jewishness (Israel-lovers) are by default part of the problem – unless they are vocal opponents of Israeli war crimes and their kippa is to defy the craven kippa-wearing Zios. You can’t eat your blood-soaked Purim cookies, shaped as heads of the decapitated Palestinians (sorry, Persians) and have them too.

Beinhart argues eloquently in his dynamite last chapter, Korach’s children, that Moses’s opponent, Korach (All the community are holy, all of them, and God is in their midst.), was indeed wrong for claiming that the tribe’s chosenness meant a ‘free pass’. That they didn’t need Moses and his tiresome commandments demanding that they be good Jews. For Moses, chosenness meant responsibility for your own sins. Korach is identical to the Zionists today. Your genes (or very rigorous conversion, including Zionism) give you a ‘free pass’. Your only ‘responsibility’ is to defend the state of Israel, which can do no wrong as it’s, well, ISRAEL. So just shut up and let’s eat our bloody cookies!

This is idol worship. The Jewish state replaces God in a secular Israel. This isn’t the first time Jews have been called on the carpet for worshipping idols. The Golden Calf is just the most colourful biblical story, and the consequences are always dire. Lots of exile as punishment. In fact, Jewish ‘history’ is one long litany of Jews screwing up and God getting very angry and punishing them. So stop playing victim. Own up to your sins. Stop worshipping idols.

The other jewcy bits are the OT genocides. The Zionist Mephistopheles Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and Israel’s first Prime Minister Ben Gurion, both atheists, both loved the story of Joshua, who delivered the ‘promised land’ by wiping out all the Palestinians of the day, the Amalek.² The Zionists celebrate this original sin/theft and use it to justify their present-day genocide. Purim is the icing on the cake.

Beinhart mentions Jewish supremacists of the past – 11th century Spanish poet Yehuda Halevi (living happily under Islamic rule in Andalou), the 16th century rabbi Maharal of Prague, 18thc Hasids in Poland, the list goes on. Idols are the Jews’ downfall. Hello, Israel. And hello, anti-Jewish prejudice. When you see yourself as superior to the goys around you, you invite resentment. Beinhart doesn’t go the extra mile here, dismissing a few dreamers in Moorish Spain or the Silesian shtetl. They didn’t have the power to do anything about it. Sure, but their supremacist behaviour continually bred resentment. Pogroms against Jews? Yes, but by isolating your tribe, insisting on being superior, when things go wrong, Jews make great scapegoats. Surprise, surprise.

Enter, stage right

Jews live in a different world now, where they are the richest and most powerful tribe around, with steel-plated armour against criticism, and where you can’t say any of this in mainstream media without being roasted, sliced and eaten like a Purim cookie. So Beinhart’s soul-searching and his new-found Palestinian friends is all very well, but not enough. He just can’t give up his youthful devotion to Israel as the Jewish state. Pigs really can fly.

*He quotes IF Stone: Israel is creating a kind of moral schizophrenia in world Jewry, depending on the maintenance of secular, non-racial, pluralistic societies but championing a Jewish state in which the ideal is racial and exclusionist.³

*bemoans Brandeis University for banning a pro-Palestine group, so students could ‘feel safe in their Jewish identity.’

*is appalled at how Israel is cozying up to neo-fascists in Europe and America, abandoning Jewish progressives.

And still doesn’t see that an ethnic state is exactly what Hitler created, that the problem is with Zionism. An ethnic state stinks of colonialism or worse. That era ended in the 1960s-1980s with the liberation of Africa. Israel is dragging the whole world back into the worst form of that nightmare world, Hitler’s Germany, bent on wiping out Amalek/Untermenschen and colonizing the world. But then Beinhart is already pilloried and denied his soapbox in Hillel House and other Jewish-controlled places, so thank you Peter for going as far as you go.

As I read, I couldn’t help comparing Judaism and Islam. While Judaism is a closed religion, not seeking converts, Islam actively promotes conversion. When you become a Muslim (born or converted, it’s the fastest growing religion), you become part of the ‘chosen’. But Islam means ‘submission’. And all colours are welcome. O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you.(49.13). Of course there are bigoted Muslims, tribal Muslims, oily Muslims, but arrogance and racism are universally frowned on. There is no celebration in the Quran or Hadith of massacring Amalek as a template for committing genocide. It’s the OT that is genocidal, jingoistic.

There are ‘Islamic states’, which are riddled with problems, but unlike in Israel, there are no Untermenschen. All states are suspect in both Judaism and Islam, especially monarchies, which were the normal state structure of two millennia ago, and which often ended up with ‘divine right’ kings who acted like God, idols, and brought about their own demise. The Prophet Muhammad presciently warned against kings, not anointing his blood relative Ali as his inheritor, calling on his followers to elect their own ‘caliph’. Islam was almost destroyed when a later caliph Muawiya appointed his incompetent son Yazid to succeed him. As for Muslim rule, Jews have always lived well under Islamic rule, from Spain to Afghanistan.

Until Israel reared its ugly head. That angered all Muslims, which delighted Zionists, whose plan was to scare all diaspora Jews into coming to Israel. We killed them, let’s eat. It didn’t work, but it did destroy precious ancient Jewish cultures throughout the Middle East, and brought suddenly unhappy Mizrahi Jews to live as second class Jewish citizens, learn an artificial Hebrew, under ‘white’ European Jews as masters.

So, for all the backsliding of Muslims over the past millennium and a half, idol worship was never one of its failings. Muslims know that being ‘chosen’ means hard work. Fasting, praying, charity, pilgrimage, study. Lazy Muslims don’t brag about their failings. An atheist Muslim is an oxymoron. This contrasts sharply with not only Jewish centres like Hillel, but even Christian churches, some of which preach atheism.

2025 – Palestine’s year

Palestine has finally made the bestseller list. Another fine book, Andreas Malm’s The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth, relates the origins of Israel, how the British invention of the steamship was the technological breakthrough of the day, giving British a few decades of ocean supremacy, feeding the new racial supremacism that saw European smarts capturing (literally) the entire world, to colonize, exploit, destroy cultures, peoples, genocide, all the great things that made us westerners the new ‘chosen race’. Israel should be celebrating its bicentennial, with Akko the capital.

Malm poignantly goes the extra miles on the environmental destruction that Israel is responsible for. Nice irony: Israel is poisoning itself by dropping toxic bombs just a few miles from Tel Aviv. Nature knows no bounds. It also is the incentive for all the Arab oil sheikhs to blow $100s of billions on weapons of mass destruction — which all our high-faluting hypersonic things are in fact. US-Israel is the world’s incentive to arm yourself to the teeth, ironically, with US-Israeli weapons intended to protect them from US-Israel. Imagine a world with no Israel, or rather with Palestine-Israel. No need for the military industrial complex. We might actually save planet Earth.

And Egyptian emigre Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. A tweet by El Akkad, a slightly longer version of his catchy title, got 10m hits, so Omar understandably whipped off a book. Cool. He came to the West like all immigrants, thinking it would be heaven, but found it was a big pile of you-know-what. You don’t have to be Palestinian, Arab, Muslim to be the brunt of the lies and bigotry.

Beinhart is still naval-gazing, the nice little Jewish boy, top marks, loved granny (who loathed what he wrote to the bitter end). Has he bothered reading up on Islam? He never considers the possibility that the real reason Israel MUST be Jews-only is because Islam is a far better version of monotheism, alive and well despite two centuries of imperialist occupation and, now, genocide. No racism, no idols, real chosenness a la original Judaism, where it means responsibility, humility before God, genuine service to ‘the nations’. He finally started making Palestinian Muslim friends and was delighted to find them warm, generous, and spiritual. He was recently on a panel with UCLA law prof Khaled Abou El Fadl. I felt I was in the presence of a profound religious voice. I think, hope Beinhart is still a work in progress.

ENDNOTES:

1 Andreas Malm, The destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Walberg.

After his April 23 arrest in eastern Somali Region, Ahmed, the founder of Jigjiga Television Network, appeared in court on incitement charges on April 25, and was remanded in custody pending investigations, the journalist’s relative, who declined to be named, citing fear of retribution, told CPJ.

In the interview, Abdikarim Ali Ahmed demanded justice for his son’s death, saying that an officer kicked the teenage boy’s head, while wearing boots, after which he was hospitalized and died from his injuries. Regional police commander Abdi Ali Siyad told the BBC’s Somali service, “The boy simply died. There is no one to be held accountable.”

Meanwhile, on April 17, parliament passed a widely criticized amendment to the 2021 media law, increasing government control over the regulatory Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA), which is responsible for issuing sanctions against news outlets that violate press ethics, including by revoking their licenses. Press and human rights groups have warned that this shift in power “opens the door to undue influence” from politicians. 

