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Turkish court frees AFP journalist held for covering protests: lawyer

Turkish court frees AFP journalist held for covering protests: lawyer
AFP photographer Yasin Akgul was arrested by Turkiye on March 25, 2025 after covering demonstrations that erupted following the detention of the Istanbul mayor. (AFP)
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Turkish court frees AFP journalist held for covering protests: lawyer

Turkish court frees AFP journalist held for covering protests: lawyer
  • AFP chief executive and chairman Fabrice Fries had slammed imprisonment as “unacceptable.”
Updated 1 min 2 sec ago
AFP
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Istanbul: A Turkish court on Thursday freed AFP photographer Yasin Akgul who was detained for covering mass protests roiling the country, his lawyer said.
Akgul, 35, was one of seven Turkish journalists arrested this week after days of covering mass protests that erupted on March 19 when Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival — was arrested.
Akgul and his colleagues were arrested at their homes before dawn and charged with “taking part in illegal rallies and marches and failing to disperse despite warnings,” court documents showed.
Turkiye ranks 158 out of 180 countries listed in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index compiled by RSF.
AFP chief executive and chairman Fabrice Fries had slammed imprisonment as “unacceptable.”
Akgul, he stressed, was “not part of the protest” but only covering it as a journalist, and should be swiftly released.

Topics: Turkiye

BBC veteran Jeremy Bowen accuses Israel of intentionally blocking journalists from Gaza

BBC veteran Jeremy Bowen accuses Israel of intentionally blocking journalists from Gaza
Updated 27 March 2025
Arab News
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BBC veteran Jeremy Bowen accuses Israel of intentionally blocking journalists from Gaza

BBC veteran Jeremy Bowen accuses Israel of intentionally blocking journalists from Gaza
  • Lack of access for international media is part of Israel’s strategy to ‘obfuscate what’s going on,’ he says, ‘because they don’t want us to see it’
  • Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, received the Fellowship Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism from the UK’s Society of Editors on Tuesday
Updated 27 March 2025
Arab News

DUBAI: The BBC’s international editor, Jeremy Bowen, has accused Israel of deliberately preventing journalists from entering Gaza in an attempt to “obfuscate what’s going on, and to inject this notion of doubt into information that comes out.”

Bowen was awarded the Fellowship Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism at a Society of Editors conference in the UK on Tuesday.

During his acceptance speech, he said: “Why don’t they let us into Gaza? Because they don’t want us to see it. I think it’s really as simple as that.

“Israel took a bit of flak for that to start with but none now, certainly not with (US President Donald) Trump So, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

He praised Palestinian journalists for the “fantastic work” they are doing but said that he and other international journalists also want to report from Gaza. He again alleged that the reason Israeli authorities will not allow the international media into Gaza is because “there’s stuff that they don’t want us to see.” This contrasts sharply with the situation at the start of the conflict, Bowen added.

“Beginning after those Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, they (the Israelis) took us into the border communities,” he said. “I was in Kfar Aza when there was still fighting going on inside it. They had only just started taking out the bodies of the dead Israelis. Why did they let us in there? Because they wanted us to see it.”

In the past 18 months, Bowen said he had been permitted to spend only half a day with the Israeli army inside Gaza. He described the conflict as the “bloodiest war” since “the foundation of the Israeli state of 1948.”

He said that “if the place could open up, people could go through, look at the records, count the graves, exhume the skeletons from under the rubble and then they’d get a better idea. But when the doors shut, these things become very, very difficult.”

It was not the first time Bowen has voiced concerns about the reporting restrictions. During a report from Tel Aviv in Jan. 2025, he said: “One reason I’m standing here and not in Gaza is because the Israelis don’t let international journalists like myself in there to report freely.”

Last year, he was among 55 international journalists who signed an open letter urging Israel and Egypt to provide “free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media.”

They wrote: “We call on the government of Israel to openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza, and for the Egyptian authorities to allow international journalists access to the Rafah Crossing.

“It’s vital that local journalists’ safety is respected and that their efforts are bolstered by the journalism of members of the international media. The need for comprehensive, on-the-ground reporting of the conflict is imperative.”

Topics: BBC #gaza #israel

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Trump says would ‘love’ to defund US public broadcasters

Trump says would ‘love’ to defund US public broadcasters
Updated 26 March 2025
Reuters
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Trump says would ‘love’ to defund US public broadcasters

Trump says would ‘love’ to defund US public broadcasters
  • Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency will review NPR and PBS funding this week
Updated 26 March 2025
Reuters

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would “love” to cut funding for the US public broadcasters NPR and PBS, which reportedly will be reviewed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency this week.
“I would love to do that,” Trump told journalists when asked if he would like to defund National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, saying the amount they receive is “very unfair.”

