A fortnight after a terrorist attack in Pahalgam had killed 26 people, Indian armed forces in the early hours of May 7 launched Operation Sindoor, hitting nine sites in Pakistan and PoK from where attacks against India had been planned and directed. The Union ministry of defence described the action as “focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”, with no Pakistani military facilities having been targeted. Late on May 7, reports came in of heavy mortar shelling by Pakistan on forward villages along the Line of Control in Poonch and Rajouri areas of Jammu and Kashmir killing at least 16 civilians. They also attempted to engage a number of military targets in northern and western India including in Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Pathankot and Amritsar, among other places, using drones and missiles. These were neutralized by India’s integrated counter UAS grid and air defence systems. Subsequently, Indian armed forces targeted air defence radars and systems at a number of locations in Pakistan in a proportionate response, and neutralized the air defence system in Lahore.

The viral video in question seems to be recorded from a vehicle and shows a roadside building on fire. The picture also shows a similar scene. A verified account named Arman Khan tweeted this picture and claimed it showed a drone attack on Faisal Mosque in Islamabad. (Archived link)

Many users posted this picture with the same claim. (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4)

X account WarUpdates also posted the viral picture and video, calling it unconfirmed footage. (Archived link)

Unconfirmed Report: Local sources claim that an Indian suicide drone struck an area near Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.#Turkey #BoycottTurkeyAzerbaijan#OperationSindoor2#DroneAttack #Airdefence https://t.co/O3VWwJJqyw pic.twitter.com/nohAB1bU5R

— WarUpdate (@WarUpdaaate) May 8, 2025

X user Mohammad Sharifi posted a video of the same incident claiming it to be an Indian drone attack on a mosque in Islamabad. ( Archive link )

د پاکستن د اسلام اباد په ښار کي فیصل جومات ته نږدې د بې پیلوټه الوتکي برید: pic.twitter.com/WJDXTiKZp2

— Mohammad Sharifi (@Mohamma61363694) May 8, 2025

The viral clip has also been uploaded on YouTube with similar claims.

Fact Check

Alt News started investigating both the viral clip and the image. A simple keyword search based on the claim led us to a report by a Pakistani media outlet dated May 28, 2024 which carried the same photo. According to the report, a fire broke out near the Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad and spread to surrounding areas. In other words, the viral image and video have nothing to do with the ongoing India-Pakistan conflict.

The article contains other visuals of the incident which match the viral video and image.

Pakistani newspaper Pakistan Observer also published a report on this matter and gave the same information.

To sum up, the video and image shared with the claim that the fire at Faisal Mosque in Islamabad was caused by an Indian drone attack are from a fire last year in which the mosque in Islamabad and its surroundings were gutted.

The post Old video of fire near Shah Faisal mosque shared as Indian drone strike in Islamabad amid escalating tensions appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Kinjal.

“The aggressive treatment meted out to journalists by Erbil security forces while covering a peaceful protest is deeply concerning,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “We urge Iraqi Kurdistan authorities not to target journalists during protests, which has been a recurring issue.”

Kurdistan has been in a financial crisis since the federal government began cutting funding to the region after it started exporting oil independently in 2014. In 2024, the Federal Supreme Court ordered Baghdad to pay Kurdistan’s civil servants directly but ongoing disagreements between the two governments mean their salaries continue to be delayed and unpaid.

Since the end of Kurdistan’s civil war in 1998, the semi-autonomous region has been divided between the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Erbil and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Sulaymaniyah. While the KDP has discouraged the teachers’ protests, the PUK has sometimes supported them, including through affiliated media outlets.

At the February 9 protest, a crowd of teachers from Sulaymaniyah tried to reach Erbil, the capital, and were stopped at Degala checkpoint, where CPJ recorded the following attacks:

• Pro-opposition New Generation Movement NRT TV camera operator Ali Abdulhadi and reporter Shiraz Abdullah were stopped from filming by about seven armed security officers, known in Kurdish as Asayish, according to a video posted by the outlet.

“One of them chambered a round [into his gun]. I tried to leave but one of them attempted to strike me with the butt of a rifle, hitting only my finger. Another grabbed my camera and took it,” Abdulhadi told CPJ.

• Diplomatic’s reporter Zhilya Ali collapsed from teargas, a video posted by the privately owned digital outlet showed.

“There are still wounds on my face from when I fell,” she told CPJ, adding that she was taken to hospital and given oxygen.

• An ambulance took pro-PUK digital outlet Zhyan Media’s reporter Mardin Mohammed and camera operator Mohammed Mariwan to a hospital in Koya after they were teargassed.

“I couldn’t see anything and was struggling to breathe. My cameraman and I lost consciousness for three hours,” Mariwan told CPJ.

• Pro-PUK satellite channel Kurdsat News reporters Gaylan Sabir and Amir Mohammed and camera operators Sirwan Sadiq and Hemn Mohammed were teargassed and their equipment was confiscated, the outlet said.

• Privately owned Westga News said five staff — reporters Omer Ahmed, Shahin Fuad, and Amir Hassan, and camera operators Zanyar Mariwan and Ahmed Shakhawan — were attacked and teargassed. Ahmed told CPJ that a security officer grabbed a camera while they were broadcasting, while Fuad said another camera, microphone, and a livestreaming encoder were also taken and not returned.

• Pro-PUK Slemani News Network reporter Kochar Hamza was carried to safety by protesters after she collapsed due to tear gas, a video by the digital outlet showed. She told CPJ that she and her camera operator Sivar Baban were treated at hospitals twice.

“My face is still swollen, and I feel dizzy,” she told CPJ.

• A team from Payam TV, a pro-opposition Kurdistan Justice Group satellite channel, required treatment for teargas exposure.

“We were placed on oxygen and prescribed medication,” reporter Ramyar Osman told CPJ, adding that camera operator Sayed Yasser was hit in the knee by a rubber bullet.

• Madah Jamal, a reporter with the pro-opposition Kurdistan Islamic Union Speda TV satellite channel, told CPJ that he was also teargassed.

• Pro-PUK digital outlet Xendan’s reporter Shahen Wahab told CPJ that she and camera operator Garmian Omar suffered asthma attacks due to the teargas.

• Pro-PUK satellite channel Gali Kurdistan’s reporter Karwan Nazim told CPJ that he had to stop reporting because he couldn’t breathe and asked his office to send additional staff.