“Ethiopia’s hostility to the press has been evident in the frequent arrests of critical journalists, and now the country is well on its way to reversing the gains it made in passing its 2021 media law, once considered progressive,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should release journalists detained for their work and amend or repeal laws that can be used to undermine press freedom.”

More April arrests

In the month of April, in addition to Ahmed’s detention and the brief arrest of three Addis Standard employees as part of a raid on their newsroom, CPJ also confirmed:

• On April 5, police arrested Muhyidin Abdullahi Omar, an editor at the state-owned Harari Mass Media Agency and founder of the YouTube channel Biyyoo Production, in eastern Harari Region, his wife Helen Jemal and a person with knowledge of the case, who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisal, told CPJ.

On April 28, Omar was charged with defamation and disseminating disinformation in connection with two Facebook posts, according to the charge sheet, reviewed by CPJ, in which he alleged mismanagement at a local mosque and corruption at the regional attorney general’s office.

He could face up to three years imprisonment for defamation under a 2016 law and another three years for incitement under an anti-hate speech law, which broadly defines the crime.

Muyhidin had been on administrative leave from Harari Mass Media Agency since 2022, following an arrest over his social media activity, but on April 7, 2025 — two days after his latest arrest — his employer suspended his salary pending a disciplinary meeting, according to Helen and documents reviewed by CPJ.

• On April 10, Fanuel Kinfu, founder of the online outlet Fentale Media, was taken from his home in the capital Addis Ababa. The journalist told CPJ that police questioned him over alleged defamation in relation to commentary videos, published between April 2023 and June 2024. On April 13, he was released on bail of 15,000 birr (US$113).

• On April 23, Abebe Fikir, a reporter with the weekly newspaper The Reporter, was arrested. Abebe told CPJ that he was seeking comment from city officials about a housing dispute but the police accused him of filming without permission — an allegation he denied. On April 25, he was released on bail of 10,000 birr (US$75), without charge.

Increased government power over the press

Ethiopia’s 2021 media law won praise for progressive provisions, including for reclassifying defamation as a civil rather than criminal offence. But the amended law, passed with only one dissenting vote, increases the government’s power over the press. Sections that allowed the public to nominate candidates to the media authority’s board and four slots reserved for media and civil society representatives have been repealed, with board members instead being chosen from “relevant” bodies.

It also removed a ban on board members being members of a political party — a rule that the government had been criticized for breaking in parliament and transferred power to nominate the authority’s director general from the board to the prime minister.

Ethiopia is sub-Saharan Africa’s second worst jailer of journalists, after Eritrea, according to CPJ’s latest annual prison census, with six behind bars on December 1, 2024. One of these, Yeshihasab Abere, was released in January.

In March, seven journalists from the privately owned Ethiopian Broadcasting Service were detained. All have since been freed. Two are awaiting trial on charges of dissemination of hateful disinformation.

CPJ did not receive any responses to queries sent via email and messaging app to federal, Harari and Somali regional police and government spokesperson Legesse Tulu.

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

Most of these press freedom violations were connected to coverage of national security issues, including the protracted conflict between the government and the militant group Al-Shabaab.

Since Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared a “total war” on the Al-Shabaab following his 2022 election, the government has attempted to censor media coverage of the militant group’s “extremism ideology.” Amid a deteriorating security situation, with Al-Shabaab’s recent bombing near a presidential convoy and attacks  on strategic government positions, authorities have stepped up efforts to control public discourse.

On March 6, Information Minister Daud Aweis Jama said there was a ban on publishing “statements or news” that could threaten national security or “misuse or fabricate information, whether directly or indirectly.” Press freedom and human rights groups interpreted these broad directives, which echoed an October 2022 statement by the administration, as censorship.  

“The government is really trying to control the narrative, to shape discussions around how it is handling the security situation in the country,” said Abdullahi Hassan, a conflict researcher covering Sudan and Somalia at rights group Amnesty International. “The repression against the media and the attacks on journalists that you are seeing are aimed at silencing government critics and are directly related to those efforts to shape the narrative”

Since March 15, CPJ has documented the following violations in the Somali capital Mogadishu, based on media reports, research by local rights groups the Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) and the Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ), and interviews with affected journalists:

● On March 15, National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) officers raided the home of RTN Somali TV reporter Bahjo Abdullahi Salad and arrested her. Authorities held her for about four hours in connection to a now-deleted TikTok video, in which she commented on the failure to clear rubbish in a Mogadishu district.

●  On March 18, police raided the offices of the Risaala Media Corporation after the station aired footage of the site of the bomb attack on the presidential convoy and briefly detained five journalists. Officers briefly held at least 17 other journalists covering the attack as well.

●  On March 26, police raided the family home of online journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Osman Bulbul, after he published a series of interviews critical of NISA and covered Al-Shabaab actions. Mohamed Ibrahim, who also works as the information and human rights secretary at SJS, was not home at the time but went into hiding for about three weeks. He told CPJ he was continuing to keep a low profile due to safety concerns.

● On March 28, police officers briefly detained three Himilo TV journalists — Abdirazak Haji Sidow, Anisa Abdiaziz Hussein, and Abdullahi Abdulqadir Ahmed — as well as two journalists from the privately owned news outlet Mustaqbal Media — Abdirizak Abdullahi Adan and Abdirahman Barre Hussein —  while they were covering a protest against sexual violence.

● On April 1, police raided the offices of Five Somali TV and arrested journalists Mohamed Roraye, Ahmed Mohamud, Mohamed Abdi Afgooye, Dahir Dayah, following a report alleging the disappearance of police officers. The journalists were released later that day.

● On April 28, police arrested Risaala TV journalists Abuukar Mohamed Keynaan and Abdirashid Adow Ibrahim while they were covering a mortar attack, accusing them of exaggerating the Al-Shabaab’s actions. They were released unconditionally the same day.

● On April 29, security agents shot at and briefly detained Shabelle Media Network journalists Shukri Aabi Abdi and Najib Farah Mohamed as well as Hiiraanweyn TV correspondent Hussein Osman Makaraan and Saab TV’s Deeq Moalim Jiinow while they were interviewing displaced people. The journalists were not injured.

● On May 5, at around 1 a.m., NISA agents raided the home and media studio of journalist Mohamed Omar Baakaay, who runs a news channel on YouTube,while he was away, the journalist told CPJ. The officers beat and arrested Baakaay’s 17-year-old brother and MM Somali TV’s Bashir Ali Shire, who was also staying there.Authorities released them later that day, without providing reason for the arrest, said Baakaay.

Information minister Daud Aweis and police spokesperson Abdifatah Adan Hassan did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app. CPJ also emailed NISA, the Somali presidency, and the information ministry for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.

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

We speak with the award-winning author and journalist Omar El Akkad, whose new book about the war on Gaza is titled One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. The book expands on a viral tweet El Akkad sent in October 2023, just weeks into Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian territory, decrying the muted response to the carnage and destruction unfolding on the ground. He wrote, “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” He joins Democracy Now! and says the book explores how people respond to injustice and grapple with their own role in it. “It’s in large part trying to figure out my place in this society,” says El Akkad. “I happen to live on the launching side of the missiles, and as a result, it’s very, very easy for me to look away. And what happens when you decide you’re not going to look away?”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

A Dakar court judge charged Zik Fm editor-in-chief Simon Pierre Faye with spreading false news on April 14 and released him under judicial control. On the same day, the Dakar gendarmerie questioned for several hours online broadcaster Source A TV’s journalists Omar Ndiaye and Fatima Coulibaly, and freelance news commentator Abdou Nguer, over their comments on the death of a local official. Nguer’s lawyer told local media that the gendarmes detained the journalist on false news charges related to a TikTok post that does not belong to him. The post called for an autopsy of the official. Ndiaye and Coulibaly were released without charges.

“Senegalese authorities must drop all charges against journalist Simon Pierre Faye, release news commentator Abdou Nguer, and end their judicial harassment of journalists,” said Moussa Ngom, CPJ’s Francophone Africa Representative. “Authorities should instead focus their efforts on advancing promised reforms to decriminalize press offenses.”

Police arrested Faye on April 10 for a post on his outlet’s Facebook page, later deleted, republishing another article on the alleged distrust of President Faye’s leadership.

Responding to a parliamentarian’s question about Faye’s detention, Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said that “penal policy will now be zero tolerance” for spreading “false news.”

CPJ has documented detentions of Senegalese journalists on false news charges, an offense punishable by one to three years in prison. In his campaign, President Faye promised to replace imprisonment for press offenses with fines. 