Topics: US media PBS NPR Donald Trump Trump Returns

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White House mistakenly shares Yemen war plans with a journalist at The Atlantic

White House mistakenly shares Yemen war plans with a journalist at The Atlantic
Updated 25 March 2025
Reuters
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White House mistakenly shares Yemen war plans with a journalist at The Atlantic

White House mistakenly shares Yemen war plans with a journalist at The Atlantic
  • Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on X the use of Signal to discuss highly sensitive national security issues was “blatantly illegal and dangerous beyond belief”
  • The material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”
Updated 25 March 2025
Reuters

WASHINGTON: Top Trump administration officials mistakenly disclosed war plans in a messaging group that included a journalist shortly before the US attacked Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, the White House said on Monday, following a first-hand account by The Atlantic.
Democratic lawmakers swiftly blasted the misstep, saying it was a breach of US national security and a violation of law that must be investigated by Congress.
The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg said in a report on Monday that he was unexpectedly invited on March 13 to an encrypted chat group on the Signal messaging app called the “Houthi PC small group.” In the group, national security adviser Mike Waltz tasked his deputy Alex Wong with setting up a “tiger team” to coordinate US action against the Houthis.
National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said the chat group appeared to be authentic.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Democratic lawmakers demand investigation into security breach

• Use of Signal app for sensitive info deemed illegal by Democrats

• Defense Secretary Hegseth said to call European allies freeloaders

US President Donald Trump launched an ongoing campaign of large-scale military strikes against Yemen’s Houthis on March 15 over the group’s attacks against Red Sea shipping, and he warned Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, that it needed to immediately halt support for the group.
Hours before those attacks started, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted operational details about the plan in the messaging group, “including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Goldberg said. His report omitted the details but Goldberg termed it a “shockingly reckless” use of a Signal chat.
Accounts that appeared to represent Vice President JD Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and senior National Security Council officials were assembled in the chat group, Goldberg wrote.
Joe Kent, Trump’s nominee for National Counterterrorism Center director, was apparently on the Signal chain despite not yet being Senate-confirmed.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he was unaware of the incident. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic,” Trump said. A White House official said later that an investigation was under way and Trump had been briefed on it.
The NSC’s Hughes said in a statement: “At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
“The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our servicemembers or our national security.”
Hegseth denied sharing war plans in the group chat.
“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” he told reporters while on an official trip to Hawaii on Monday.

’EUROPEAN FREE-LOADING’
According to screenshots of the chat reported by The Atlantic, officials in the group debated whether the US should carry out the strikes, and at one point Vance appeared to question whether US allies in Europe, more exposed to shipping disruption in the region, deserved US help.
“@PeteHegseth if you think we should do it let’s go,” a person identified as Vance wrote. “I just hate bailing Europe out again,” the person wrote, adding: “Let’s just make sure our messaging is tight here.”
A person identified as Hegseth replied: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”
The Atlantic reported that the person identified as Vance also raised concerns about the timing of the strikes, and said there was a strong argument in favor of delaying them by a month.
“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices,” the account wrote, before saying he was willing to support the group’s consensus.
Yemen, Houthi-ally Iran and the European Union’s diplomatic service did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Under US law, it can be a crime to mishandle, misuse or abuse classified information, though it is unclear whether those provisions might have been breached in this case. Messages that The Atlantic report said were set by Waltz to disappear from the Signal app after a period of time also raise questions about possible violations of federal record-keeping laws.
As part of a Trump administration effort to chase down leaks by officials to journalists unrelated to the Signal group, Gabbard posted on X on March 14 that any “unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.”
On Tuesday, Gabbard is due to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on worldwide threats to the United States.
Created by the entrepreneur Moxie Marlinspike, Signal has gone from an exotic messaging app used by privacy-conscious dissidents to the unofficial whisper network of Washington officialdom.
Democratic lawmakers called the use of the Signal group illegal and demanded an investigation.
“This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence that I have read about in a very, very long time,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said, adding that he would ask Majority Leader John Thune to investigate.
“We’re just finding out about it. But obviously, we’ve got to run it to ground and figure out what went on there. We’ll have a plan,” said Thune, a Republican from South Dakota.
There was no immediate suggestion from the White House that the breach would lead to any staffing changes.
“President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including national security adviser Mike Waltz,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Reuters.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on X the use of Signal to discuss highly sensitive national security issues was “blatantly illegal and dangerous beyond belief.”
“Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally – that would normally involve a jail sentence,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons said on X.

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza USA

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Two journalists killed in separate Israeli strikes in Gaza

Two journalists killed in separate Israeli strikes in Gaza
Updated 25 March 2025
Arab News
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Two journalists killed in separate Israeli strikes in Gaza

Two journalists killed in separate Israeli strikes in Gaza
  • Al Jazeera Mubasher’s Hossam Shabat and Palestine Today’s Mohammad Mansour were killed in first fatalities since renewed violence
Updated 25 March 2025
Arab News

LONDON: Two journalists were killed in separate Israeli strikes in Gaza on Monday, marking the first such fatalities since clashes resumed last week.