“I had an allergic reaction and my face turned red. I had to go to the hospital,” he said.

Raided and arrested

Abdulwahab Ahmed, head of the Erbil office of the pro-opposition Gorran Movement KNN TV, told CPJ that two unplated vehicles carrying Asayish officers followed KNN TV’s vehicle to the office at around 1:30 p.m., after reporters Pasha Sangar and Mohammed KakaAhmed and camera operator Halmat Ismail made a live broadcast showing the deployment of additional security forces by the United Nations compound, which was the protesters’ intended destination.

“They identified themselves as Asayish forces, forcibly took our mobile phones, and accused us of recording videos. They checked our social media accounts,” Sangar told CPJ.

KakaAhmed told CPJ, “They found a video I had taken near the U.N. compound on my phone, deleted it, and then returned our devices.”

In another incident that evening, Asayish forces arrested pro-PUK digital outlet Politic Press’s reporter Taman Rawandzi and camera operator Nabi Malik Faisal while they were live broadcasting about the protest and took them to Zerin station for several hours of questioning.

“They asked us to unlock our phones but we refused. Then they took our phones and connected them to a computer,” Rawandzi told CPJ, adding that his phone was now operating slowly and he intended to replace it.

“They told us not to cover such protests,” he said.

CPJ phoned Erbil’s Asayish spokesperson Ardalan Fatih but he declined to comment.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Journalists have been paying the highest price – with their lives – to provide the world some insight into the horrors that have been taking place in Gaza during this prolonged war, which has decimated a generation of Palestinian reporters and newsrooms,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg in New York. “We call on Egyptian, Palestinian, and Israeli authorities to immediately allow foreign journalists into Gaza, and on the international community to independently investigate the deliberate targeting of journalists that has been widely documented since October 2023.”

Since October 7, 2023, CPJ has documented at least 165 journalists and media workers killed, 49 journalists injured, two journalists missing, 75 journalists arrested, and multiple other violations of press freedom in Gaza and the neighboring region. 

To date, CPJ has determined that at least 11 journalists and two media workers were directly targeted by Israeli forces, which CPJ classifies as murder. A deliberate attack on civilians constitutes a war crime under international law. 

CPJ’s data shows that eight journalists were murdered in Gaza — Ayman Al Gedi, Fadi Hassouna, Faisal Abu Al Qumsan, Hamza Al Dahdouh, Ismail Al Ghoul, Mohammed Al-Ladaa, Mustafa Thuraya and Rami Al Refee — and threein Lebanon — Ghassan Najjar, Issam Abdallah, and Wissam Kassem. In addition, CPJ has classified two media workers as murdered: Mohammed Reda in Lebanon and Ibrahim Sheikh Ali in Gaza. 

CPJ is investigating about 20 other cases where there is evidence of deliberate targeting of journalists, their homes, and media outlets in Gaza during the war. 

When approached for comment by CPJ about the deliberate targeting of journalists, the Israel Defense Forces said that some were members of militant groups but provided either questionable or no evidence for those alleged links. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“CPJ denounces Israel’s killing of five journalists working for Al-Quds Al-Youm TV,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director in New York. “The Israeli strike on their vehicle, which was clearly marked ‘Press,’ means that at least nine Gazan journalists have been killed in less than two weeks. The international community must act now to protect Palestinian journalists in Gaza and end Israel’s impunity for these killings.”

The five journalists killed on December 26 have been identified as:

• Correspondent Faisal Abu Al Qumsan
• Camera operator Ayman Al Gedi
• Photographer and editor Fadi Hassouna
• Editor Mohammed Al-Ladaa
• Producer and fixer Ibrahim Sheikh Ali

An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson posted on social media platform X that those killed on December 26 were militants posing as journalists.

CPJ’s email to the IDF’s North America Media desk asking whether the journalists were targeted for their work or whether there was any evidence that they were militants did not receive an immediate response.

Earlier in December, Israeli forces killed four journalists in separate strikes on December 14 and 15.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

More than three years later, the two journalists run the agency from exile in the United States. To get out the news, they rely on the reporting of 15 female journalists hired in 10 provinces to replace the staff who fled. As the Taliban has become increasingly hostile to women journalists and the exile press, the newsroom takes extreme security precautions. Zoom meetings take place with a strict “cameras off” policy so that the women won’t be compromised if they recognize each other on the street.

In June, CPJ interviewed Karimi and Siddiqi in Columbia, Missouri, where they were attending a safety training for journalists in exile at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. During the interview, both men checked their phones often, explaining the importance of remaining available at all times for their reporters.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you describe the atmosphere for the press immediately after the Taliban takeover?

Karimi: When the Taliban took over, our hope collapsed overnight. We were working journalists for eight years before the takeover and we used our journalism against extremist Taliban ideology. Our work aimed to promote democratic values and human rights in our country by creating a newsroom and outlet for female journalists. Eight years of such work was evidence enough for the Taliban to attack us. 

Siddiqi: Social norms in Afghanistan regarding women’s rights are very sensitive and this was the main reason we had to flee. When you are talking about women’s rights in Afghanistan, you are not only facing danger from the Taliban, but also from others in the country who adhere to such radical beliefs.

I remember when we were working in Herat, our office was in a very safe location, but even our neighbors would question why so many women were entering the building. They assumed there was some ethical wrongdoing. Since our work highlighted women’s issues, we were in danger from the Taliban and the pervasive misogyny in the society at large.

The Afghanistan Women’s News Agency is one of just a handful of women-focused outlets covering Afghanistan, like Rukshana Media and Zan Times. What led you to found it in 2016?

Karimi: Siddiqi and I both taught at Herat University. As a professor of journalism, I witnessed my female students struggle and face a lack of resources and opportunities every day. The disparity between them and my male students was blatantly obvious. Lack of access to media equipment, gender inequality in the newsroom, harassment and discrimination was a daily reality for these women.

In light of this, I decided to create a safe environment for my female students to publish their stories, [to] access media equipment and the internet eight years before the Taliban takeover. Although the Taliban was not yet in power, the extremist ideology had already begun to spread rapidly.

Families were understandably concerned when their daughters went to school or the newsroom, but when we established this newsroom solely for women, almost all female journalists across Herat came to work there. As a professor, I had the trust of these women’s families. That’s why I, as a man, was able to set up this space and reassure the families that it was safe.