Separately, on April 13, police and gendarmes stopped and questioned Al Jazeera Qatar journalist Nicolas Haque and his camera operator, Magali Rochat, upon their arrival in the southern Ziguinchor city, where they sought to report on the return of people displaced by the region’s conflict. The journalists were sent back to Dakar the day after, Haque told CPJ.

CPJ’s email to the government’s information and communications office was not answered.

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

“We urge Jordanian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release journalist Omar Al Zayood, which would send a clear signal that authorities respect the freedom of the press and stop criminalizing journalists,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “We reiterate our call for the repeal of the 2023 cybercrimes law, which has further stifled the independence of the media in Jordan.”

The public prosecutor in the capital Amman ordered Zayood’s arrest after questioning him on the charge of “inaccuracy and insulting the dignity of individuals.” Penalties under the law include prison sentences of three months to three years, and fines of 5,000 to 20,000 Jordanian dinars (US$7,000 to 28,000).

CPJ was unable to confirm which Al Hashmiyah News report the lawsuit referred to or for how long Zayood was ordered detained.

Al-Khasawneh served as prime minister from 2000 until September 2024, when he resigned following parliamentary elections. King Abdullah II appointed Jjafar Hassan to replace him.

CPJ has criticized the Cybercrime Law, which criminalizes vaguely defined online activities, including social media posts deemed to be “fake” or that undermine national unity. Since its introduction, numerous journalists have been arrested and prosecuted for their critical online commentary on sensitive topics.

At least two journalists were imprisoned in Jordan at the time of CPJ’s latest annual prison census on December 1, 2024. Both have since been freed.

CPJ’s email to Al Hashmiyah News requesting comment did not receive a reply. CPJ was unable to find contacts for Amman’s public prosecutor or Al-Khasawneh.

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

“The aggressive treatment meted out to journalists by Erbil security forces while covering a peaceful protest is deeply concerning,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “We urge Iraqi Kurdistan authorities not to target journalists during protests, which has been a recurring issue.”

Kurdistan has been in a financial crisis since the federal government began cutting funding to the region after it started exporting oil independently in 2014. In 2024, the Federal Supreme Court ordered Baghdad to pay Kurdistan’s civil servants directly but ongoing disagreements between the two governments mean their salaries continue to be delayed and unpaid.

Since the end of Kurdistan’s civil war in 1998, the semi-autonomous region has been divided between the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Erbil and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Sulaymaniyah. While the KDP has discouraged the teachers’ protests, the PUK has sometimes supported them, including through affiliated media outlets.

At the February 9 protest, a crowd of teachers from Sulaymaniyah tried to reach Erbil, the capital, and were stopped at Degala checkpoint, where CPJ recorded the following attacks:

• Pro-opposition New Generation Movement NRT TV camera operator Ali Abdulhadi and reporter Shiraz Abdullah were stopped from filming by about seven armed security officers, known in Kurdish as Asayish, according to a video posted by the outlet.

“One of them chambered a round [into his gun]. I tried to leave but one of them attempted to strike me with the butt of a rifle, hitting only my finger. Another grabbed my camera and took it,” Abdulhadi told CPJ.

• Diplomatic’s reporter Zhilya Ali collapsed from teargas, a video posted by the privately owned digital outlet showed.

“There are still wounds on my face from when I fell,” she told CPJ, adding that she was taken to hospital and given oxygen.

• An ambulance took pro-PUK digital outlet Zhyan Media’s reporter Mardin Mohammed and camera operator Mohammed Mariwan to a hospital in Koya after they were teargassed.

“I couldn’t see anything and was struggling to breathe. My cameraman and I lost consciousness for three hours,” Mariwan told CPJ.

• Pro-PUK satellite channel Kurdsat News reporters Gaylan Sabir and Amir Mohammed and camera operators Sirwan Sadiq and Hemn Mohammed were teargassed and their equipment was confiscated, the outlet said.

• Privately owned Westga News said five staff — reporters Omer Ahmed, Shahin Fuad, and Amir Hassan, and camera operators Zanyar Mariwan and Ahmed Shakhawan — were attacked and teargassed. Ahmed told CPJ that a security officer grabbed a camera while they were broadcasting, while Fuad said another camera, microphone, and a livestreaming encoder were also taken and not returned.

• Pro-PUK Slemani News Network reporter Kochar Hamza was carried to safety by protesters after she collapsed due to tear gas, a video by the digital outlet showed. She told CPJ that she and her camera operator Sivar Baban were treated at hospitals twice.

“My face is still swollen, and I feel dizzy,” she told CPJ.

• A team from Payam TV, a pro-opposition Kurdistan Justice Group satellite channel, required treatment for teargas exposure.

“We were placed on oxygen and prescribed medication,” reporter Ramyar Osman told CPJ, adding that camera operator Sayed Yasser was hit in the knee by a rubber bullet.

• Madah Jamal, a reporter with the pro-opposition Kurdistan Islamic Union Speda TV satellite channel, told CPJ that he was also teargassed.

• Pro-PUK digital outlet Xendan’s reporter Shahen Wahab told CPJ that she and camera operator Garmian Omar suffered asthma attacks due to the teargas.

• Pro-PUK satellite channel Gali Kurdistan’s reporter Karwan Nazim told CPJ that he had to stop reporting because he couldn’t breathe and asked his office to send additional staff.

“I had an allergic reaction and my face turned red. I had to go to the hospital,” he said.

Raided and arrested

Abdulwahab Ahmed, head of the Erbil office of the pro-opposition Gorran Movement KNN TV, told CPJ that two unplated vehicles carrying Asayish officers followed KNN TV’s vehicle to the office at around 1:30 p.m., after reporters Pasha Sangar and Mohammed KakaAhmed and camera operator Halmat Ismail made a live broadcast showing the deployment of additional security forces by the United Nations compound, which was the protesters’ intended destination.

“They identified themselves as Asayish forces, forcibly took our mobile phones, and accused us of recording videos. They checked our social media accounts,” Sangar told CPJ.

KakaAhmed told CPJ, “They found a video I had taken near the U.N. compound on my phone, deleted it, and then returned our devices.”

In another incident that evening, Asayish forces arrested pro-PUK digital outlet Politic Press’s reporter Taman Rawandzi and camera operator Nabi Malik Faisal while they were live broadcasting about the protest and took them to Zerin station for several hours of questioning.

“They asked us to unlock our phones but we refused. Then they took our phones and connected them to a computer,” Rawandzi told CPJ, adding that his phone was now operating slowly and he intended to replace it.

“They told us not to cover such protests,” he said.

CPJ phoned Erbil’s Asayish spokesperson Ardalan Fatih but he declined to comment.

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

Mougheeth and Serag appeared before Egypt’s Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) on Thursday. While Mougheeth was released on a 5,000 Egyptian pound bail pending investigation after being accused of joining a terrorist organization and spreading false news, the SSSP has yet to make a decision regarding Serag, according to independent media outlets Mada Masr and Al-Manassa.

“The arrest of Mougheeth and Serag marks a dangerous escalation by Egyptian authorities to silence anyone daring to expose their repression,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator. “Targeting the relatives of detained journalists and retaliating against those who report abuses follows a troubling pattern. These oppressive tactics must end immediately, and Serag, Mougheeth, and Ashraf Omar must be released without delay.”

Mougheeth, an Egyptian professor and translator, has been an outspoken advocate for her husband’s release, relentlessly calling for justice amid his ongoing detention. In her interview with Serag, a reporter with Cairo-based independent outlet ZatMasr, she revealed that the security forces who detained Omar seized 350,000 Egyptian pounds, yet only reported a fraction of that amount in the official interrogation records.

Nada and Serag’s arrest followed a statement by Egypt’s Ministry of Interior, which denied claims made by a woman alleging that her husband was detained, and money and personal items were seized from his home without being documented in the arrest report. The ministry announced that legal action was being taken against those spreading these false allegations.

 Egyptian authorities have previously targeted the wives of detained journalists for speaking out. In April 2024, journalist Yasser Abu Al-Ela’s wife, Naglaa Fathi, and her sister were forcibly disappeared for 13 days after filing multiple complaints about Abu Al-Ela’s disappearance. Both women were later charged with joining a terrorist organization and spreading false information on Facebook.

Omar, A cartoonist for Al-Manassa was arrested on July 22, 2024, and charged with joining a terrorist group, spreading false news, and misusing social media. The SSSP also interrogated him about cartoons criticizing Egypt’s economic crisis and electricity shortages.

In 2024, Egypt ranked as the world’s sixth-worst country for press freedom, with 17 journalists imprisoned. Seven of these journalists were detained in 2024, as the country’s economic crisis triggered a new wave of arrests.

CPJ’s email to the Egyptian Ministry of Interior requesting comment on Serag and Mougheeth ’s arrests did not receive an immediate response.

