UAE / Middle East & North Africa

  
Rori Donaghy, pictured in London in January 2019, is one of at least four journalists that Reuters says were surveilled under the UAE's Project Raven operation. (Reuters/Simon Dawson)

CPJ concerned by report that UAE ‘Project Raven’ surveilled journalists

New York, January 30, 2019–At least four journalists were surveilled under Project Raven, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) cybersurveillance and hacking operation, Reuters reported today. The UAE hired former U.S. National Security Agency employees to assist in deploying a surveillance tool called Karma that exploited a vulnerability in the iPhone’s messaging application, according to a…

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A protester wears a mask depicting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman with painted hands next to people holding posters of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during the demonstration outside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 25, 2018. (AFP/Yasin Akgul)

Saudi control of Arab media, lamented by Khashoggi, shapes coverage of his death

It is a cruel irony that Jamal Khashoggi’s last unpublished column for The Washington Post was a call for press freedom in the Arab world. His homeland, Saudi Arabia, has spent the last three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that never happens.

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Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui holds her mobile phone during a press conference in Mexico City in 2017 about governments using spyware to target journalist. (AFP/Alfredo Estrella)

CPJ Safety Advisory: Pegasus spyware used to target journalists, civil society

[EDITOR’S NOTE: See CPJ’s updated safety advisory here https://cpj-preprod.go-vip.net/2019/11/cpj-safety-advisory-journalist-targets-of-pegasus-.php.] In a report published on September 18, Citizen Lab said it had detected Pegasus, a spyware created for mobile devices, in over 45 countries. Pegasus, which transforms a cellphone into a mobile surveillance station, could have been deployed against a range of journalists and civil society…

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A Snap banner covers the facade of the New York Stock Exchange in March 2017. The social media company's transparency report shows it received and complied with three government takedown requests for the Al-Jazeera Discover channel. (AFP/Bryan R. Smith)

Undiscoverable: How Al-Jazeera’s Snapchat channel disappeared from three Gulf nations

Search for “Al-Jazeera” on Snapchat, and the first result that comes up is a ubiquitous publisher channel in the app’s famed vertical layout. That is, unless you are in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), or Bahrain. Users in these counties are instead offered a list of stores and restaurants that bear a similar…

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A worker cleans a EU flag in Berlin on May 19, 2017. The EU parliament is due to vote on October 12 on a proposed review mechanism of surveillance tool exports. (AFP/John MacDougall)

Press at risk as EU-based companies export surveillance software to hostile regimes

In August, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told the daily newspaper Information that the government had authorized sales of online surveillance software to several Middle Eastern countries. While acknowledging the potential for human rights violations that could result from the use of these tools, the minister said that Denmark has an interest in the fight…

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In this May 22, 2015, file photo, the flag of the United Arab Emirates flies over a boat in the Dubai Marina. (Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah)

Dubai suspends magazine for one month

Beirut, July 31, 2017–Authorities in Dubai should immediately reverse their one-month ban on the print and online editions of the weekly magazine Arabian Business, and should cease censoring the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (left), King Salman of Saudi Arabia (center), and U.S. President Donald Trump inaugurate the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 21, 2017. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Calls to shutter Qatari media show contempt for press freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt to drop demands that Qatari-funded media be closed as a condition for the lifting of the partial blockade they have imposed on Qatar.

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The Qatar Airways office in Doha. Gulf countries imposed a ban on Qatari flights and many have announced penalties for those reporting critically on recent tensions with the country. (AFP/STR)

Amid Gulf tensions, press is used as a political pawn

Today Bahrain became the latest Gulf nation to put pressure on news outlets amid political tension, when its Interior Ministry announced that anyone publishing support or sympathy for Qatar faces up to five years in prison. The announcement came the day after the United Arab Emirates used the threat of prison to demarcate how journalists…

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Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who is also deputy commander of the UAE armed forces, shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump at a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 21, 2017. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

UAE threatens 15 years in prison for expressions of ‘sympathy’ with Qatar

New York, June 7, 2017–Authorities in the United Arab Emirates should clearly and immediately repudiate Emirati Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi’s threats to imprison and fine anyone who criticizes the United Arab Emirates’ stance toward Qatar or who expresses any “sympathy” for Qatar, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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In this 2009 file photo, Palestinian journalists work in the Ramallah office of Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain blocked access to Al-Jazeera's websites on May 24, 2017. (Reuters/Fadi Arouri)

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain block Qatari news websites

New York, May 25, 2017– Authorities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain should cease blocking access to news websites, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Authorities in the allied kingdoms yesterday blocked access to at least eight Qatari-funded news websites, including those of regional broadcaster Al-Jazeera, according to Al-Jazeera, government statements,…

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