Part of your staff is in exile, but you still have many female journalists based in Afghanistan. What’s their experience like?

Karimi: All of our female reporters on the ground have to remain anonymous for their safety as per our contract. Their names are never published with their stories. There are currently 15 female journalists working with us, spread across 10 provinces. Some of them are our former interns whom we hired permanently and some of them are currently interns who receive training through Zoom, so that they can be the next generation of female reporters. All of them are actively reporting, even interns, as they learn and are simultaneously paid for their work.

Siddiqi: It’s important to add that our reporters know each other by name only. Our reporters have never met or seen each other’s faces since we require them to turn their cameras off during virtual meetings. We are extremely strict about our security protocols in order to ensure that if one of our reporters faces Taliban retaliation, their colleagues will remain safe. Our reporters know that even a minor mistake can put our whole newsroom in danger.

It is obvious that these women are well aware of the danger that comes with being journalists. Why are they still in the country and choosing to report despite these risks?

Siddiqi: From my understanding and through my conversations with them, there are two main reasons. One, these women are wholly committed to their work. When I am talking with them, I learn that they work more than eight hours a day because they love their job. They all know the impact that they are making in the current environment. Two, financial security is also a huge part of their choice to report. It is rare for women to work and receive salaries in the country under the Taliban. AWNA pays its journalists and this provides them with some level of control and financial independence.

Karimi: These female journalists know that the stakes are very high. Many times I have told them that their security is our priority. We don’t want any report or story that puts their safety at risk, but they still don’t prioritize themselves. They prioritize their reporting. Nobody can stop them from making their voices heard even in the most repressive atmosphere.

What is it like for you when your reporters are so far away while you are in exile?

Karimi: To be honest, I am not comfortable. Sometimes I think something bad has happened to a colleague. Trying to minimize their risk is one of our strategies and biggest challenges. I am very concerned every single day.

Have any of the female journalists working for AWNA had dangerous encounters with the Taliban?

Siddiqi: Just a few days ago, one of our female reporters called me from Kabul while she was attempting to report on a business exhibition. Upon entering the venue, she was detained by the Taliban. In the commotion of a large crowd, she somehow managed to hide herself and escaped without facing arrest.

I called her after that and I reiterated that this cannot be the norm. I told her that we cannot lose her and that without her, there would be no reporting. My colleague replied that she tries her best and knows all the newsroom security protocols. But even for non-political events, this is the risk and the reality for female journalists in the country.

How has reporting from exile shaped your view of the future of the media in Afghanistan? 

Karimi: In my opinion, the lack of free and independent media in the country has created a need for reliable media in exile to combat Taliban propaganda and control. There is a lack of female-run media. We have bypassed the Taliban firewall by providing information from exile to empower people within the country, especially women.

Siddiqi: There are so many Afghan women who are students, photographers, activists, and writers, as well as journalists who can no longer publicize their work on their own channels due to safety concerns. Many of them have found a place in AWNA in order to share their work and add value to the media atmosphere. These are all citizens and female journalists. There are thousands of women who have something to share, journalists by training or not, who are acting as citizen journalists. They have something to show and we are dedicated to uplifting it.

Do you both hope to return to your country if things change?

Siddiqi: I chose to leave my parents, siblings, everything in order to escape the regime.

Life is not easy for me here. I left my memories and emotions in Afghanistan. Everyday these memories disturb me. I was educated and began my career in Afghanistan and I believe I owe my country.

Karimi: Of course I hope to go back to my country. Right now, I feel that I have three lives as an exiled journalist: The first is the life I left behind in Afghanistan, which includes most of my family. Half of my mind and heart remains there. My second life is this one in exile where I am forced to rebuild my personal and professional life from scratch. My third life revolves around how to keep my colleagues safe and to honor their mission as female journalists. I am constantly navigating these three lives and it is a devastating reality.

What is your hope for Afghan women journalists in the future?

Siddiqi: There is no hope bigger than Afghan women having their basic human rights and access to education. If there is no education for women, there is no understanding of their reality and rights. If there is no understanding in a society, there is no justice. If there is no justice, we are no longer in a human society, but in a jungle. The Taliban has shut off all the doors that were once available for Afghan women and together, we are trying to pry them open.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Ananya Bhasin.

On Wednesday, August 23, a suspected Turkish drone strike in Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast hit a car belonging to the all-female broadcaster JIN TV, killing driver Najm el-Din Faisal Haj Sinan and wounding journalist Dalila Agid, according to news reports and Dijla Eito, a member of JIN TV’s board, who spoke to CPJ.

Eito said Agid had undergone surgery and was in an intensive care unit as of Friday.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic drone attack that killed driver Najm el-Din Faisal and injured journalist Dalila Agid while they were working in northeastern Syria,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Turkish authorities should swiftly launch an investigation into this attack, determine who was responsible and if the reporting team was targeted, and hold the perpetrators to account.”

Eito told CPJ that the JIN TV team was driving near the Turkish border, between the Syrian cities of Amuda, where the broadcaster has a studio, and Qamishli, when they were attacked. Eito said Agid had been covering an event to commemorate the death of two Kurdish officials in another drone attack in June.

“She regained consciousness temporarily after suffering a severe injury to her neck and losing her left arm. However, she soon slipped back into an unconscious state. Numerous explosive fragments remained within her body,” Eito told CPJ.

In a statement, the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northeastern Syria condemned the attack and called on the international community to intervene and ensure accountability.

CPJ emailed the Turkish president’s office for comment but did not receive a reply. CPJ was unable to find any contact information for the Turkish Defense Ministry or any comments it had issued about the attack.

Turkey has previously said that its strikes in northern Syria target Kurdish fighters that it considers terrorists.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Just four days into the new year, 20-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant and student Arif Sayed Faisal was shot and killed by police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after appearing to have a mental health crisis. The Cambridge Police Department was quick to call the killing an “officer-involved shooting,” using language that police departments across the US use to shift the blame off of officers who kill or maim civilians. Cambridge police claimed that Faisal advanced towards officers with a knife in hand, implying that the police had no choice but to shoot him dead.

Faisal’s death sparked a level of movement that Cambridge city officials didn’t expect, Suhail Purkar, a local activist and organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), told Peoples Dispatch. Purkar was a central organizer for a march of hundreds to the Cambridge Police Department headquarters on January 29, when protesters delivered a list of demands to police. These were: release the names of the officers and the unredacted police report; fire, indict, and convict the officers; fully fund alternative emergency response programs separate from the police; disarm and demilitarize the police; and reallocate police funding into community support and safety.

