Published date: 17 February 2021 12:35 UTC | Last update: 1 month 1 week ago
Syrian militant group Hay at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has released US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem after imprisoning him for six months in northwest Syria.
HTS detained Abdul Kareem in August after he reported on allegations that the militant group tortured detainees inside its prisons.
Abdul Kareem is a Middle East Eye contributor who has been in opposition-controlled Syria since 2014. His detention followed a string of arrests by HTS of aid workers and journalists in Idlib province and its environs.
Moazzam Begg, the outreach director for UK-based human rights group CAGE, campaigned for Abdul Kareem s release and spoke to him after he was freed.
“We welcome the release, even though it has taken so long, but we are still concerned, said Ignacio Delgado Culebras, the Middle East and North Africa representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists. We need to find out if there are any charges pending against him and we would also like [Hayat Tahrir Al Shams] to allow journalists to do their job freely without arresting them at random, and allow more press freedom in the area under their control.
A US State Department official said: “The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the [department].
The Atlantic
America’s Shadow Death Row
The government does not exclusively kill people who are on death row. It condemns many to die by drone strike.
January 22, 2021
Christopher Griffin / Handout / Reuters
Last week, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor published a dissent in a death-penalty case that flagged the striking number of killings taking place in the last months of the Trump administration. “After seventeen years without a single federal execution, the Government has executed twelve people since July,” she wrote, calling it “an unprecedented, breakneck timetable of executions.” As an opponent of capital punishment, I am pleased to see it criticized. But Sotomayor’s claim that the federal government went 17 years without executing anyone is misleading, because the federal government does not exclusively kill men and women who are on death row. It maintains a kill list of people whom it condemns to die in secret and kills with drones.