Al Jazeera confirmed that Hossam Shabat, a journalist for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed in eastern Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. The Qatari network reported that witnesses claimed his car was directly targeted by the Israeli army, though no further details were provided.

In a separate incident, Palestine Today correspondent Mohammad Mansour was killed in an airstrike north of Khan Younis, along with his wife and son, after their home was hit without warning.

The Government Media Office in Gaza condemned the attacks, describing them as “systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media professionals.” In a statement, it called on the International Federation of Journalists, the Arab Journalists Union, and other global media organizations to denounce the killings.

“We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and the countries participating in the genocide, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, fully responsible for committing this heinous crime,” the statement added.

The deaths of Shabat and Mansour bring the total number of media workers killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, to at least 170, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Government Media Office, however, claims the number is as high as 208.

CPJ’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg condemned Shabat’s killing, noting that he was one of six Al Jazeera journalists accused by the Israeli military of being “militants.”

She said: “That’s a pattern that we have seen repeatedly both in the current war and in previous ones as well. And now he appears to have been deliberately targeted on a direct hit on his vehicle.”

Ginsberg stressed that the deliberate targeting and killing of a journalist or civilian constitutes a war crime. “Journalists and civilians must never be targeted,” she said, adding that CPJ is investigating several incidents in which Israel appears to have deliberately targeted journalists.

“That would amount to a war crime. Journalists and civilians must never be targeted,” she said adding that her organization had spoken to Shabat for its own reports on the news void developing in northern Gaza because of Israel’s war.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Journalists Al Jazeera

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Daesh suspect who held journalists gets life sentence in France

Daesh suspect who held journalists gets life sentence in France
Updated 24 March 2025
AFP
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Daesh suspect who held journalists gets life sentence in France

Daesh suspect who held journalists gets life sentence in France
  • Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a museum in May 2014, after he had returned from Syria
Updated 24 March 2025
AFP

PARIS: A French court sentenced a French extremist to life in prison for holding four journalists captive more than a decade ago in the Syrian Arab Republic.
Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, was convicted of having held the French reporters hostage for Daesh from June 2013 to April 2014.
The sentence carries a minimum term of 22 years before he is eligible for parole.
All four journalists during the trial said they clearly recognized Nemmouche’s voice and manner of speech as belonging to a so-called Abu Omar, who terrorized them and made sadistic jokes while they were in captivity.
Nemmouche denied ever being their jailer, only admitting in court that he was a Daesh fighter in Syria.
From the beginning of the trial last month, he has claimed only to have fought against the forces of former President Bashar Assad.
“Yes, I was a terrorist, and I will never apologize for that.”
Nemmouche has said he joined Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate and then Daesh — both listed as “terrorists” in the EU — while in Syria.
Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a museum in May 2014, after he had returned from Syria.
Daesh emerged in 2013 in the chaos that followed the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, slowly gaining ground before declaring a so-called caliphate in large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
A US-backed offensive dealt the final blow to that proto-state in 2019.
Daesh abducted and held hostage 25 Western journalists and aid workers in Syria between 2012 and 2014, publicly executing several of them, according to French prosecutors.
Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and then Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were abducted 10 days apart while reporting from northern Syria in June 2013.
They were released in April 2014.
Henin alerted the authorities after he saw a facial composite of the presumed perpetrator of the May 2014 Brussels attack that looked very familiar.
Henin, in a magazine article in September 2014, recounted Nemmouche punching him in the face and terrorizing Syrian detainees.
During the trial, he detailed the repeated torture and mock executions he witnessed while in captivity.
=Nemmouche, whose father is unknown, was brought up in the French foster system and became radicalized in prison before going to Syria, say investigators.
The court also handed life sentences to two other extremists tried in absentia because they are presumed dead.
Belgian extremist Oussama Atar, a senior Daesh commander, had already been sentenced to life for the 2015 terror attacks in Paris claimed by Daesh that killed 130 people and the Brussels bombings by the group that took the lives of 32 others in 2016.
The other defendant was French Daesh member Salim Benghalem, accused of having been the jailer-in-chief of the hostages.
The court also handed a 22-year sentence to Frenchman Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, accused of being one of the jailers.
None of the journalists had recognized Tanem, who said he was a bodyguard for several IS leaders and slept in the basement of an eye hospital where they were held hostage, but claimed to have never seen them.
But prosecutors argued he was one of around 10 French-speaking Daesh jailers.
The court also handed a 20-year sentence to Kais Al Abdallah, a 41-year-old Syrian extremist accused of having helped abduct the journalists and of having been deputy in command in the Syrian city of Raqqa, all of which he denies.

 

Topics: France Daesh

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