Since the killing, Cambridge Police Commissioner Christine Elow made a point to describe the Cambridge Police Department’s high level of training and claim that it is one of the most progressive departments in the country. “It goes to highlight that no amount of ‘training’ for the police, different curriculums, etc., are going to stop them from being an oppressive force and murdering people in the streets,” said Purkar.

“Initially [Cambridge authorities] were expecting both the Bangladeshi community and the Cambridge community at large, the Greater Boston community at large, to essentially just hold vigils, and paint murals, or basically make [the community response] something that’s very easy to ignore,” Purkar said. But Greater Boston immediately launched into a flurry of protest actions, fueled by the legacy of the anti-police brutality movement in the United States; the knowledge that, in 2022, US police killed more people than ever before; and the January 7 police killing of Tyre Nichols.

The movement for Faisal had international repercussions: demonstrators in Bangladesh protested the arrival of a US official in Dhaka, holding signs that read “Human Rights are Violated in the US Today” and “Justice for Faisal.”

Purkar, a young Indian immigrant and a resident of Somerville, a neighboring town, spoke to Peoples Dispatch about Faisal’s case and the state of the movement. “This is actually something that’s very personal to me,” he said. Purkar has lived in the greater Boston Area for two decades, and graduated from University of Massachusetts Boston, where Faisal was studying. Purkar also attends a mosque in the same affordable housing apartment complex that Faisal’s parents live in. “It could have easily been me,” Purkar said.

“How many stories like that?”

A key demand of organizers is to release the names of the police officers responsible for Faisal’s death, “so that we can investigate whether they have a history of racism, discrimination, and abuse of force,” said Purkar.

Purkar compared the movement for justice for Faisal to the movement for Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black father beaten to death by Memphis police within a few days of when Faisal was killed. Protests against Nichols’ murder erupted in the last weekend of January after the footage of his beating was released to the public. In Nichols’ case, authorities in Memphis quickly fired, arrested, and charged five officers responsible for the beating, and disbanded the notorious “Scorpion Unit” that the officers were a part of.

“When the names of the police officers who murdered Tyre Nichols were released, members from the community came forward in Memphis and they said, hey, we’ve been brutalized by these same cops,” said Purkar. “We’ve been brutalized by the ‘Scorpion Unit,’ which has now been deactivated. [Scorpion has] a history of racism. They have a history of abuse of force. They have a history of brutalizing poor communities of color. How many stories like that [in Cambridge]? How many residents have been brutalized by these same officers in Cambridge that haven’t come forward so far? So that’s something that we really need to know.”

"How many residents have been brutalized by these same officers in Cambridge that haven’t come forward so far? So that’s something that we really need to know."

“It’s shocking that in Memphis, the names of the officers have been released, that they were fired and that criminal charges were brought against them,” Purkar said. However, for Purkar, this rare move was not because of “altruism” or “the righteousness of their heart.” He believes that Memphis officials released the officers’ names “they were scared of essentially another wave of upsurge against police brutality like we saw in this country in 2020.” The summer of 2020 saw the largest protest movement in US history following the police killing of George Floyd.

It is indeed rare that US police are charged with a crime as a result of a police killing—this has only happened in 2% of such cases from 2013 to 2022. According to the AP, when Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the killing of George Floyd, he was only the eighth police officer to be convicted of murder since 2005, despite the thousands of deaths at the hands of police in the US every year.

“It’s only because there has been such public pressure, because activists, including the PSL and other community members, actually shut down their City Council meeting and said that you can’t have business as usual, that they started to even respond more,” said Purkar, referring to the disruption of the January 23 Cambridge City Council meeting. There has since been a second disruption by activists on Monday, February 6.

“I can’t tell you exactly why Cambridge hasn’t released the names. But I think the motivating factor in Memphis was certainly that they were afraid of people expressing righteous indignation.”

Activists are also fighting to fire the officers responsible for Faisal’s death. Immediately following the shooting, the officer who killed Faisal, who had eight years of experience on the police force, was placed on paid leave. “In no other profession on this planet can you murder somebody in broad daylight and then go on paid vacation the next day,” Purkar said.

“[Faisal’s] family hasn’t received restitution, they haven’t received reparations,” Purkar said. “They’re grieving. They’re a very working class family. So that’s a central demand, to fire these officers right away, to not have these killer cops still working as public servants.”

Another demand is to prosecute the officers responsible, charge them, and convict them. “Those five officers [who killed Tyre Nichols], they have been imprisoned already and criminal charges have been brought forth against them. And that’s exactly what needs to happen in this case. And every case as well,” Purkar said.

A “cover-up” in progress

In response to the actions to demand justice for Faisal, eight days after Faisal’s murder, Cambridge city officials held what they called a “community meeting” to share the results of their own investigation into the incident with the public. The meeting was attended by the Police Commissioner Christine Elow, City Manager Yi-An Huang, Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, and other members of the Cambridge City Council. Hundreds of residents of the Greater Boston community gathered to demand transparency regarding Faisal’s killing.

At this meeting, Elow and Huang responded to these demands by claiming that there was a city policy preventing officials from releasing the names of the police officers responsible. The response was not acceptable for protesters who, according to Purkar, argued that the policy should be changed, “Policies are made by human beings,” he added.

“The whole world knows that George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin. We deserve to know who killed our brother!” Sharik Purkar, another Greater Boston anti-police brutality activist, addressing officials at the meeting on January 12. “You are the people with the power to make the policy. Supposedly you reflect our will. Do we wanna know who killed our brother?” The gathered crowd responded with a resounding “yes!”

"The whole world knows that George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin. We deserve to know who killed our brother!"

Elow told the assembled crowd that the police department must wait for the internal investigation into Faisal’s murder to complete.

Six days later, city officials met at a special session of the City Council on January 18. At this meeting, both Elow and Huang appeared to directly contradict their assertion that not releasing the officers’ names was an official city policy.

Mayor Siddiqui directly asked Commissioner Elow at the Council meeting, “We believe we heard at the community meeting that it was city policy not to reveal the officer’s name after the investigation is completed. Is this a policy passed by the previous Council, Cambridge Police Department policy, or part of the union contract?”

