“Taliban intelligence must release journalist Sayed Rashed Kashefi immediately and unconditionally,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The continued detention of journalists like Kashefi is part of a ruthless campaign to silence independent reporting and intimidate the media into submission. This blatant assault on press freedom must end now.”

Taliban intelligence agents detained Kashefi after he was summoned to the GDI’s Directorate of Media and Public Affairs under the pretext of retrieving his mobile phone, video recording camera, and voice recorder, which had been confiscated in mid-March by agents who suspected him of working with Afghan exiled media, according to a journalist who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisal.

Kashefi, who was previously a journalist for the state-owned English-language newspaper, The Kabul Times, has been working as an independent reporter covering current affairs in Kabul.

He has been detained by the Taliban before. In December 2021, a senior official and his bodyguards held Kashefi for six hours during his reporting in Kabul and beat him.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

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

“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.

“Sayed Rahim Saeedi has been sentenced to three years in prison without access to a lawyer or due process in the Taliban’s courts, while also suffering from serious health complications,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately release Saeedi and ensure that he receives necessary medical support and treatment.”

Saeedi has been transferred to Kabul’s central Pul-e-Charkhi prison. He is suffering from lumbar disc disease and prostate complications, the journalist source told CPJ.

The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence detained Saeedi, his son, journalist Sayed Waris Saeedi, and their camera operator, Hasib, who goes only by one name, on July 14, 2024, in Kabul and transferred them to an undisclosed location. While the younger Saeedi and Hasib were released two days later, Saeedi remained in detention.

According to the exile-based watchdog group Afghanistan Journalists Center, Saeedi was arrested for his work criticizing the Taliban, including a screenplay he wrote about a girl denied an education by Taliban authorities.

According to the Afghanistan Journalists Center, restrictions on the country’s media are tightening.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment via messaging app.

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

“Mahdi Ansary’s unjust sentence is indicative of the Taliban’s continued brutality and suppression of press freedom in Afghanistan,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately release Ansary and Sayed Rahim Saeedi, the other known detained journalist, as well as all anyother Afghan journalists imprisoned by the group without public knowledge.”

The start of Ansary’s prison term was set as October 5, 2024, when he was apprehended while returning home from his office in Kabul.

The General Directorate of Intelligence confirmed Ansary’s detention but withheld information regarding his whereabouts or the reasons for his arrest. Ansary, who is a member of Afghanistan’s persecuted Hazara ethnic minority, had been reporting on killings and atrocities against the community under Taliban rule.

On October 8, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told CPJ via messaging app that the journalist was working with “banned [media] networks” and had engaged in “illegal activities.”

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

“The arrest of journalist Sayed Saber is the latest example of Egypt’s crackdown on journalists and press freedom,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator. “CPJ has documented the arrests of six other journalists and writers since the beginning of this year, underscoring the urgency of addressing this alarming trend. This demonstrates yet again the lengths the Egyptian government will go to stifle reporting and commentary it disagrees with. Egypt must release Saber without charges, free the other six journalists, and end its intensified campaign against the press.”

Saber’s arrest is believed to be linked to recent social media posts criticizing military rule in Egypt. He is an established Egyptian journalist and writer with contributions to various media outlets and several published books. Known for his sharp critiques of the current political regime in Egypt, Saber often uses a sarcastic tone to deliver his commentary.

On September 9, CPJ and 34 other human rights and press freedom organizations, issued a joint statement condemning the recent arrests and enforced disappearances of four Egyptian journalists — Ashraf Omar, Khaled Mamdouh, Ramadan Gouida, and Yasser Abu Al-Ela — and called for their unconditional release. On October 23, CPJ documented the arrests of economic commentator Abdel Khaleq Farouk and journalist Ahmed Bayoumi. All six journalists remain in detention.

CPJ’s email to the Egyptian Ministry of Interior requesting comment on Saber’s arrests did not receive an immediate response

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

Israel has stepped up systematic attack on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign. Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists in October and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north. There are now almost no professional journalists left in the north to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began.