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

“The arrest of journalist Sayed Saber is the latest example of Egypt’s crackdown on journalists and press freedom,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator. “CPJ has documented the arrests of six other journalists and writers since the beginning of this year, underscoring the urgency of addressing this alarming trend. This demonstrates yet again the lengths the Egyptian government will go to stifle reporting and commentary it disagrees with. Egypt must release Saber without charges, free the other six journalists, and end its intensified campaign against the press.”

Saber’s arrest is believed to be linked to recent social media posts criticizing military rule in Egypt. He is an established Egyptian journalist and writer with contributions to various media outlets and several published books. Known for his sharp critiques of the current political regime in Egypt, Saber often uses a sarcastic tone to deliver his commentary.

On September 9, CPJ and 34 other human rights and press freedom organizations, issued a joint statement condemning the recent arrests and enforced disappearances of four Egyptian journalists — Ashraf Omar, Khaled Mamdouh, Ramadan Gouida, and Yasser Abu Al-Ela — and called for their unconditional release. On October 23, CPJ documented the arrests of economic commentator Abdel Khaleq Farouk and journalist Ahmed Bayoumi. All six journalists remain in detention.

CPJ’s email to the Egyptian Ministry of Interior requesting comment on Saber’s arrests did not receive an immediate response

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

“The arrest of Abdel Khaleq Farouk shows once again how far the Egyptian government is willing to go to stifle reporting and commentary it disagrees with,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Egypt must let Farouk go without charges, release journalist Ahmed Bayoumi, arrested last month, and stop its newly intensified campaign of locking up the press.”

Farouk appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) on October 21. an unnamed legal source told The New Arab that his arrest was likely prompted by a series of articles that he published on his Facebook account. These articles were critical of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s economic policies, particularly regarding the construction of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital and Sisi’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war. Farouk was previously arrested in October 2018 after publishing a book which questioned the government’s economic policies.

In a separate incident, journalist Ahmed Bayoumi of the independent media outlet Erem News was arrested September 16 and the circumstances of his arrest and whereabouts have not been disclosed. Bayoumi was previously arrested in December 2017 and charged with joining a terrorist organization and spreading false news. He was held in detention for two years before being released in December 2019.     

On September 9, CPJ, alongside 34 other human rights and press freedom organizations, issued a joint statement condemning the recent arrests and enforced disappearances of four other Egyptian journalists—Ashraf Omar, Khaled Mamdouh, Ramadan Gouida, and Yasser Abu Al-Ela—and called for their unconditional release. The four journalists remain in detention.     

CPJ’s email to the Egyptian Ministry of Interior requesting comment on Farouk and Bayoumi’s arrests did not receive an immediate response.

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

Bouachrine, Raissouni, and Radi became global icons of the fight for press freedom in Morocco after they were arrested in separate cases between 2018 and 2020 and sentenced to 15, five, and six years respectively on sexual assault and other charges. Media freedom advocates and local journalists told CPJ that the “morals” charges were intended to dampen public support for the three journalists, known for their critical reporting on the government.

Though the journalists are free, they still face the burden of these convictions, a state of affairs exacerbated by authorities’ lack of communication about the terms of their pardon. Bouachrine, Radi, and Raissouni don’t know if their sentences were commuted, or if they were fully exonerated, a meaningful distinction in terms of their ability to go back to work.  

“In Morocco, in order for journalists to receive a press accreditation to legally work, they need not to have a criminal record. So, at the moment I cannot work in journalism until I figure out my unclear legal status,” Radi told CPJ.

If Bouachrine has a criminal record, it may impede him from trying to reopen Akhbar al-Youm newspaper, where he served as editor-in-chief until he was arrested in 2018, when Raissouni took over until he too was arrested in 2020. Akhbar al-Youm’s parent company, Media 21, was barred from accessing government funding, and the newspaper, one of the only independent outlets in the country, closed in 2021.

CPJ’s emailed Morocco’s Ministry of Justice about the terms of the journalists’ pardons and the Ministry of Interior for comment on the harassment facing the journalists, did not receive any responses.

Harassment in pro-government media

Compounding the journalists’ insecurity is intense harassment, much of it directed by pro-government media, in which the royal family and powerful businesspeople hold stakes. Media companies including Barlamane.com, Chouf TV, and Maroc Medias, published articles about the accusations against Bouachrine, Radi, and Raissouni while ignoring evidence proving their innocence, which the journalists said played a central role in their convictions. Now that the three are out, the smears have started again.

Weeks after the journalists’ release, pro-government news website Al-Jarida 24 called them “fake heroes” and slammed a human rights group that hosted them for press conference as “glorifying individuals with a dark past of sexual assault and human trafficking.”

Aida Alami, a Moroccan journalist and a visiting professor at Columbia University School of Journalism, said the negative coverage fits a pattern. “Such attacks are common in Morocco and are meant to never lift the pressure off released journalists, even after they are freed,” she said.

She pointed to the case of journalist Hajar Raissouni, Raissouni’s niece, who was smeared in pro-government news site Barlamane.com after she received a royal pardon for a 2019 conviction of having sex outside of marriage and seeking an illegal abortion. 

More recently, Barlamane.com went after her uncle Raissouni for giving an interview to Spanish outlet El Independiente in September describing the royal pardon as “a correction to the crimes committed by the intelligence services against us and our families with a lack of ethics never seen before in Morocco.” An unsigned article in Barlamane.com slammed Raissouni for his decision to speak to El Independiente, claiming without evidence that the Spanish outlet receives funding from Algerian intelligence. (Morocco and Algeria severed ties in 2021.) Raissouni, said Barlamane.com, has “renewed his loyalty to enemies of the state.”

In a phone call with CPJ, Raissouni defended the interview. “The only reason I spoke to El Independiente in the first place is because [authorities] will never allowme to speak in the local media outlets about how I am, and always have been, innocent and how I am being targeted in this country regardless of being pardoned.”

He called the negative coverage “beyond a defamation campaign,” saying that Barlamane.com wants him back in prison. In a recent article it called his mouth a “criminal environment” requiring “legal examination.” Before his last legal ordeal, the outlet was part of a drumbeat of coverage leading up to his arrest by urging an investigation against him.

Threatening phone calls

Radi, meanwhile, has been spared the smear campaigns that targeted Bouachrine and Raissouni, but he faces another form of insidious harassment, he told CPJ.

“In the first three days of our release, some individuals were following me every time I walk in the streets. But after we [Radi, Raissouni, and Bouachrine] held two press conferences about our release, I stopped being followed but started getting phone calls threatening to arrest me again if I don’t shut up,” he said.

This wasn’t the first time Radi was surveilled; Amnesty International said that in 2019 and 2020 Radi’s phone was infected with Pegasus, an Israeli-made spyware. In 2022, the Pegasus Project, a collaborative investigation, found that Raissouni and Bouachrine were also selected for surveillance.

Raissouni believes that the Moroccan government has effectively erased independent journalism in the kingdom, using what he calls “sewage journalism” — the pro-government media — to intimidate independent outlets and journalists. Even the few independent outlets that remain have resorted to self-censorship, he said.  

“Today, it is impossible to go back to work in journalism in Morocco. There are no remaining outlets today that would allow their journalists to write anything that is not aligned with the state narrative. ‘Sewage journalism’ has become one of the most famous forms of journalism in the kingdom, when it is supposed to be true independent journalism,” said Raissouni.

Even if Radi is able to go back to work, he’s not sure what kind of opportunities await him. “There is no free media anymore. There is simply nowhere to write your opinion anymore.”  

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

The journalist was sentenced to one year in prison and fined 100,000 dinars (US$752) on Sunday, October 6, on charges of insulting a state institution and its employees, according to a local reporter who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns. 

“We are alarmed by an Algerian court’s decision to convict and sentence journalist Badreddine Guermat to one year in prison for simply doing his job,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian, from Washington, D.C. “Algerian authorities must release Guermat, should not contest his appeal, and stop harassing journalists for reporting the news.”

Guermat was arrested on September 25 from his home in Djelfa, a city south of Algiers, following a Facebook post alleging government mismanagement of funds. The Djelfa Tribune is a local news website that covers local politics.

CPJ’s email to the Algerian Ministry of Interior requesting comment about Guermat’s conviction did not receive any response.

The arrests occur amid an apparent aim to silence criticism ahead of and after the September 7 presidential elections in what rights groups are calling an “erosion of human rights” under President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s administration.

At the time of CPJ’s most recent annual prison census on December 1, 2023, three journalists were imprisoned in Algeria. Journalist Mustapha Bendjama was released in April 2024. In addition to Guermat, authorities have since arrested at least two other local journalists: Omar Ferhat and Sofiane Ghirous.

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

The statement also urged Egyptian authorities to drop all charges against the journalists, cease targeting them for their work, end the practice of concealing the status or location of those in custody, investigate allegations that at least two of the journalists were tortured or treated inhumanely, and hold those responsible accountable.

This new wave of arrests highlights the troubling record of Egyptian authorities in targeting journalists and independent media, underscoring why Egypt has remained among the top 10 jailers of journalists worldwide in recent years, according to CPJ data.

Read the full statement here.

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

Democracy Now! spoke with Minnesota Congressmember Ilhan Omar late Wednesday outside the Democratic National Convention, where members of the “uncommitted” movement launched a sit-in to demand a Palestinian American be allowed to address the convention from the main stage. Omar said she joined protesters outside the DNC because “there is no compassion in turning our heads away from the piles of dead bodies” in Gaza. “A ceasefire is only possible if we use every leverage that we have, and the biggest leverage that we have is to stop sending bombs,” says Omar, explaining why she is calling for an arms embargo against Israel and an end to “this genocidal war.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“CPJ is deeply concerned by the attacks on the Zoom News TV crew in Sulaymaniyah and the Alsumaria TV crew in Baghdad,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “We call on Iraqi authorities to thoroughly investigate these incidents and ensure their security forces are properly trained to interact with journalists.”

On August 18, in Halabja, Sulaymaniyah province, Iraqi Kurdistan Asayish security forces attacked Zoom News TV reporter Avin Atta and cameraman Zhyar Kamli while they were reporting on a demonstration against the killing of a porter, known as a kolbar, by Iraqi border forces in the Hawraman area.

Atta told CPJ that an Asayish official twisted her arm behind her back, dislocating her shoulder and wrist, after she refused to hand over their camera and microphone. The security forces released Atta and Kamli after reviewing their footage for more than an hour. 

CPJ did not receive a response to its request for comment sent via messaging app to Salam Abdulkhaliq, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region Security Agency.

Zoom News TV supports the newly formed People’s Front, a political party participating in Kurdistan’s October 20 parliamentary elections.  

Separately, Iraqi SWAT forces assaulted Alsumaria TV reporter Amir Al-Khafaji and cameraman Omar Abbas while they were covering an August 19 Baghdad protest by medical school graduates demanding jobs.

Al-Khafaji told CPJ by phone that four SWAT officers beat him and confiscated their equipment and phones after he tried to stop them from attacking Abbas.

After taking the journalists to a police station in Baghdad’s Al-Rusafa district, the officers accused them of assaulting security forces and refused to release them until they signed a pledge not to attack security forces again. “We were shocked and denied the allegations,” said Al-Khafaji.

CPJ received no response to its call for comment from Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesperson Brigadier General Miqdad Miri.

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

In this era of internet and instant communication, information on the monstrous crimes of Zionism is available for people who make an effort to be aware. Take that information and apply open-minded skepticism. Ask whether the evidence substantiates the information and its narrative.

Israeli Jews are carrying out genocide against Palestinians (something that has been ongoing for decades). Eliminating a grouping of people from existence is heinous enough, but there is also the horrific matter of what happens to the victims of Zionists before they are killed.

Redacted interviewed Dan Cohen of Uncaptured Media to report a bloodlust where Israelis are torturing and raping Palestinian prisoners, and that Israeli protestors are in the streets claiming Israelis have a right to rape these prisoners.

Cohen is in Israel telling of “the shock and trauma and hate and racism pulsing through the veins of Israeli society ….” This is exemplified by the fact that the Israeli military-run prison with its Palestinian captives:

…is not about gaining intelligence, at all. It is not about finding Israeli captives in Gaza, at all. What happens there [in the prisons] is about the most cruel punishment. It is torture with electric shock, beating, severe beatings, where if you talk to someone you are beaten until your teeth break, until your bones break, if you fall asleep, these kinds of things. People are, as we know, anally raped. Prisoners are killed. There are many who are murdered. They just never come out…. These are just [Palestinian] civilians, cause all their fighters are underground. So they take civilians from the neighborhoods, and just take them there and torture them and kill them, even top doctors. I think it is 39 medical professionals from Gaza have ah, I believe, been killed in there… (5:30 to 7:15)

Non-Zionist Jews, Jews opposed to the crimes of Zionists, must speak out against the evil, otherwise their silence may be criticised as complicity. The non-Zionist Jews are faced with the challenge of how to get their humanist message widely disseminated in opposition to Zionism.

One grouping of Jews that opposes Zionism and supports Palestinian rights is Jewish Voices for Peace. Rebecca Vilkomerson and Rabbi Alissa Wise, two leaders and former staff of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have written Solidarity Is the Political Version of Love: Lessons from Jewish Anti-Zionist Organizing (Haymarket Books, 14 May 2024), which covers the period from 2010-2020.

Omar Barghouti, Palestinian human rights defender and cofounder of the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights, wrote the foreword to the book. Barghouti notes the difference of JVP from other progressivist Jewish organizations:

Instead of the typical Jewish American PEP (progressive except on Palestine) culture, JVP has helped a PIP culture—progressive including on Palestine …

In the face of overwhelming Jewish American support for Zionism and Israeli apartheid, JVP has insisted on growing the anti-Zionist movement to dismantle the myth of Israel’s representation of all Jews and, along with it, the complicity of the Jewish Zionist establishment in securing mainstream support in the US for funding, arming, and enabling Israel’s regime of oppression.

As Solidarity Is the Political Version of Love relates, JVP has grown and morphed over time from the “first mass Jewish civil disobedience in the Rotunda of the US Congress” to later “large-scale protests at a level none of us can remember.” (p 2) “JVP grew larger as it shifted to the left and altered the public narrative about Palestinian liberation while creating a space for Judaism beyond Zionism.” (p 2-3) JVP did not declare itself anti-Zionist until early in 2019; however, it was noted that the proportion of anti-Zionist members and staff has grown over time. (p 13)

When Haymarket Books shared the e-galley, I was informed that the authors are available for interviews. With that in mind, seven days ago I sent some questions.

The first question was based on Vilkomerson and Wise’s definition of solidarity: “as when people outside a specific community dedicate themselves to supporting the rights and aspirations of that community, taking direction on what actions to take from the community itself.” (9) Since solidarity is the leitmotif for the book, why is it that JVP identifies as Jewish voices rather than, for example, Human Voices for Peace? The name seems to set limits on solidarizing with non-Jews within its organization?

However, there is something of a work around in the book: “What did it mean to be a member if you weren’t Jewish? … So, we relied on people self-identifying as members and didn’t spend time gatekeeping peoples’ Jewishness.” (p 55) “We believe movement building is the only way to realize the world all people deserve.” (p 80)

I also asked about the propriety of donating to JVP as opposed to donating to Palestinian movements.

The Zionist NGO Monitor complains that “JVP’s funding sources are not transparent.” NGO Monitor further criticizes JVP, saying that the JVP “regards the organized Jewish community as its ‘enemy’ and ‘opponent,’ …. The strategy, as stated by JVP’s executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson, is to create ‘a wedge’ within the American Jewish community to generate the impression of polarization over Israel.” For those who are opposed to Zionist oppression of Palestinians such criticism ought to be considered as a badge of honor by the JVP.

Moreover, JVP criticizes

Israel’s ongoing apartheid policies of administrative detention—holding Palestinians without charge or trial—left Palestinians stranded in prison indefinitely. At the same time, home demolitions are a daily occurrence, with more than nine thousand structures destroyed since 2009.1 In addition to the daily indignities faced by Palestinians at checkpoints, Jewish-only settlements proliferated in the West Bank, siphoning water, developing a network of Jewish-only roads connecting the settlements to Israel, and bringing into Palestinian communities thousands of armed settler vigilantes, who regularly harassed and violently attacked Palestinians, vandalizing their property with the blessing of the Israeli army, felling ancient olive trees, and shooting at Palestinians that need to cross Jewish-only roads to reach their farms or graze their flocks. In Gaza, the situation became even more dire for Palestinians after Jewish settlers were removed in 2005, when Israel turned Gaza into an open-air prison, maintaining an illegal siege by controlling what goes in and out by air, land, and sea. (p 6)

Sounds good, sounds progressivist.

I wondered about the JVP stance on two-state vs one-state. The authors wrote, “… as a group of people in the US it was not JVP’s place to determine the number of states at all, but instead to do what we could to support a liberatory future.” (p 14)

That’s fine. But what about whether Palestine should be recognized as a state, something Israel is vehemently opposed to? An online search reveals that JVP often refers to the “state of Palestine.” This earned JVP further scorn from the NGO Monitor.

JVP takes many progressivist positions.

