The paper's April 18 account of four mechanisms of press reduction on a single page mapped CBS Radio, the Pentagon corridor, Novaya Gazeta and Disney. Sunday adds a fifth mechanism: the Gulf wartime-speech law.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, a forty-one-year-old Kuwaiti-American journalist who has worked for the BBC, The New York Times, Al Jazeera English, Vice, PBS, and as a Columbia adjunct, has been detained in Kuwait since March 3. [1] He has not been seen in public or posted online since March 2, when he shared on Substack a geolocated video — verified by CNN — of a US F-15E Strike Eagle crashing near a US air base in al-Jahra, west of Kuwait City. Three American planes were shot down by Kuwaiti air defences on March 2 in a friendly-fire incident. No pilots were killed. [2]

The Committee to Protect Journalists said on April 14 that authorities have charged Shihab-Eldin with spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing his mobile phone — what regional director Sara Qudah called "vague and overly broad accusations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists." [3] Kuwait enacted Law No. 13 of 2026 on March 15; Article 26 imposes up to ten years in prison for spreading false information about military authorities. [3]

On March 9, Emir Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Jaber Al Sabah decreed a new state-security special tribunal. [1] Qatar's Interior Ministry has reported 313 arrests since March 9 for filming or posting wartime images; Abu Dhabi reported 375 on April 8. [4] A State Department spokesperson confirmed to Zeteo awareness of Shihab-Eldin's case but would not say whether the department was working to secure his release. [2]

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin