Gaza journalists Shrouq Al Aila and Roshdi Sarraj were on a work trip in Saudi Arabia last fall when their home became a war zone. The married couple quickly returned to Gaza to report and to be with their community. But Sarraj, the founder of local production company Ain Media, would only manage to produce a few reports. On October 22, he was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Al Aila, 29, quickly took over the leadership of Ain Media, covering the war and displacement of Gaza’s residents. “Something that the camera or the video can’t show is the smell,” she told CPJ from the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where she was sheltering with her young daughter. “I take a picture of something and I look at the real scene in front of me and I feel like 70% of the immensity, the magnitude, and harshness of the scene aren’t reflected in the photo or in the video.”
Al Aila has since moved to a tent in Deir al-Balah to escape Israel’s expanded offensive in Rafah, the family’s third displacement since the war began.
Two masked motorcyclists shot and killed Ashfaq Ahmed Sial, a reporter for the Daily Khabrain newspaper, while he was on his way to work in central Punjab province on May 15, before fleeing the scene, according to local nonprofit Freedom Network and news reports.
The motive behind the killing was unclear, and the Committee to Protect Journalists called for an immediate investigation into the killing. On May 3, a journalist for the local newspaper The Daily Baakhbar Quetta, died after a motorcyclist placed a bomb on the journalist’s vehicle at a busy crossing in Khuzdar city.
Pakistan continues to be a perilous environment for journalists, with increasing risk for those who critically report on powerful entities and criminal activity.
We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
Jam Saghir Ahmed Lar
Daily Khabrain, Pakistan
Zayd Abu Zayed
Quran Radio, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Myat Thu Tan
Western News, Myanmar
Mardonio Mejía
Sonora Estéreo, Colombia
Hamza Al Dahdouh
Al-Jazeera, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Mustafa Thuraya
Freelance, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory