Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, an award-winning international journalist, has been detained for over a month by the Kuwaiti authorities following social media posts related to the Iran war, campaigners say.
The 41-year-old, an American-born Kuwaiti national, was arrested on 2 March while visiting family in Kuwait. He has been arbitraily detained since then with limited access to his lawyer.
The reasons for Shihab-Eldin’s arrest remain unclear, but the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that it came after he made a series of social media posts related to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The posts included footage of a US fighter jet crashing into a US air base in Kuwait. The CPJ emphasised that he had shared publicly available footage and images.
The press freedom organisation added that Shihab-Eldin is likely charged with spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing his mobile phone - which it says are routinely used against independent journalists by the Kuwaiti authorities.
Kuwait detaining journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin after social media posts