JVP acknowledges overwhelming Jewish communal support for Israel but sees its role as “just one prong in a multifaceted movement, led by Palestinians in the US and Palestine.” (p 16)

JVP questions its own Jewish composition: “Ashkenazi Jews colluded with and assimilated into whiteness, Jewish voices (whether Ashkenazi or not) were routinely privileged above Palestinian voices” (p 40) and its hierarchical structure. (p 61)

JVP recognizes “the weaponization of antisemitism, specifically in connection with anti-Zionism,” (p 99) and sees solidarity as the key to overcoming the Zionism that Palestinians endure drives them into isolation from violent domination. (p 102) “JVP, from the very start, has been guided by the exact opposite principle, that writ large we live in an interdependent world, that we all deserve safety, and that the way to gain safety is through solidarity.” (p 103)

Paradoxically, solidarity in a worthy cause might require splittism. Vilkomerson and Wise write, “Decoupling Jews from Israel and Jewishness from Zionism are therefore essential to the struggle against real antisemitism, toward realizing Jewish safety, and, of course, for Palestinian liberation.” (p 108)

The authors see solidarity as an expression of love:

Whatever your version of solidarity, may you practice it as an expression of love. A love that manifests as raging at the world as it is, and at the same time developing smart, intentional plans to realize the world as it should be. (p 215)

The ways in which Israel’s assault on Palestinians in Gaza exceeds the horror of nearly all wars in recent memory are too long to list: more children killed, more journalists killed, more bombs dropped, more homes destroyed, more internally displaced people, more targeting of hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and refugee camps. That’s because it’s simply not a war – it’s a genocide. (p 218)

The genocide of 186,000 Palestinians (likeliest a depressingly higher number in the three-and-a-half weeks since the Lancet article was published), requires an utmost expression of love through solidarity with the entirety of humanity. This comes through clearly and forthrightly in Solidarity Is the Political Version of Love.

There are few (or none) sizeable groupings of people who form a monolith. JVP is one Jewish grouping that deviates from Zionist Jews by upholding morality in solidarity with a shared humanity.

Israel is not alone in its evil. It is backed by governments in the West. The US is a staunch supporter of Zionism, funding it, arming it, and providing media and diplomatic cover for Israel. It points to the sine qua non of a monolith of humans united by love for fellow humans. This guiding principle would elevate humanity to the stratosphere.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

“We are alarmed by reports that the military intelligence arrested journalist Omar Mohamed Omar last week. Arresting journalists for their work at a time of war is a clear indication of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ attempt to prevent coverage of the ongoing war,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s Interim MENA Program Coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Sudanese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Omar and allow journalists to report on the war in Sudan without fear of getting arrested.”

General Intelligence Service officers arrested Omar, also known as Wad Abukar, from his home in al-Obeid, the capital of the North Kordofan state in the south of Sudan, according to the reports, a statement by the local press freedom group the Sudanese Journalists Network, and a local journalist, who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

Omar’s arrest came after he criticized the governor of North Kordofan on his personal Facebook page for the lack of services and the worsening water crisis in the state due to the civil war that broke out between the SAF and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, according to those sources. Since the beginning of the war, journalists have been killed, arrested, harassed, and sexually assaulted.

The Sudanese Journalists Network condemned Omar’s arrest, calling it a violation of human rights laws and international humanitarian law.

CPJ’s emails to the SAF requesting comment on Omar’s arrest did not receive any replies.

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

“We are alarmed by reports that the military intelligence arrested journalist Omar Mohamed Omar last week. Arresting journalists for their work at a time of war is a clear indication of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ attempt to prevent coverage of the ongoing war,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s Interim MENA Program Coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Sudanese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Omar and allow journalists to report on the war in Sudan without fear of getting arrested.”

General Intelligence Service officers arrested Omar, also known as Wad Abukar, from his home in al-Obeid, the capital of the North Kordofan state in the south of Sudan, according to the reports, a statement by the local press freedom group the Sudanese Journalists Network, and a local journalist, who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

Omar’s arrest came after he criticized the governor of North Kordofan on his personal Facebook page for the lack of services and the worsening water crisis in the state due to the civil war that broke out between the SAF and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, according to those sources. Since the beginning of the war, journalists have been killed, arrested, harassed, and sexually assaulted.

The Sudanese Journalists Network condemned Omar’s arrest, calling it a violation of human rights laws and international humanitarian law.

CPJ’s emails to the SAF requesting comment on Omar’s arrest did not receive any replies.

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

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority held a secret meeting with American and Israeli officials in Tel Aviv earlier this month to conspire on “day after” plans in Gaza that would involve the collaborative body in reopening the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

“Egypt wants personnel from the Palestinian Authority to operate the crossing,” Axios reported. The crossing, when open, is typically operated by Hamas personnel from Gaza’s side, as the political and armed organization governs the interior of the Strip.

“Israel wants people who aren’t affiliated with Hamas to do it, but objects to any official involvement of the Palestinian Authority – mostly for domestic political reasons,” Axios added.

The Palestinian Authority rejected a proposal that would involve it in reopening the crossing in any unofficial capacity, the publication said.

The meeting reportedly included White House official Brett McGurk, the head of Israel’s domestic spying agency Ronen Bar, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee Hussein al-Sheikh and head of the PA’s military intelligence Majed Faraj.

This was the first time that Palestinian officials have met with US and Israeli counterparts “to discuss the day after the war ends in Gaza,” reported Barak Ravid, the Axios writer who is frequently fed information by Israel’s military and intelligence apparatus.

The United Arab Emirates also appears eager to conspire for a day-after plan in Gaza.

The Gulf state, which formalized relations with Israel in 2020, is looking “to deploy a temporary international mission” in Gaza that would establish “law and order,” the UAE ambassador at the United Nations, Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, wrote in the Financial Times last week.

“A temporary international presence in Gaza can only result from a formal invitation from the Palestinian Authority,” the ambassador wrote.

The Palestinian Authority was created in the early 1990s following the Oslo accords to act as native auxiliary on behalf of the Israeli occupation. It has performed that role – one that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas calls “sacred” – without interruption since day one.

It wouldn’t be surpring if Israel and its Arab allies sought to copy this model in a post-genocide Gaza Strip.

But in order for Israel to execute its vision in the wrecked coastal enclave, the Israeli military would have to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hamas as a governing and military presence in Gaza.

This doesn’t appear close to happening.

Meanwhile, Fatah and Hamas agreed to “end the Palestinian national division” after the rival factions held negotiations in China this month alongside other Palestinian political parties.

Notably, the factions “underlined the Palestinian people’s right to resist occupation and to end it in accordance with international law,” according to Lebanese broadcaster Al Mayadeen, which obtained a copy of the declaration.

This is not the first time that the parties have made these declarations, and there is no indication that this one will be different.

A Palestinian Authority official said over the weekend that the Palestine Liberation Organization is the sole legitimate representative of Palestinians.

“Leaked news indicating that Washington is discussing plans on the future of the Gaza Strip with some parties will not have any legitimacy and will not be accepted by the Palestinian people,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh is paraphrased to have said, according to Wafa News Agency.

Echoing Israeli propaganda

Following an Israeli massacre in al-Mawasi earlier this month that killed at least 90 Palestinians and injured hundreds of others, the Palestinian Authority issued a statement effectively blaming Hamas for Israel’s slaughter.

“The presidency sees that by escaping national unity, and providing free pretexts to the occupation state, the Hamas movement is a partner in bearing legal, moral and political responsibility for the continuation of the Israeli war of genocide,” PA leader Mahmoud Abbas wrote in a statement.

Another PA official actually used an Israeli propaganda talking point against Hamas.

“Hamas is actually hiding between the residents to protect and save itself,” PA official Munir al-Jaghoub reportedly said.

“If Hamas wanted to fight face-to-face with Israel, it would’ve done so in areas where the army is located, and not in places where there are people.”

We were joined by writer and Birzeit University lecturer Abdaljawad Omar on 17 July on The Electronic Intifada livestream to talk about the situation in the West Bank.

Omar said that the Palestinian Authority “is trying to echo Israeli psychological warfare.”

It is doing so “by attempting to kind of de-link the Palestinian society overall from its resistance, and serving through this severance, serving Israeli war aims, which is to defeat the resistance and render Gaza unlivable.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Tamara Nassar.

“By arresting journalists Khaled Mamdouh and Ashraf Omar and subjecting them to enforced disappearance, the Egyptian regime has once again demonstrated its shameful commitment to targeting journalists and violating their basic human rights,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “It is time to break Egypt’s longstanding pattern and release Mamdouh and Omar, dropping all charges against them.”

Egyptian security forces have systematically used enforced disappearance—characterized as a state-sponsored arrest or abduction followed by a lack of acknowledgment of the person’s fate or whereabouts—to target journalists and human rights defenders, who are often mistreated prior to being presented for charges.