To which the Commissioner admitted, “It’s not a policy that is in writing, It has been past practice not to release names. There is no uniform, agreed upon standard.”

“It’s more of a practice, and not a policy,” Elow said.

Purkar said that Elow’s admission, appearing to contradict what was said on January 12, came as a result of public pressure by activists. At the City Council meeting, Elow essentially confessed that officials simply “don’t want to release the names,” Purkar told Peoples Dispatch.

At the January 18 City Council meeting, City Manager Huang acknowledged the community’s desire for the release of the names of the officers responsible for Faisal’s murder. “I can understand the desire for greater transparency,” he said. “At the same time, I think that there is also a reality that that level of transparency will increase the amount of public scrutiny, and potential harassment to the officer involved.”

In Purkar’s view, Huang had declared that “public scrutiny and transparency is bad.”

At a January 9 rally in front of Cambridge City Hall, the legal counsel for Faisal’s family announced that an inquest into the murder may not begin until 2024. “So that’s really [the City’s] game plan, to wait for people to forget, wait for the energy to die down so that they can have a long cover up,” Purkar said.

“We’ll be back!”

The Cambridge Police Department has yet to comply with any of the wider community’s demands. No names of officers have been released to the public.

But the movement for Tyre Nichols could positively impact the struggle for justice in Cambridge, Purkar said. “We see in Cambridge that there is this deep connection that is drawn between Faisal and Tyre Nichols. More and more, people are coming off the sidelines.”

“Initially in the community there was sadness, outrage, confusion. A mix of emotions, as you can expect, when a young person has been taken from us. It’s been a little more than three weeks now. In those [several] weeks, the reaction has turned into outrage as a result of the empty rhetoric of the politicians.”

After city officials refused to release names on January 12, members of the Greater Boston community successfully shut down the January 23 City Council meeting, afterwards chanting, “We’ll be back!” Community members once again shut down City Council on February 6.

On January 29, when demonstrators delivered demands to the Cambridge Police Department, Commissioner Elow was not present to receive the demands in person. Purkar speculated that she was “too cowardly to face her own constituents.”

Purkar and his fellow organizers have more actions planned in the future, especially focused on organizing university students. “But that’s the state of the movement, is that it’s actually growing,” he said. “More and more people are joining this fight and joining the struggle.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Natalia Marques.

On November 3, a spine-chilling assassination attempt was mounted on Pakistan’s most charismatic and popular political leader, Imran Khan, while he was addressing a political rally in Wazirabad, a small town near the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Lahore.

As corroborated by eye witness accounts, there were two shooters. One of them was an amateur religious zealot armed with a pistol and meant as a diversion who was caught by the supporters of PTI, Imran Khan’s political party. The other was a professionally trained sniper who shot a burst of bullets at Imran Khan’s container with a sub-machine gun and escaped the crime scene unharmed.

It’s worth pointing out that it wasn’t an assassination attempt but a shot across the bow meant to send a loud and clear warning to the leadership of Imran Khan’s PTI. The sharp shooter aimed the gun at Imran Khan’s legs and emptied an entire magazine of the sub-machine gun, and hit the bull’s eye.

Clearly, the assassin had explicit instructions only to target lower limbs of victims and avoid hitting vital organs in upper body that could’ve caused deaths and needless public furor. Injuries suffered by the rest of PTI leadership, mainly in the legs, and bystanders was collateral damage. One bystander, named Moazzam, was killed on the spot, but circumstantial evidence points that he was likely shot dead from the bullets shot by the guards protecting the container who mistakenly assumed that he was the shooter.

Multiple bullets and fragments of lead from two to three feet high metal plate around the container pierced Imran Khan’s both legs. After taking a close look at Imran Khan’s x-rays, as shown by his personal physician, Dr. Faisal, one bullet fractured Imran Khan’s right shin bone. A tiny piece of shrapnel landed near patella on the knee-cap. Another lead fragment almost pierced femoral artery that could’ve caused profuse bleeding and even death if left untreated for long.

The amateur zealot, identified as Naveed s/o Bashir, was armed with a locally made pistol he had bought for Rs.20,000 ($100). Most pistols found in Pakistan are semi-automatic and are utterly unreliable. They seldom fire an entire magazine without misfiring a couple of bullets. That’s what happened with the shooter, too. A bullet got stuck in the chamber and a valiant PTI supporter, Ibtisam Hassan, leapt on him and snatched the pistol from his hands.

Russian-made Kalashnikovs, on the other hand, are weapons of choice for sharp shooters. And since the times of the Soviet-Afghan war in the eighties, Kalashnikovs are so easily available in Pakistan that one could conveniently get an AK-47 from any arms dealer. In all likelihood, the sniper was armed with an AK-47, as the classic rattling sound of a Kalashnikov burst could be clearly heard in the video of the incident, and he likely escaped the crime scene in the narrow alleys of the town on a motor-bike with an accomplice.

The confessional statement of Naveed s/o Bashir was an eyewash, as he was a decoy. The whole assassination attempt appeared astutely choreographed. The purported assassin was not only caught red-handed but was also filmed shooting bullets in the air with a pistol while the actual hitman who professionally executed the assassination attempt remains as elusive as the masterminds of the cowardly plot.

Subsequently, Imran Khan implicated incumbent Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and DG-C of ISI Major Gen. Faisal Naseer in the plot to assassinate him. But the police refused to register the first information report due to fear of repercussions from the deep state for naming a serving military officer in the police report.

In any case, the director of intelligence couldn’t have ordered mounting an assassination attempt on a popular political leader and the country’s former prime minister all by himself without a nod of approval from Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, then the army chief of Pakistan’s military, who retired from service on November 29, weeks following the assassination plot on November 3.

In Pakistan’s context, the national security establishment originally meant civil-military bureaucracy. Though over the years, civil bureaucracy has taken a backseat and now “the establishment” is defined as military’s top brass that has dictated Pakistan’s security and defense policy since its inception.

Paradoxically, security establishments do not have ideologies, they simply have interests. For instance, the General Ayub-led administration in the sixties was regarded as a liberal establishment. Then, the General Zia-led administration during the eighties was manifestly a religious conservative establishment. And lastly, the General Musharraf-led administration from 1999 to 2008 was once again deemed a liberal establishment.

