CNN’s Fareed Zakaria has revealed the process journalists have to comply with for coverage while being embedded with the Israeli military in its ground fight with Hamas in Gaza.
A CNN journalist went into Gaza on an IDF embed. The journalists embedded with the IDF Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders in the field and are not permitted to move unaccompanied within the Gaza Strip.
“As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF air support, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication. CNN has agreed to these terms….”
People slammed the revelation on X (formerly Twitter).
Some considered it to be the norm in war journalism due to security concerns of the army.
this is how military embeds works
they don’t want some journalist leaking coordinates of important military positions and getting soldiers killed. This is the reality of war journalism. That’s not to say that this can’t be abused to impact coverage, but its the global standard. https://t.co/1UHp90cSnA
However, many journalists stated that complete control is avoidable inspite the element of security.
This isn’t unique to the IDF…it’s very common now for governments to demand this of reporters. And it’s really bad for the public every time.
Governments say it’s for operational security but there are steps that can be taken to protect that without turning correspondents into… https://t.co/ZtcbaEzrKK
During the invasion of Iraq, embedded journalists were asked to sign a contract and agree to the “ground rules”— allow their reports to be reviewed by military officials prior to release, to be escorted at all times by military personnel, and to allow the govt to -1/n https://t.co/6eqV6PuRdh
As a journalist I never EVER let my sources review my work before publishing it. This is such an insult to the profession it’s almost laughable. Is there a precedent for this that I just don’t know about? https://t.co/obmLf8dMsM
As the world marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, Pakistan’s journalistic community continues to grapple with an alarming surge in violence and impunity.
Several reports have highlighted the deteriorating situation, shedding light on the challenges faced by media professionals in the South Asian nation.
According to the recently released annual report by the Islamabad-based independent media watchdog, Freedom Network, Pakistan has failed to combat the rising impunity of crimes against journalists, painting a grim picture of the state of press freedom in the country.
The report titled ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,’ outlines the harrowing experiences faced by journalists, including incidents of kidnapping, physical assaults, and unjust legal cases.
Pakistan made history in 2021 by passing two special laws to protect journalists.
The Sindh Assembly passed the “Sindh Protection of Journalists and other Media Practitioners Act-2021” while the National Assembly passed “Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals Act-2021” in space of few months.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Punjab have not passed a similar law for their jurisdictions.
According to the Freedom Network’s report at least 37.5 percent of the violations in Pakistan – 93 out of the total 248 cases in the period between August 2021- August 2023 – were recorded in Islamabad alone.
The report further states that during this period there were 11 cases of murders of journalists, plus another 20 unsuccessful assassination attempts.
25 instances of legal cases registered against journalists.
11 cases of abductions, plus another case of an unsuccessful kidnapping attempt.
25 cases of arrests, detentions, or illegal confinements of journalists by the State.
59 cases of physical assaults, 26 of which caused bodily injuries.
05 cases of attacks on the homes of journalists.
30 cases of specific threats of murder or other dire consequences issued to journalists.
59 cases of harassment of journalists.
At least 37.5% of the violations (93 out of a total 248 cases) were recorded in the federal capital Islamabad alone.
Sindh was the second worst with 22.5% of the violations (56 cases) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) was a close third at 18.5% (46 cases).
These were followed by Punjab with 17.3% (43 cases), Balochistan with about 2.5% (6 cases), Azad Kashmir (AJK) with 1.2% (3 cases) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) with 0.5% (1 case).
The report also cited specific incidents, such as the tragic death of Channel 5 reporter Sadaf Naeem during the coverage of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s rally in Punjab in October 2022.
The report notes that another Pakistani journalist Ashad Sharif was killed in Kenya on October 23, 2022, and there is still no clarity on his murder.
Pakistan Press Foundation has also documented at least 157 media-related attacks, including 16 instances of arrests, five instances of detention, and 44 cases of assault this year.
Between January and September 2023, PPF has documented at least 157 attacks on the media in connection with their work, including 16 instances of arrests and five instances of detention, 44 cases of assault, two cases of damage to property, four instances of raids, 18 instances of registration of cases against media professionals and two instances of legal action, 26 instances of censorship, 20 instances of harassment of journalists or media practitioners, 13 cases of threats, seven confirmed cases of kidnappings and three unconfirmed cases.