Getting information about the impact of the war on journalists – and therefore a clear picture of the impact of the war itself – was already challenging when CPJ issued a report in May on the challenges of verification. Journalists interviewed by CPJ in late October and early November told CPJ that the continued attacks on the media – along with the food shortages, continual displacement, and communications blackouts experienced by all Gazans – placed severe constraints on coverage of the impact of Israel’s northern Gaza military offensive. The offensive began on October 5 by targeting the town of Jabalia and its refugee camp before spreading to all of northern Gaza in what the Israeli military said was a bid to stop militant Hamas fighters from regrouping.

 “Israel is accused of adopting a ‘starve or leave’ policy to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza. It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them, the world won’t be able to write history.”

Reports from the area say that the IDF burned schools, attacked hospitals and medical staff, and detained and abused men. Scores of people have been killed, tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee, and families separated as the attack continues.

The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres; Jordan’s foreign secretary; and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem are among those describing the assault as an “ethnic cleansing,” with the U.N. Human Rights Office fearing it could lead to the potential destruction of the Palestinian population. 

A news void is one of the direct impacts of this campaign, potentially leaving possible war crimes with no evidence or documentation.

CPJ documented the following threats to journalists and press freedom in northern Gaza during the recent weeks:

Journalists killed in strikes

CPJ confirmed at least five killings of journalists in Jabalia and Gaza City since October 6: 

• An Israeli drone missile killed AlHassan Hamad, an 18-year-old Palestinian freelance photographer who worked with several media outlets during the war, shortly after he finished a video report in Jabalia on October 6. 

• An Israeli drone strike killed Mohammed Al-Tanani, a 26-year-old Palestinian camera operator for the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV, while his TV crew was reporting on Israeli forces operations in the Jabalia refugee camp on October 9. The strike also injured TV correspondent Tamer Lubbad. Both were wearing “Press” vests and helmets at the time.

• Three Palestinian journalists — Nadia Emad Al Sayed, Saed Radwan, and Haneen Baroud — were killed alongside eight others in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City on October 27. The bombs hit one of the classrooms they had turned into a makeshift newsroom. 

“The situation is catastrophic and beyond description,” a camera operator for the privately owned Al-Ghad TV, Abed AlKarim Al-Zwaidi, told CPJ. “We do not know what our fate will be in light of these circumstances.” 

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these killings, repeating previous statements it could not fully address questions if sufficient details about individuals were not provided. The statement reiterated previous comments that it “directs its strikes only towards military targets and military operatives, and does not target civilian objects and civilians, including media organizations and journalists.”

CPJ is also investigating reports that two other journalists were killed during this time in northern Gaza. 

Starvation and aid blocks

Israel, accused of blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza since the start of the war, has throttled food and humanitarian aid from entering northern Gaza since October 1 and ordered all residents to evacuate, making it all but impossible for journalists to keep working, several members of the media told CPJ.       

Al-Zwaidi – one of the journalists who described Israel’s actions as ethnic cleansing – told CPJ that journalists, like most civilians in northern Gaza, “have not had food or anything clean to drink for more than 20 days.” He said most journalists are “trying to eat the minimum amount of food that keeps them alive,” and they drink what is “semi-wastewater, full of germs.” 

The IDF’s October 31 response to CPJ’s request for comment said that more than 392 aid trucks, mainly carrying food, had entered northern Gaza in recent weeks, and supplies were available in warehouses scattered throughout the northern region.

The IDF also cited October 28 and 30 announcements by COGAT (Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories), the Israeli unit responsible for the coordination and facilitation of humanitarian initiatives, that it had facilitated patient and staff evacuations and delivered supplies at the Kamal Adwan hospital. One of the area’s last functioning medical facilities, Kamal Adwan, has been repeatedly attacked by Israel, which claims it has been used by Hamas.

Tor Wennesland, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the U.N. Security Council on October 29 that northern Gaza had received virtually no humanitarian assistance since the start of October. The U.S. envoy to the U.N. warned that Israel must improve its flow of aid or face cuts to American military assistance.

Journalists arrested, detained

• Israeli military forces arrested Nidal Elian, editor-in-chief at the satellite channel Al-Quds Today, on October 22 in Beit Lahia. 

His wife told CPJ that Israeli military forces issued an order through a drone’s loudspeaker for residents to evacuate the area because the IDF was going to destroy it and to go to a school near the Kamal Adwan hospital. When they arrived, Israeli soldiers separated the men from the women and detained Elian. Elian’s whereabouts remain unknown.