The deep state does not judge on the basis of ideology, it simply looks for weakness. If a liberal political party is unassailable in a political system, it will join forces with conservatives; and if conservatives cannot be beaten in a system, it will form an alliance with liberals to perpetuate the stranglehold of “the deep state” on policymaking organs of state.

The biggest threat to nascent democracies all over the world does not come from external enemies but from their internal enemies, the national security establishments, because military generals always have a chauvinistic mindset and an undemocratic temperament. An additional aggravating factor that increases the likelihood of military coups in developing democracies is that they lack firm traditions of democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism which act as bars against martial laws.

All political parties in Pakistan at some point in time in history were groomed by the security establishment. The founder of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was groomed by General Ayub’s establishment as a counterweight to Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League, the founder of Bangladesh, during the sixties.

Nawaz Sharif was nurtured by General Zia’s administration during the eighties to offset the influence of Bhutto’s People’s Party. But he was cast aside after he capitulated to the pressure of the Clinton administration during the Kargil conflict of 1999 in disputed Kashmir region and ceded Pakistan’s military positions to arch-rival India, leading to Gen. Musharraf’s coup against Nawaz Sharif’s government in October 1999.

Imran Khan’s PTI draws popular support from Pakistani masses, particularly from younger generations and women that are full of political enthusiasm. PTI won the general elections of 2018 and formed a coalition government, and Imran Khan was elected prime minister. But a rift emerged between Imran Khan’s elected government and the top brass of Pakistan’s military in November 2021 over the appointment of the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence service.

Eventually, Imran Khan succumbed to pressure and appointed the spymaster nominated by the top brass. But by then, the military had decided that Imran Khan had become too powerful a political leader and was encroaching on the military’s traditional domains, defense and national security policy. Therefore, deploying the astute divide-and-conquer strategy, the deep state lent its weight behind the opposition political alliance. Imran Khan’s political allies abandoned the PTI government and the coalition government fell apart in April.

Due to the British imperial legacy and subsequent close working relationship between the security agencies of Pakistan and the US during the Soviet-Afghan war of the eighties, Pakistan’s security establishment works hand in glove with the deep state of the United States, like the Turkish security establishment which is a NATO member.

Before his ouster as prime minister in a no-trust motion in the parliament on April 10, Imran Khan claimed that Pakistan’s Ambassador to US, Asad Majeed, was warned by Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu that Khan’s continuation in office would have repercussions for bilateral ties between the two nations.

Shireen Mazari, a Pakistani politician who served as the Federal Minister for Human Rights under the Imran Khan government, quoted Donald Lu as saying: “If Prime Minister Imran Khan remained in office, then Pakistan will be isolated from the United States and we will take the issue head on; but if the vote of no-confidence succeeds, all will be forgiven.”

Imran Khan fell from the grace of the Biden administration, whose record-breaking popularity ratings plummeted after the precipitous fall of Kabul in August 2021, reminiscent of the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, with Chinook helicopters hovering over US embassy evacuating diplomatic staff to the airport, and Washington accused Pakistan for the debacle.

After the United States “nation-building project” failed in Afghanistan during its two-decade occupation of the embattled country from October 2001 to August 2021, it accused regional powers of lending covert support to Afghan insurgents battling the occupation forces.

The occupation and Washington’s customary blame game accusing “malign regional forces” of insidiously destabilizing Afghanistan and undermining US-led “benevolent imperialism” instead of accepting responsibility for its botched invasion and occupation of Afghanistan brought Pakistan and Russia closer against a common adversary in their backyard, and the two countries even managed to forge defense ties, particularly during the three and a half years of Imran Khan’s government from July 2018 to April 2022.

Since the announcement of a peace deal with the Taliban by the Trump administration in February 2020, regional powers, China and Russia in particular, hosted international conferences and invited the representatives of the US-backed Afghanistan government and the Taliban for peace negotiations.

After the departure of US forces from “the graveyard of the empires,” although Washington is trying to starve the hapless Afghan masses to death in retribution for inflicting a humiliating defeat on the global hegemon by imposing economic sanctions on the Taliban government and browbeating international community to desist from lending formal diplomatic recognition or having trade relations with Afghanistan, China and Russia have provided generous humanitarian and developmental assistance to Afghanistan.

Imran Khan’s ouster from power for daring to stand up to the United States harks back to the toppling and subsequent assassination of Pakistan’s first elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in April 1979 by the martial law regime of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.

The United States not only turned a blind eye but tacitly approved the elimination of Bhutto from Pakistan’s political scene because, being a socialist, Bhutto not only nurtured cordial ties with communist China but was also courting Washington’s arch-rival, the former Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union played the role of a mediator at the signing of the Tashkent Agreement for the cessation of hostilities following the 1965 India-Pakistan War over the disputed Kashmir region, in which Bhutto represented Pakistan as the foreign minister of the Gen. Ayub Khan-led government.

Like Imran Khan, the United States “deep state” regarded Bhutto as a political liability and an obstacle in the way of mounting the Operation Cyclone to provoke the former Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan and the subsequent waging of a decade-long war of attrition, using Afghan jihadists as cannon fodder who were generously funded, trained and armed by the CIA and Pakistan’s security agencies in the Af-Pak border regions, in order to “bleed the Soviet forces” and destabilize and weaken the rival global power.

Regarding the objectives of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, then American envoy to Kabul, Adolph “Spike” Dubs, was assassinated on the Valentine’s Day, on 14 February 1979, the same day that Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran.

The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million Muslims were susceptible to radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was infiltrating across the border into the Central Asian States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamist insurgencies spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan.

According to documents declassified by the White House, CIA and State Department in January 2019, as reported by Tim Weiner for the Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December that year.

The revelation doesn’t come as a surprise, though, because more than two decades before the declassification of the State Department documents, in the 1998 interview cited in CounterPunch, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the president signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December 1979.

Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview. The interviewer puts the question: “And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?” Brzezinski replies: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

Despite the crass insensitivity, one must give credit to Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least he had the courage to speak the unembellished truth. It’s worth noting, however, that the aforementioned interview was recorded in 1998. After the 9/11 terror attack, no Western policymaker can now dare to be as blunt and forthright as Brzezinski.