While the country witnessed an improvement in its ranking in the World Press Freedom Index, climbing from 157 in 2021 to 150 in 2023, this progress is overshadowed by the failure to effectively implement the laws designed to protect journalists.
Palestinian journalist Roshdie Sarraj was martyred on Sunday after Israaeli air strikes bombed his home in Gaza, taking the total number of journalists killed since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza to 23.
In his last Twitter post, Sarraj appealed to the international community to urgently call upon their leaders after another hospital in Gaza Al-Quds received a warning from Israel to evacuate before it is bombed. Currently, the hospital is housing more than 12,000 refugees.
Urgent Appeal to the International Community
Palestine Red Crescent Society has just received a threat from the occupying authorities to bombard Al-Quds Hospital, and has demanded the hospitals’s immediate evacuation.
Putlitzer Prize nominated journalist Wissam Nassar confirmed Sarraj’s death on his Instagram account by writing: “My close friend, Rushdi Sarraj, was killed in Israeli bombardment on his home. He was a talented photojournalist and director creatively telling the stories of Gazans under war and siege. May you rest in peace, Roshdi. Please remember me to all journalists in the heaven, whom Israel killed.”
Sarraj had actively used his Instagram account to spread awareness of the on-going genocide in Gaza. A recent picture showed how Israel had laid destruction over civilian homes.
Two female journalists in Iran have been sentenced to a long period of imprisonment on national security charges after they covered Mahsa Amini protests.
In September 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was taken into custody by Iran’s morality police for violating ‘Islamic dress code’ and refusing to wear a hijab. She died in police custody. Huge protests then burst out across the country.
Days after the protests, Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi were arrested while their trials started in May.
Both were reporting for reformist newspapers.
Hamedi had posted an image on social media of Amini’s parents holding each other and crying at the hospital where she died, while Mohammadi reported on her funeral from Amini’s hometown.
According to the official news website of the Iranian judiciary, Hamedi and Mohammadi will serve sentences of 13 years and 12 years in prison, respectively.
Hamedi’s preliminary sentence is seven years in prison for “cooperating with the hostile government of the United States” whereas Mohammadi has received six years for the same offence.
They both received an additional five years in prison for “collusion to commit crimes against the country’s security” and a one-year sentence for “propaganda against the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
Hamedi has also been sentenced to a two-year ban on “membership in political parties or groups, being active on social media, or working in media,” reports Al Jazeera.
“In the cases of both aforementioned individuals, there is proven evidence of links with some entities and individuals linked with the US government, which was done knowingly and in following anti-security policies,” the judiciary website said.
The sentences, however, are subjected to appeal and thus, can be reduced.
Javeria Siddique, the wife of Pakistani journalist and anchor Arshad Sharif who was killed in Kenya in 2022, has filed a petition in the Nairobi High Court on Thursday against the Kenyan police officials named in her husband’s murder case.
Arshad Sharif was killed in Kenya on October 23 last year. The Kenyan police admitted at the time that Arshad’s car came under fire due to ‘mistaken identification’.
After arresting the policemen involved in the incident, recent media reports have told of their reinstatement.
Javeria has approached the court in Nairobi following this news, confirming in a conversation with Independent Urdu that an application has been filed in the High Court.
According to Javeria: “GSU (Journal Service Unit) has been made a party to the petition filed. His accomplices include five police officers who were named in the murder case.
In addition, the Attorney General of Kenya, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the IG National Police Service, the Independent Police and the National Police Service Commission have been made parties.”
She further stated that she is the petitioner herself and is accompanied by the Kenya Union of Journalists, Kenya Correspondence Association. Apart from this, four international organisations, ICFJ, IWMF, Media Defense and Women Journalism are also included which will provide all kinds of support.
She said that she got the idea of filing the application in Kenya because there has been no progress in the case in Pakistan.
“No one has been arrested or punished in Kenya. When a nuclear state will not make any effort for any of its individuals, individual efforts have to be made,” she stated.
“Individually, I have hired a lawyer to file the application because practising law in another country is difficult”, she added.
Javeria Siddique also said that filing the application in Kenya was difficult and that no help was granted from Arshad’s friends except from international organisations, adding that there has been no progress in the case in the Supreme Court in Pakistan for two months because “the government had no intention to do so”.