• The IDF also detained Al-Ghad TV’s Al-Zwaidi for several hours on October 25. 

After around four hours of bombing and firing on the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia,  Al-Zwaidi told CPJ that Israeli forces ordered everyone in the hospital to go into the yard and remove their clothes down to their underwear. The journalist said their hands were tied tightly and they were forced to march to a nearby Israeli army barrack, with soldiers and tanks following them. 

Al-Zwaidi told CPJ that the soldiers pressed the muzzles of their guns to the detainees’ heads and ordered them to kneel with their heads on the ground for more than five hours in the sun. He said the soldiers beat him twice before releasing him.  

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these detentions, saying that the IDF detains individuals suspected of terrorist activity and releases anyone found not to be involved. The IDF added that detained individuals are “treated in accordance with international law.” 

Coverage constraints

Journalists who spoke to CPJ said there are very few reporters left to document atrocities in northern Gaza. Those who remain have to struggle with communication and internet shutdowns that limit their ability to report the news.

“There is a frightening difficulty in [obtaining] media coverage inside Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip,” Al-Zwaidi told CPJ. Journalists are trying to continue to circumvent the shutdowns by using e-sims, but the need to find areas of higher elevation to get a signal increases their risk of targeting by Israeli forces.

“I face death at every moment in my attempts to provide media coverage and keep the northern Gaza Strip in the spotlight,” Al-Zwaidi said. 

The IDF has also prevented reporters from approaching sites that have been bombed or attacked, further suppressing documentation of alleged crimes, Osama Al Ashi, a camera operator with China’s state-run CCTV television and freelance documentary producer, told CPJ. 

Equipment shortages, low morale

In addition to shortages of vital equipment such as cameras and protective helmets and vests, the morale of journalists still in northern Gaza is dropping as “they feel ignored by the rest of the world,” Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Quraiqi told CPJ. 

“The lack of interest and assistance directed to journalists locally and internationally allows their continuous targeting and killing,” Quraiqi told CPJ. “Unfortunately, no one stands with journalists, neither in the northern nor the southern Gaza Strip, from official, regional, or international bodies, to provide them with the necessary support.”

Northern Gaza “has become one of the most difficult and dangerous environments for journalistic work in the world,” Al Ashi told CPJ. 

“The feeling of fear and anxiety [occurs] all the time. I fear for my family, and I fear being among them; it is a very difficult feeling,” Al Ashi told CPJ. “But I am convinced that my presence as a journalist in the northern Gaza Strip to convey the image is very important. Otherwise, Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip would be isolated from the entire outside world.”

The difficulties for journalists in northern Gaza “is greater than any description,” Basel Khaireddine, a northern Gaza correspondent for the Iranian state-run broadcaster Al-Alam TV, told CPJ. 

“There is a constant deliberate targeting of journalists, not only because they are journalists and transmit the news, but also because the occupation targets all residents,” Khaireddine told CPJ. “Everyone is within its range of fire, and it does not differentiate between a woman, a man, or a child. It also does not differentiate between a journalist and others, even though journalists are civilians.

Restricting medical care

Amid the destruction of Northern Gaza’s medical facilities and detention of medical staff, as of November 8. Israel had not approved the emergency medical evacuation of Al Jazeera camera operators Fadi Al Wahidi and Ali Al Attar for treatment outside the Gaza Strip. Al Wahidi was severely wounded by a gunshot wound in Jabalia on October 9; Al-Attar sustained serious injuries from shrapnel from an October 7 Israeli airstrike.  

 CPJ has joined other rights organizations in urging Israel to authorize their evacuation and treatment. 

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these injured journalists on October 31 by referring CPJ to COGAT. CPJ’s November 1 email to COGAT asking whether the journalists would be allowed to receive medical care outside the Strip did not receive a response by CPJ’s requested November 4 deadline.

Terror allegations against journalists

On October 23, the IDF accused six Palestinian journalists working with Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, raising fears that they could be targeted for killing by Israeli forces.  

The journalists are Anas al-Sharif, Talal Aruki, Ismail Farid, Alaa Salama, Ashraf Saraj, and Hossam Shabat.

