Waiting for Shihab-Eldin
Early last month, the journalist was arrested in Kuwait on the basis of what CPJ calls “vague and overly broad accusations.” I’ve known him to be a reporter who is quick and elegant and resists euphemism.
On March 3, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, an independent journalist with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and other platforms, was arrested in Kuwait City. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), authorities have charged him with “spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing his mobile phone,” allegations that CPJ said were “vague and overly broad accusations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists.”
I’ve known Shihab-Eldin—who is forty-one, and an American-born Kuwaiti citizen of Palestinian descent—for years. We both attended Columbia Journalism School at different times, and he has gone on to become an award-winning journalist whose work spans major international outlets, from PBS Frontline to the New York Times, covering social justice and human rights issues in the United States, the Middle East, and beyond. I have known privately about Shihab-Eldin’s circumstances for a while, but press freedom advocates have only now determined that going public could help his case.
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