Security authorities arrested Omar early Monday morning at his apartment in the October Gardens neighborhood in Giza, and took him to an unknown location.

Human rights lawyer Mahienour El-Massry told Al-Manassa that she went to the Sixth of October Police Station, but they denied his presence or arrest. Al-Manassa and the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate called on the public prosecutor to reveal Omar’s whereabouts and any charges.

Security forces arrested Mamdouh at his home in Mokattam, a southern plateau in the capital, Cairo, on Tuesday, July 16, and confiscated his laptop. Security forces took Mamdouh to an undisclosed location, where he was forcibly disappeared for five days.

Security forces presented Mamdouh to prosecuting authorities on Sunday, where he was detained for 15 days pending investigation into charges of joining and funding a terrorist organization and spreading false news.

CPJ’s email to the Egyptian Ministry of Interior requesting comment on Mamdouh and Omar’s arrest and charges did not receive an immediate response.

Separately in June and July, the Egyptian Supreme State Security Prosecution repeatedly renewed the detention of freelance reporter Yasser Abu Al-Ela, pending an investigation into charges of joining a terrorist organization, committing a financing crime, and publishing false news.

Abu Al-Ela said at a June 15 meeting with the prosecution that during the 50 days of his enforced disappearance, he was subjected to “physical and psychological torture.” His wife, Naglaa Fathi, was detained and charged after filing several complaints with Egyptian authorities after her husband disappeared.

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

Algerian authorities arrested Ferhat, director of local independent news website Algeria Scoop, and Ghirous, the outlet’s editor-in-chief, in the capital, Algiers, on June 27, according to news reports and Khaled Drareni, a local journalist who spoke to CPJ. An investigative judge at the Bir Mourad Rais Court then ordered their detention on charges of inciting hate speech.

Earlier that day, the journalists were summoned for questioning about an Algeria Scoop video—which has since been removed—showing two businesswomen protesting their mistreatment at a government-sponsored event about creativity.

Algerian authorities have imposed restrictions and censorship on the media ahead of the September presidential elections, where President Abdelmajid Tebboune is likely to seek another term, according to news reports and two local journalists who spoke with CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

“The recent court decision to detain Algeria Scoop journalists Omar Ferhat and Sofiane Ghirous for their reporting is a clear indication of President Tebboune’s intolerance for independent journalism ahead of the presidential elections,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “Algerian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Ferhat and Ghirous, drop all charges against them, and allow journalists to work freely without fear of arrest.”

The court also placed Abdelaziz Laadjel, a video reporter and editor at Algeria Scoop, under judicial supervision, which means authorities can summon him for questioning at any time.

CPJ’s emails to the Algerian Ministry of Interior requesting comment on Ferhat and Ghirous’ arrests did not receive any replies.

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

As part of our Juneteenth special broadcast, we feature our interview with pioneering musical artist Rhiannon Giddens, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her opera Omar, about Omar ibn Said, a Muslim scholar in Africa who was sold into slavery in the 1800s.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Senegalese are due to vote on March 24, with 19 candidates vying to lead the country, after a last-minute delay to the poll in February triggered protests. The current president, Macky Sall, has already served two terms and is not running. 

In recent years, CPJ has tracked a decline in press freedom in Senegal, characterized by repeated arrests and prosecutions of journalists, attacks by security forces on reporters covering protests, internet shutdowns, and other censorship tactics. CPJ’s 2023 prison census placed Senegal among the top five jailers of journalists in Africa.

On March 12, Senegalese authorities released five journalists jailed since last year, including Ndèye Maty Niang, also known as Maty Sarr Niang, and four journalists from the Allô Senegal media outlet who continue to face prosecution, according to Niang and Famara Faty, a lawyer for the Allô Senegal journalists, who both spoke to CPJ. 

“The release from detention of at least five Senegalese journalists jailed since 2023 is welcome news, but they should have never been arrested and their cases underscore the imperative for legal reforms to prevent such criminalization of the press in the future,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “All candidates seeking to become Senegal’s next president should commit to taking swift actions to ensure practicing journalism is never again treated as a crime and to drop all ongoing prosecutions against journalists in the country, including the four recently released staff of Allô Senegal.” 

Niang, a reporter with the privately owned news website Kéwoulo, had been jailed since May 2023 and was granted provisional release on March 12, meaning her prosecution would have continued.

Niang’s lawyer, Moussa Sarr, told CPJ that the journalist’s case was now nullified under the amnesty law, which was passed by the Senegalese parliament on March 6 and enforced days after her release.

The amnesty law canceled legal proceedings over alleged crimes “relating to demonstrations or having political motivations” committed in the context of the political crisis in the country from March 2021 to February 2024, according to CPJ’s review of the law.

Journalists continue to face prosecution

Jailed since November 2023, the four Allô Sénégal journalists—news presenter Ndèye Astou Bâ, columnist Papa El Hadji Omar Yally, camera operator Daouda Sow, and manager Maniane Sène Lô—were released under judicial supervision and must appear at a Dakar court every month, according to Faty, adding that their cases were not covered by the amnesty law.

Allô Sénégal reporter Mamadou Lamine Dièye and technician Moussa Diop were also arrested in November, following a complaint by Senegal’s minister of tourism and leisure, Mame Mbaye Kan Niang, about a broadcast that discussed allegations that Niang committed adultery, but they were released under judicial supervision at that time.

The Allô Sénégal journalists face various charges, including “usurping the function of a journalist,” which stems from the combined application of Senegal’s press and penal code and is punishable by up to two years in prison. Ndèye Maty Niang was also charged with “usurping the function of a journalist,” among other offenses.

In May 2023, another journalist, Serigne Saliou Gueye, editor of the Yoor-Yoor newspaper, was similarly arrested and accused of usurping the function of a journalist and contempt of court. He was freed on provisional release after nearly a month and was required to report to the prosecutor’s office each month and barred from leaving Senegal without permission.

At least four more journalists—Pape Sané, Pape Alé Niang, Pape Ndiaye, and Babacar Touré—were arrested in connection with their work in 2023. They faced accusations under the penal code, including false news and conduct likely to undermine public security, and were released under strict conditions. CPJ could not immediately confirm whether their cases had been nullified under the amnesty law, though their lawyer Sarr said they should “in principle” be included. 

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

She’s not alone: Niang is one of at least five journalists jailed since last year in Senegal in connection with their work. It’s the highest number ever recorded in the country since CPJ began keeping track in 1992 with its annual December 1 prison census.  

“The government has tried to silence all discordant voices,” Babacar Touré, director of the Kéwoulo news site, where Niang worked, told CPJ in a January interview. “Maty’s place is with us, in our editorial office to prepare for this election.”

Though the journalists were arrested months before the current unrest, their detentions are indicative of a broader crackdown on press freedom and dissent which has called into question Senegal’s reputation as a stable democracy. Authorities have repeatedly jailed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, most recently in July when they also dissolved his political party, and responded violently to protests. Journalists have faced arrest over coverage of Sonko’s prosecution, and other efforts to curb political reporting.

In early February, after President Macky Sall decided to postpone elections originally scheduled for later in the month, attacks on the media spiked. Senegalese police have targeted dozens of journalists with tear gas, violence, and harassment as they covered demonstrations against the election delay. The government has also repeatedly blocked mobile internet access.

A press code used against the press

Niang and the four other journalists in Senegal’s prisons — Allô Sénégal news presenter Ndèye Astou Bâ, the outlet’s columnist Papa El Hadji Omar Yally, its camera operator Daouda Sow, and its manager Maniane Sène Lô — face a raft of charges. Notably, each is accused of “usurping the function of a journalist.”

The charge stems from the combined application of Senegal’s press and penal codes. Adopted in 2017, the press code, which regulates the media sector, was promoted by officials as a way to professionalize the local press and strengthen democracy. But, as press freedom advocates warned at the time, it imposed limitations on who could be considered a journalist. “Only holders of a national card can claim the status of journalist,” reads Article 22 of the press code. Article 227 of Senegal’s criminal code punishes people who claim to work in a “legally regulated profession” – such as journalism – without “fulfilling the required conditions” with up to two years in prison and a fine.

“Holding the card is not about the professional identity of journalists, it’s simply a document that allows journalists to be distinguished from those who are not journalists when they go to a ceremony,” Serigne Saliou Gueye, publication director of the Yoor Yoor newspaper who has been working as a journalist for over 20 years, told CPJ. “I’m all for professionalizing journalists,” he added, but the issue of impersonating journalists is a “false problem.”