Salama, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in southern Gaza and a journalist for 18 years, told CPJ he denied these “false allegations” against him, adding that he worries that “the Israeli army is creating justifications to…target journalists, especially [as] the Palestinian media has played a major role in refuting the Israeli narrative.”

Saraj, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in central and southern Gaza and a journalist for six years, told CPJ he has felt increasingly in danger since the accusations were made. 

“Since the first day of the war, I have continued my journalistic work, and I have proof of that because the screen belies any allegations,” Saraj told CPJ. “Today, I feel like I am waiting for death and the moment when my martyrdom is announced.”

Shabat, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in northern Gaza, told CPJ that anxiety and fear would not deter them from continuing their coverage.

“We convey the truth on Al Jazeera Mubasher, and we move within the areas classified by Israel as safe,” Shabat said. “We are citizens, and we convey their voices. Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth and do not belong to the Hamas movement.” 

Al Jazeera has rejected the allegations against the journalists and CPJ has condemned Israel’s claims that they are members of militant groups, noting that Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven statements without producing credible evidence.  

The IDF said in its October 31 response to CPJ that it had no further comment on the six journalists beyond what was published on October 23.

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

Saeedi, an editor and producer with ANAR Media YouTube channel, was detained along with Sayed Waris Saeedi, a reporter at the outlet who is also his son, and cameraperson Hasib, who only goes by one name, according to the elder Saeedi’s former colleague Khushal Asefi who spoke with CPJ from exile.

Hasib and the younger Saeedi were released after two days but Saeedi remains in detention for unknown reasons in an unknown location. ANAR Media reports on culture, travel, religion, and social issues.

“Taliban intelligence officials must free Sayed Rahim Saeedi and cease their brutal crackdown on journalists in Afghanistan,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The media has been decimated since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, forcing journalists to work in a climate of fear and robbing the Afghan people of the right to access information. This harassment must stop.”

Restrictions on Afghan media are intensifying, according to the exiled Afghanistan Journalists Center watchdog group, which recorded 89 media freedom violations since the start of 2024.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment via messaging app.

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

At around 2:30 p.m. on November 9, around 20 men, allegedly members of the ruling Awami League party’s student wing Chhatra League, beat Alim, a reporter for the online news portal Rajshahi Post, and Rony, a correspondent for the online newspaper Bangladesh Journal, on the Rajshahi College campus in western Bangladesh, according to privately owned news website New Age, the local press freedom group Bangladeshi Journalists in International Media, and Alim, who spoke with CPJ.

“Bangladeshi authorities and the Rajshahi College administration must immediately hold accountable those who attacked student journalists Abdul Alim and Abu Sayed Rony while reporting on the university campus,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, from Washington, D.C. “The government must take action against the deeply disturbing trend of the Chhatra League’s violence against student journalists on their campuses.”

The journalists were filming an argument between the university vice-principal along with professors and the men, who were led by undergraduate mathematics student Masud Rana, a Chhatra League member who was not permitted to take an examination after repeatedly missing class, according to those sources.

The men recognized Rony, an undergraduate mathematics student, as a journalist, but not Alim, an undergraduate history student, Alim told CPJ.

The men then beat and slapped the journalists, grabbed their collars, and repeatedly pushed them into a wall before they fell unconscious and woke up in the teachers’ lounge. The journalists were taken to the hospital, where Alim was treated for a blood clot in his back and significant bruising throughout his body, and Rony for a severe head inquiry, Alim said.

Following the attack, the journalists learned the perpetrators took their phones, which were returned to them broken, Alim said. Rony did not immediately respond to CPJ’s messages.

The Chhatra League leadership on campus subsequently suspended eight members for their alleged involvement in the attack. University officials have also appointed a committee to investigate the incident, Alim said.

Rony filed a complaint about the attack at the Boalia Police Station, but it was unclear whether a formal investigation had been opened, Alim said, adding that no suspects had been apprehended by the university or police as of November 13.

Rana and the officer-in-charge of the Boalia Police Station did not immediately respond to CPJ’s messages.

On September 24, around 15 to 20 alleged members of the Chhatra League beat student journalist Mosharrof Shah on the University of Chittagong campus.

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

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.