Regardless, that the CIA was arming the Afghan jihadists six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been proven by the State Department’s declassified documents; fact of the matter, however, is that the nexus between the CIA, Pakistan’s security agencies and the Gulf Arab States to train and arm the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was forged years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistan joined the American-led, anticommunist SEATO and CENTO regional alliances in the 1950s and played the role of Washington’s client state since its inception in 1947. So much so that when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces while performing photographic aerial reconnaissance deep into Soviet territory, Pakistan’s then President Ayub Khan openly acknowledged the reconnaissance aircraft flew from an American airbase in Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan.

Then during the 1970s, Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government began aiding the Afghan Islamists against Sardar Daud’s government, who had toppled his first cousin King Zahir Shah in a palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of Afghanistan.

Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to Pakistan’s northwestern Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan’s security agencies were alarmed by his irredentist claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated in 1978 as a consequence of the Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that although the Bhutto government did provide political and diplomatic support on a limited scale to Islamists in their struggle for power against Pashtun nationalists in Afghanistan, being a secular and progressive politician, he would never have permitted opening the floodgates for flushing the Af-Pak region with weapons, petrodollars and radical jihadist ideology as his successor, Zia-ul-Haq, an Islamist military general, did by becoming a willing tool of religious extremism and militarism in the hands of neocolonial powers.

Image credit: MinuteMirror.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Nauman Sadiq.

On Monday, August 29, Iraqi security forces arrested, assaulted, or confiscated equipment from journalists with local and international outlets covering protests in Baghdad, the capital, according to the journalists and their colleagues, who spoke with CPJ, and reports by their outlets.

Separately, on Tuesday, a mortar shell injured at least two journalists covering armed clashes in the city.

“Iraqi forces have displayed a startling disregard for the safety of civilians and journalists covering protests in Baghdad since August 29,” said CPJ Senior Middle East and North Africa Researcher Justin Shilad. “Iraqi authorities must stop assaulting and detaining journalists, allow them to work freely, and ensure that members of the country’s security forces who attack members of the press are identified and held to account.”

Protests broke out in Baghdad’s Green Zone, home to government institutions and foreign embassies, by supporters of Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on August 29 after he announced his decision to retire from politics, according to news reports. Authorities later declared a curfew in Baghdad.

During those protests, Iraqi Special Forces arrested reporter Rokan Jaf and camera operator Gailan Sabah while they covered security forces’ dispersal of the demonstrations for the privately owned Kurdish media outlet Zoom News, according to a Facebook post by the outlet and Jaf, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.

“Once they knew I (was) a journalist, they caught me immediately,” Jaf told CPJ, adding that he identified the members of the special forces by their black uniforms. Four Special Forces agents punched and kicked Jaf, took his phone and Sabah’s camera, and detained them both, he said.

After protestors were cleared from the area, authorities released Sabah and Jaf and returned Jaf’s phone but not Sabah’s camera, according to Jaf and Zoom News director Hemn Mahmood, who spoke to CPJ by phone. Jaf told CPJ he was not seriously injured in the incident.

Also during those protests on August 29, security forces in black uniforms assaulted Haider al-Badri, a reporter for the privately owned news channel UTV, and attempted to seize a camera from his camera operator Adulmalik Faisal, according to the Iraqi press freedom advocacy group Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) and a video posted to UTV’s Facebook page.

CPJ was unable to immediately determine whether al-Badri was injured during the incident.

Authorities also briefly detained a team with the Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera, including reporter Samir Yousif and seven others, according to a video Yousif posted on Twitter, a report by the outlet, and a journalist familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app on the condition they not be named because they did not have permission to speak to the press. Authorities let them go after smashing the window of their car, taking their camera, and breaking it in front of them.

Security forces wearing black masks and unmarked uniforms also assaulted Ammar Ghassan, a reporter for the privately owned satellite channel Al-Rasheed TV, and his colleagues while they covered authorities’ dispersal of the protests, according to a video on the broadcaster’s Facebook page and a report by news website Baghdad Today.

In that video, Ghassan showed a bruise on his shoulder that he said was the result of the attack.

“Seven armed security forces came to us. They knew we were a TV channel crew and beat us,” he said. “They also took our mic, camera, and live stream device and destroyed my mobile phone.” CPJ was unable to immediately determine how many Al-Rasheed TV journalists were injured in the incident.

CPJ is also investigating posts on social media by Associated Press photographer Hadi Mizban, who said Iraqi security forces attacked him and took his camera and ID, and by the privately owned Iraqi news outlet Fallujah TV, which wrote that its correspondent Saif Ali was “seriously injured” while covering the protests.

CPJ messaged Mizban and Fallujah TV on Facebook to seek more details on those incidents but did not immediately receive any replies.

Yehia Rasool, a spokesperson for the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces, who oversees the special forces, told CPJ via messaging app that the armed forces were investigating reports of special forces attacking journalists in the Green Zone, and said they would not allow such attacks to be repeated.

Separately, on Tuesday, Mustafa Latif and Kamil Raad, reporters for the privately owned Iraqi satellite channel Dijla TV, were injured by mortar fire while reporting on armed demonstrators clashing with security forces in the aftermath of the protests, according to a Facebook post from their outlet, a JFO report, and Latif, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. 

Latif told CPJ that he was injured by shrapnel in his face, Raad was hit by shrapnel in his leg, and they were both taken to the Al-Kadhimiya Hospital for treatment. Latif said he did not know the source of the mortar fire.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Monday, August 29, Iraqi security forces arrested, assaulted, or confiscated equipment from journalists with local and international outlets covering protests in Baghdad, the capital, according to the journalists and their colleagues, who spoke with CPJ, and reports by their outlets.

Separately, on Tuesday, a mortar shell injured at least two journalists covering armed clashes in the city.

“Iraqi forces have displayed a startling disregard for the safety of civilians and journalists covering protests in Baghdad since August 29,” said CPJ Senior Middle East and North Africa Researcher Justin Shilad. “Iraqi authorities must stop assaulting and detaining journalists, allow them to work freely, and ensure that members of the country’s security forces who attack members of the press are identified and held to account.”

Protests broke out in Baghdad’s Green Zone, home to government institutions and foreign embassies, by supporters of Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on August 29 after he announced his decision to retire from politics, according to news reports. Authorities later declared a curfew in Baghdad.

During those protests, Iraqi Special Forces arrested reporter Rokan Jaf and camera operator Gailan Sabah while they covered security forces’ dispersal of the demonstrations for the privately owned Kurdish media outlet Zoom News, according to a Facebook post by the outlet and Jaf, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.

