Syria

The apparent execution of the freelance journalist James Foley on August 19, 2014 in Syria by the Islamic State would be a war crime if confirmed. Groups detaining journalists should immediately and unconditionally release them. The Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS), released a video of Foley’s purported execution. The group announced that it also is...

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum have condemned the barbaric killing of American photojournalist James Foley and expressed their deepest condolences to his family and all those who knew and worked with him. “WAN-IFRA is appalled by the news of James Foley’s murder and condemns in the strongest possible terms this deliberate...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have condemned an appalling attack by rebel kidnappers on two British journalists in Syria yesterday, Wednesday 14 May. According to media reports, Times writer Anthony Lloyd and photographer Jack Hill had spent several days reporting from the city of Aleppo and were returning to the Turkish border...

Three Lebanese employees of Al-Manar, a TV station owned by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, were fatally shot on April 14, in Al-Maaloula, a Christian town 60 km south of Damascus. Al-Manar named the victims as reporter Hamza Al-Hajj Hassan, cameraman Mohamed Muntich and technician Halim Alouh. They were killed by shots fired by rebels still in Al-Maaloula after it was recovered by government forces backed...

Two Spanish journalists held more than six months in Syria arrived home Sunday, Spain's El Mundo newspaper reported. El Mundo staff correspondent Javier Espinosa and freelance photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova embraced family and friends during a joyous reunion on the tarmac of the Torrejon de Ardoz military airport in Madrid. Javier Espinosa, a veteran correspondent for the Spanish daily El...

Two journalists were killed over the weekend while covering the conflict in Syria, the deadliest country for the press. On Saturday, a cameraman working for the Beirut-based TV station Al-Mayadeen was killed while covering clashes between government and rebel forces in the eastern province of Deir Al-Zour, according to news reports. According to the pro-Syrian government outlet Al-Mayadeen, Omar...

Canadian freelance photographer Ali Mustafa was killed by a barrel bomb in the Aleppo district Al-Hadariyeh on March 9 while photographing the death and destruction cause by an earlier bomb. Seven other people were killed. Mustafa, 30, had gone to Syria to cover the suffering of the civilian population in Aleppo, of late the target of a wave of barrel bombs – barrels packed with explosives that...

Marc Marginedas, a veteran war reporter for the Barcelona-based El Periódico newspaper, was released on March 2 in Syria after six months in captivity and is now back in Spain, where he has been reunited with his family. “We are delighted by Marginedas’ release and we hope that all the other journalists – both foreign and Syrian – currently held by rebels or the government in Syria will...

The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the news that three abducted journalists in Syria have been freed this week. The Swedish Foreign Ministry confirmed today that freelance Swedish journalists Magnus Falkehed and Niclas Hammarstrom, both of whom were abducted in November, were released. On Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu said Turkish intelligence services had helped...

Anyone who dares to speak out in Syria continues to be exposed to arbitrary arrest. One of the latest victims is Omar Koush, a writer and journalist from Aleppo, was arrested on arrival at Damascus airport Monday after participating in a conference in Turkey. He wrote an article on April 29 titled “Turkey: dual relations between Arab countries on the one hand and Islamist organizations on the...