Journalist John Simpson recently responded to criticism on why the BBC did not refer to Hamas’ gunmen (who attacked Israel on October 7) as terrorists.
Referring to government ministers, newspaper columnists, and “ordinary people”, the foreign correspondent and world affairs editor of BBC News pointed out that it is not the job of a news agency to take sides or hand out labels.
“Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn – who are the good guys and who are the bad guys,” he said.
He reminded the people that the basis of his answer goes right back to the BBC’s founding principles.
“The key point is that we don’t say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.”
With 50 years of reporting experience on the Middle East, Simpson has seen the aftermath of of Israeli bombing and artillery attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon and Gaza.
“The horror of things like that stay in your mind forever”, he said. “But this doesn’t mean that we should start saying that the organisation whose supporters have carried them out is a terrorist organisation, because that would mean we were abandoning our duty to stay objective.
And it’s always been like this in the BBC. During World War Two, BBC broadcasters were expressly told not to call the Nazis evil or wicked, even though we could and did call them “the enemy””
He also quotes a BBC document stating, “there must be no room for ranting” and that the “tone had to be calm and collected”.
“We don’t take sides”, he concluded. “We don’t use loaded words like ‘evil’ or ‘cowardly’. We don’t talk about ‘terrorists’. And we’re not the only ones to follow this line. Some of the world’s most respected news organisations have exactly the same policy.”
American broadcaster, MSNBC, has allegedly removed three Muslim news anchors from recording new episodes as Israel continues with bombing Gaza.
Semafor reported that MSNBC did not air The Mehdi Hasan Show on Thursday, altered Ayman Mohyeldin’s programme and planned on having another anchor to substitute for Ali Velshi for the weekend.
It has also been reported that a conflict within the organisation arose as an NBCU engineer created a “network-wide support event for staff who felt grief over the conflict”. But the conversation heated up after the engineer criticised Velshi’s show’s producer who asked why there were no Palestinians speaking at the event:
“This is not about Palestinians and Jews/Israelis,
“This is about terrorists and Jews/Israelis. Anyone entering this group needs to denounce terror and what happened on Saturday. Claims of ‘freedom fighting,’ rationalizations, really, anything not explicitly and unequivocally about being supportive during this difficult time; these do NOT belong here.”
To which the producer responded, “You’re on here equating the loss of Palestinian civilian life with terrorism and saying that I have no right to grieve, as you do. You’re putting words in my mouth, demanding that I denounce terror as if I had anything to do with it. Not sure how you have managed to twist all this from a simple question asking, where can I, as someone with friends who are currently trapped in both Gaza and Israel, go to grieve?”
The friction amongst the staff continued.
According to Semafor, MSNBC has denied all accusations, and has”vehemently pushed back against any notion that anyone was being sidelined in any way.”
While many pro-Israeli and Islamophobic individuals have welcomed the suspension, others have been highly critical of MSNBC’s open anti-Palestinian approach.
Youtuber and television anchor Imran Riaz Khan has been brought home safely by Sialkot Police on early Monday morning, four months after he was detained.
Sialkot Police confirmed his release through a post on social media.
Riaz was arrested on 11 May, two days after PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s arrest on May 9 which resulted in violent protests.
On September 20, the Lahore High Court (LHC) questioned the Punjab police chief on Riaz, giving him a “last opportunity” to recover the YouTuber by September 26.
The proceedings of senior journalist Arshad Sharif’s murder trial have been put to halt in District and Sessions Courts Islamabad.
According to the details reported by Samaa news, witnesses have failed to appear and there is a lack of interest on their behalf; and so the case’ file was sent to the record room.
Judicial Magistrate Abbas Shah issued the written decision of the previous hearing.
According to the decision, on March 16, the court received a challan of Penal Code Section 512 in the Arshad Sharif murder case. On April 5, the court summoned witnesses to record their statements. They were summoned several times, but no one appeared.
The court says that they are not interested in recording the statements of the witnesses in the Arshad Sharif murder case; the prosecution was given an opportunity to submit evidence 15 times. And so, at the previous hearing, the prosecution was given notice that perhaps the file should be sent to the record room. According to the prosecutor, private and official witnesses are not coming to the court to record their statements.
In the judgement, it has been said that the prosecution can file an application for a new date considering the appearance of the witnesses, till further orders the Arshad Sharif murder case file is sent to the record room.