Gueye was jailed in May 2023 over a column Yoor Yoor published under an anonymous byline that criticized the prosecution of opposition leader Sonko. He was held for nearly a month and accused of usurping the function of a journalist and of contempt of court, before being released in June under judicial control, a conditional freedom set by the judge.

‘Paranoia in our ranks’

At least four other journalists – Pape Sane, Pape Alé Niang, Pape Ndiaye, and Touré – have been arrested in connection with their work over the past year and then released under strict conditions, including not speaking publicly about their cases, their lawyers told CPJ. The journalists face various accusations under the penal code, including false news and conduct likely to undermine public security. Those who spoke to CPJ did so about the general media environment in Senegal, not the specifics of their prosecutions.

“It’s all about muzzling the press…and putting pressure on those who resist,” Pape Alé Niang, editor of the news site Dakarmatin, told CPJ. His arrest in 2022 put Senegal on CPJ’s prison census that year for the first time since 2008. He was released and rearrested that December for discussing his prosecution in a Facebook live broadcast, released in January 2023, and then detained again for 10 days in July and August over a broadcast about Sonko’s arrest.

In separate cases last year, Senegalese police also arrested two Senego news website reporters—Abdou Khadre Sakho in August and Khalil Kamara in September—and accused them each of spreading false news in publications about Sonko. Kamara was additionally accused of defamation, contempt of court, and insulting the head of state. Both were released without charge within 24 hours.

“These arrests and imprisonments of journalists have created a paranoia in our ranks,” Ibrahima Lissa Faye, president of the Association of Online Press Professionals, known by the French acronym APPEL, told CPJ. “At any moment you could be prosecuted for disseminating false news without there being any false news, or for undermining state security: catch-all offenses that amount to absolutely nothing, but are used to muzzle journalists.”

CPJ reached Senegal’s Minister of Communication, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy, Moussa Bocar Thiam, over the phone and he asked to be sent a message, but did not subsequently respond to CPJ’s questions about the arrests. Calls to government spokesperson Abdou Karim Fofana, as well as calls and messages sent to Justice Minister Aïssata Tall Sall, went unanswered.

An ongoing ‘spiral’ of fear

Senegal’s constitutional court ruled in mid-February that a new election must take place as soon as possible, and a national dialogue panel has proposed June 2 as a new date. Sall has reaffirmed his earlier commitment not to run again and said he would exit office on April 2, when his term ends. Journalists have continued working amid ongoing unrest, but the prospect of arrest looms alongside threats of violence and censorship.

“There’s this constant anxiety that journalists feel on a daily basis,” Moustapha Diop, director of the Walf TV broadcaster, told CPJ. Walf TV was taken off air for a week in early February; last June it was suspended for a month over protest coverage. “We have the impression that whenever there is tension, the authorities have a simple reflex: Wal Fadjri [the parent group of WalfTV] must stop broadcasting,” Diop said.

Internet shutdowns since the election delay have also impeded journalism in what is now a familiar pattern for the local press. In 2023, internet and social media were shut down and social media was blocked in 2021. The 2023 shutdowns prompted civil society groups to file a lawsuit in January against the Senegalese government at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice. The plaintiffs, including Moussa Ngom, an author of this piece, claimed that the 2023 shutdowns violated their freedom of expression and right to work.

“Senegalese journalists have been working in fear. Especially those in groups labeled ‘against the power,’” Ayoba Faye, another local journalist and plaintiff in the internet shutdowns lawsuit, told CPJ. “Above all, the new president must stop this spiral.”

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

CPJ joined a February 23 letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk asking for an investigation to establish the facts surrounding the October 13 and November 21, 2023 attacks that killed three journalists in south Lebanon—Abdallah, Farah Omar, and Rabih Al Maamari—and publish the findings to hold those responsible accountable. Read the full letter here.

CPJ joined a second letter to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Director-General Audrey Azoulay on February 28, asking for UNESCO’s support in calling for an investigation and advocating for accountability in the apparent war crimes committed against Abdallah and at least eight other journalists. Read the full letter here.

According to CPJ data, more journalists were killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war, which has included attacks in Lebanon, than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.

The letters reflect CPJ’s wider calls for action by the international community, published in December 2023.

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

Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter Ismail Abu Omar and freelance camera operator and photojournalist Ahmed Matar were traveling by motorcycle in Miraj, north of Rafah, while reporting on displaced Palestinians in the area, when an Israeli drone strike hit them, according to media reports. Both journalists were wearing protective vests clearly marked “Press” and carrying their equipment, Al-Jazeera said.

Al-Jazeera said the journalists received emergency surgery at the European Hospital in Rafah. Abu Omar’s right foot and some fingers on his right hand were amputated, his left leg was severely injured, and pieces of shrapnel remained in his head and chest, the channel said. A photograph shared with CPJ via messaging app showed Matar in the hospital with injuries to his face.

“The Israeli drone strike that injured critically Al-Jazeera reporter Ismail Abu Omar and freelance camera operator and photojournalist Ahmed Matar is another horrific example of the high personal price that journalists in Gaza are paying to cover the war so that the world can witness what is happening,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator in Washington D.C. “We are deeply alarmed by this new attack and call for an independent investigation into whether the journalists were targeted, which constitutes a war crime.”

Al-Jazeera said in a statement that it believed the reporters were deliberately targeted, describing the incident as “a full-fledged crime added to Israel’s crimes against journalists, and a new part in the series of the deliberate targeting of Al Jazeera’s journalists and correspondents in Palestine.”

A video posted by Al-Jazeera Arabic, reviewed by CPJ, appeared to show Abu Omar, wearing a blue press vest, lying on the ground soon after the attack with severe leg injuries as people rushed to provide first aid. CPJ also reviewed photographs of the damaged motorcycle that were shared by the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hadath in a messaging app.

On February 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah, which borders Egypt and is the last refuge for some 1.4 million displaced people who have fled attacks further north. The United States, United Nations, International Criminal Court, and humanitarians have spoken out against Israel’s planned assault on Rafah.

Since October 7, CPJ has documented 85 journalists and media workers killed while covering the war, including the killing by Israeli drone strikes of Al-Jazeera’s Samer Abu Daqqa on December 15, and of Hamza Al Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya on January 7. CPJ has called for independent investigations into the attacks.

On Monday, the Israeli cabinet approved a law that allows it to close Al-Jazeera in the country, according to news reports, a move that CPJ has previously spoken out against.

CPJ’s email to the North America Desk of the IDF seeking comment did not immediately receive a reply.

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

Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter Ismail Abu Omar and freelance camera operator and photojournalist Ahmed Matar were traveling by motorcycle in Miraj, north of Rafah, while reporting on displaced Palestinians in the area, when an Israeli drone strike hit them, according to media reports. Both journalists were wearing protective vests clearly marked “Press” and carrying their equipment, Al-Jazeera said.

Al-Jazeera said the journalists received emergency surgery at the European Hospital in Rafah. Abu Omar’s right foot and some fingers on his right hand were amputated, his left leg was severely injured, and pieces of shrapnel remained in his head and chest, the channel said. A photograph shared with CPJ via messaging app showed Matar in the hospital with injuries to his face.

“The Israeli drone strike that injured critically Al-Jazeera reporter Ismail Abu Omar and freelance camera operator and photojournalist Ahmed Matar is another horrific example of the high personal price that journalists in Gaza are paying to cover the war so that the world can witness what is happening,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator in Washington D.C. “We are deeply alarmed by this new attack and call for an independent investigation into whether the journalists were targeted, which constitutes a war crime.”

Al-Jazeera said in a statement that it believed the reporters were deliberately targeted, describing the incident as “a full-fledged crime added to Israel’s crimes against journalists, and a new part in the series of the deliberate targeting of Al Jazeera’s journalists and correspondents in Palestine.”

A video posted by Al-Jazeera Arabic, reviewed by CPJ, appeared to show Abu Omar, wearing a blue press vest, lying on the ground soon after the attack with severe leg injuries as people rushed to provide first aid. CPJ also reviewed photographs of the damaged motorcycle that were shared by the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hadath in a messaging app.

On February 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah, which borders Egypt and is the last refuge for some 1.4 million displaced people who have fled attacks further north. The United States, United Nations, International Criminal Court, and humanitarians have spoken out against Israel’s planned assault on Rafah.

Since October 7, CPJ has documented 85 journalists and media workers killed while covering the war, including the killing by Israeli drone strikes of Al-Jazeera’s Samer Abu Daqqa on December 15, and of Hamza Al Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya on January 7. CPJ has called for independent investigations into the attacks.

On Monday, the Israeli cabinet approved a law that allows it to close Al-Jazeera in the country, according to news reports, a move that CPJ has previously spoken out against.

CPJ’s email to the North America Desk of the IDF seeking comment did not immediately receive a reply.

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