Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war
Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging. In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research has found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying…
Arrests of Palestinian journalists since start of Israel-Gaza war
Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers have been arrested — often without charge — in what they and their attorneys say is retaliation for their journalism and commentary. As of January 17, 2025, CPJ has documented a total of 75 arrests of journalists in the Palestinian…
Tunisia uses new cybercrime law to jail record number of journalists
Tunisia has reached a troubling milestone, with at least five journalists behind bars in CPJ’s December 1, 2024, prison census, the highest number since the organization began keeping track in 1992. Once hailed as a beacon of freedom in the Arab world after the 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab Spring, Tunisia is now erasing…
VPNs, training, and mental health workshops: How CPJ helped journalist safety in 2024
Haitian journalist Jean Marc Jean was covering an anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince in February 2024 when he was struck in the face by a gas canister fired by police into the crowd. One of at least five journalists injured while covering civil unrest in the country that month, Jean arrived at the hospital with a…
‘Catastrophic’: Journalists say ethnic cleansing taking place in a news void in northern Gaza
On Wednesday, November 6, an Israeli strike killed at least 15 people in a house in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. But communications difficulties meant that the Gaza health ministry struggled to determine the death toll. This is just one example among countless others where local reporters were able to help verify information about potential atrocities…
Journalists face Israeli strikes, displacement, attacks as war escalates in Lebanon
The recent escalation of Israel’s war in Lebanon has imperiled the press as they face Israeli strikes that have destroyed news outlet offices and killed at least three journalists, in addition to being assaulted, obstructed, threatened, and detained while reporting. At about 3 a.m. on October 25, an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing 18 journalists from multiple…
Morocco’s pardoned journalists face smears, threats after prison
When Moroccan authorities released three prominent journalists in July as part of a mass pardon marking King Mohamed VI’s 25 years on the throne, their friends and families celebrated. But the excitement was short-lived. Taoufik Bouachrine, Soulaiman Raissouni, and Omar Radi have been shamed in the media, stalked, and harassed since their release as they…
One year and climbing: Israel responsible for record journalist death toll
One year in, Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza has exacted an unprecedented and horrific toll on Palestinian journalists and the region’s media landscape. At least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five of them Palestinian, have been killed – more journalists than have died in the course of any year since CPJ…
CPJ submits report on Iraq to UN’s human rights review
The Committee to Protect Journalists has submitted a report on the state of press freedom and journalist safety in Iraq and semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan to the United Nations Human Rights Council ahead of its January to February 2025 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session. The U.N. mechanism is a peer review of each member state’s human…
Cyberattackers use easily available tools to target media sites, threaten press freedom
When exiled Russian news website Meduza was hit with a flood of internet traffic in mid-April, it set off alarm bells among the staff as the deluge blocked publishing for more than four hours and briefly rendered the site inaccessible for some readers. It was the largest distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) attack in…