“Once they knew I (was) a journalist, they caught me immediately,” Jaf told CPJ, adding that he identified the members of the special forces by their black uniforms. Four Special Forces agents punched and kicked Jaf, took his phone and Sabah’s camera, and detained them both, he said.

After protestors were cleared from the area, authorities released Sabah and Jaf and returned Jaf’s phone but not Sabah’s camera, according to Jaf and Zoom News director Hemn Mahmood, who spoke to CPJ by phone. Jaf told CPJ he was not seriously injured in the incident.

Also during those protests on August 29, security forces in black uniforms assaulted Haider al-Badri, a reporter for the privately owned news channel UTV, and attempted to seize a camera from his camera operator Adulmalik Faisal, according to the Iraqi press freedom advocacy group Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) and a video posted to UTV’s Facebook page.

CPJ was unable to immediately determine whether al-Badri was injured during the incident.

Authorities also briefly detained a team with the Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera, including reporter Samir Yousif and seven others, according to a video Yousif posted on Twitter, a report by the outlet, and a journalist familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app on the condition they not be named because they did not have permission to speak to the press. Authorities let them go after smashing the window of their car, taking their camera, and breaking it in front of them.

Security forces wearing black masks and unmarked uniforms also assaulted Ammar Ghassan, a reporter for the privately owned satellite channel Al-Rasheed TV, and his colleagues while they covered authorities’ dispersal of the protests, according to a video on the broadcaster’s Facebook page and a report by news website Baghdad Today.

In that video, Ghassan showed a bruise on his shoulder that he said was the result of the attack.

“Seven armed security forces came to us. They knew we were a TV channel crew and beat us,” he said. “They also took our mic, camera, and live stream device and destroyed my mobile phone.” CPJ was unable to immediately determine how many Al-Rasheed TV journalists were injured in the incident.

CPJ is also investigating posts on social media by Associated Press photographer Hadi Mizban, who said Iraqi security forces attacked him and took his camera and ID, and by the privately owned Iraqi news outlet Fallujah TV, which wrote that its correspondent Saif Ali was “seriously injured” while covering the protests.

CPJ messaged Mizban and Fallujah TV on Facebook to seek more details on those incidents but did not immediately receive any replies.

Yehia Rasool, a spokesperson for the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces, who oversees the special forces, told CPJ via messaging app that the armed forces were investigating reports of special forces attacking journalists in the Green Zone, and said they would not allow such attacks to be repeated.

Separately, on Tuesday, Mustafa Latif and Kamil Raad, reporters for the privately owned Iraqi satellite channel Dijla TV, were injured by mortar fire while reporting on armed demonstrators clashing with security forces in the aftermath of the protests, according to a Facebook post from their outlet, a JFO report, and Latif, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. 

Latif told CPJ that he was injured by shrapnel in his face, Raad was hit by shrapnel in his leg, and they were both taken to the Al-Kadhimiya Hospital for treatment. Latif said he did not know the source of the mortar fire.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On March 30, police in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district arrested Ojha and Singh, journalists with the privately owned Hindi daily Amar Ujala, in relation to their reporting on leaks surrounding a state school exam, according to multiple news reports.

Separately, on April 3, attendees of a demonstration in Delhi organized by right-wing Hindu groups attacked at least five journalists covering the event, and police opened an investigation into Faisal over his commentary on that attack, various news reports said.

“Police harassment of journalists in Delhi and Ballia mark a worrisome trend of attacks on the free press that need to come to a halt immediately,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Indian authorities must release Ajit Ojha and Digvijay Singh immediately, drop their investigation into Meer Faisal, and hold to account those responsible for attacking journalists in Delhi.”

Police have arrested more than 30 people, including the students’ parents and Singh and Ojha, over the leaks of two school exams in Uttar Pradesh, according to those news reports. Singh was quoted in the Indian Express saying that police had repeatedly asked about the sources for his reporting on the leaks, and Ojha was quoted in The Wire saying that police vandalized his office and manhandled his colleagues while arresting him.

Those reports also stated that Manoj Gupta, a journalist with the Rashtriya Sahara newspaper, had been arrested, but CPJ was unable to immediately determine whether he also covered the leaked exams.

Police are investigating both journalists under Section 66B of the Information Technology Act, pertaining to receiving stolen digital resources, Section 420 of Indian Penal Code, which covers “cheating and dishonesty,” as well as two sections of the Uttar Pradesh Public Examination Act, pertaining to disclosing school exams, according to The Wire.

Convictions under the IT act can carry prison terms of up to three years and fines of up to 100,000 rupees (about US$1,317); convictions under Section 420 of the penal code can carry prison terms of up to seven years and a fine; the Uttar Pradesh exam law can carry penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 500,000 rupees (US$6,580).

In Delhi, attendees of the April 3 event attacked Faisal, reporters Shivangi Saxena and Ronak Bhat of the news website Newslaundry, freelance photojournalist Md Meharban, and Arbab Ali of the news portal Article 14, and shouted insults at Meghnad Bose of The Quint and another journalist whose name was not disclosed, according to multiple news reports.

Saxena and Bhat wrote that demonstrators hit Bhat, threw his glasses to the ground, tried to steal his equipment, and “one tried to pull his backpack, another his arms and legs.” When Saxena tried to film the assault, “one grabbed her bag, another held her shoulder, a third held her hand in which she had her phone” they wrote. Neither journalist wrote that they sustained any serious injuries.

Ali told Newslaundry that the mob hit him and Faisal in front of the police, and that demonstrators said “don’t give these two to the policemen, just kill them. These are jihadis, they are mullahs.”

Following that attack, police in Delhi opened an investigation into those suspected of assaulting the journalists, and also started an investigation into Faisal, a journalist with Article 14 and the news website Hindustan Gazette, according to those reports and a statement by the police.

Police accuse Faisal of inciting hatred between classes in a tweet he published after the attack, saying the journalists were “beaten up because of our muslim identity by Hindu mob.” Police are also investigating Article 14 for the same offense after it also tweeted about the incident.

If convicted of making statements to create or promote enmity, hatred, or ill-will between classes under Section 505(2) of the Indian penal code, Faisal and the publisher of Article 14 could face up to three years in prison.

CPJ emailed Uttar Pradesh Police Director-General Mukul Goel and Delhi Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana for comment, but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.