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The Committee to Protect Journalists is calling for the release of Kuwaiti-American journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin after he was arrested in Kuwait over social media posts during military escalations in the Iran was.
His arrest at the beginning of March came right in the middle of this A Expansion of the approach about press freedom and social media posts about military activities documented in the Gulf States and Israel.
Accordingly, Shihab-Eldin visited his family in Kuwait When war broke out in Iran on February 28 and affected other countries in the region, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) was active. He has not been posted on social media or seen in public in Kuwait since March 2nd.
The CPJ says Shihab-Eldin was arrested by local authorities and charged with spreading false information, endangering national security and misusing his cellphone, which it describes as “vague and overbroad allegations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists.”
“We call on Kuwait to release Ahmed Shihab-Eldin and drop all charges against him,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in a statement opinion Tuesday.
“Journalism is not a crime, and Shihab-Eldin’s case reflects a broader pattern of using national security laws to suppress scrutiny and control the narrative.”
Countries under attack in the Middle East are tightening rules on images shared by journalists and citizens. For The National, CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault explains military censorship and how it’s changing some of what you see in this war.
CBC News reached out to the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington, DC, but did not receive an immediate response.
It is not clear what posts led to his arrest, but CPJ says Shihab-Eldin commented on publicly available videos and images related to the Iran war before his arrest. His most recent posts included a CNN-verified geolocated video showing a U.S. fighter Jet crash near a US air base in Kuwait.
His Instagram, Facebook and
Ashish Prashar, a New York-based political strategist and fformer advisor to the Middle East peace envoy, condemned the arrest of Shihab-Eldin.
“Arbitrarily detaining a journalist and labeling his work as a threat to national security is a serious misstep. The State Department must demand the release of Ahmed,” Prashar said in a statement Post on X on Tuesday. “Anything else would be an endorsement of authoritarian practices.”
A social media video circulating online and verified by Reuters, which compares the surroundings of the video with satellite images, shows a military plane crashing in the Al Jahra region of Kuwait. Kuwaiti and U.S. military officials have confirmed the crash of a U.S. military plane but provided few details, saying the crew members survived.
Middle Eastern countries have strict military censorship rules aimed primarily at preventing the publication of information that could help enemy combatants. Shortly after the outbreak of war, Kuwait’s Interior Ministry warned against filming or publishing videos or information about Iranian attacks, noting that several people had been arrested for spreading false news.
CBC News reported on it Arrests in the region, including Kuwait, following their detention for posting social media videos Mocking the government And for the use of drones Film airstrikes.
Since February 28th, when the The US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, and Tehran responded with attacks across the region. CPJ said it documented arrests of journalists, interference with reporting, airstrikes that damaged media infrastructure and widespread restrictions on reporting both in the region and globally.
According to the organization, nine journalists were killed and 11 have been arrested or interrogated across the region since the start of the war. Meanwhile, nine media outlets were damaged by airstrikes and some 16 journalists were targeted, assaulted, threatened or harassed.
CPJ has also documented censorship measures in several Middle Eastern countries, including a Nationwide internet blackout The ban was imposed in Iran on February 28, shortly after it was lifted in the wake of a deadly crackdown on mass protests in January.
