CAIRO: Egypt has freed Al-Jazeera journalist Mahmoud Hussein, a security source said Friday, after four years in jail without trial following the end last month of a rift between the two Arab states.
Hussein, an Egyptian national who had been imprisoned since December 23, 2016, was released on Thursday night, the Egyptian security source told AFP without elaborating.
But Gamal Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, said that while the decision to release Hussein had been taken, “he has still not returned home and is still being held.”
The 54-year-old was detained in Cairo when he returned for a family holiday, and was accused of incitement against state institutions and spreading false news.
Qatar’s Al-Jazeera – which has run a daily campaign calling for his liberation – did not immediately confirm his release. It has repeatedly said he was being held “without formal charges nor trial.”
Hussein’s reported release comes two weeks after Egypt and Qatar restored ties, following a three-year Saudi-led freeze on relations with Doha.
Egypt, along with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed the lead of Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia and cut ties with Qatar in June 2017, alleging it backed radical Islamist groups and was too close to Riyadh’s rival Iran – claims Doha denied.
Ties were restored following a Gulf summit held in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia last month.
“Releasing Hussein could indicate a sign of goodwill from Cairo to Al Jazeera that it wants a thaw in its relations with the news channel,” said King’s College London assistant professor Andreas Krieg.
“But overall this is more about polishing its terrible human rights record a bit vis-a-vis the (US President Joe) Biden administration,” he said.
“The new tone and priorities in Washington really created fears in Egypt that America will sever relations.”
Egyptian analyst Amr El-Shobaki said Hussein’s release could be linked to rumored plans to review of the status of prisoners in the country.
“There are those ... who believe there should be a change concerning prisoners held in cases related to freedom of expression,” particularly in light of the new US administration, he said.
In May 2019 prosecutors ordered Hussein be released, but a week later he was slapped with another set of charges and ordered to stay in detention.
Al-Jazeera was caught up in a spat between Cairo and Doha after the 2013 military ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, who was backed by Qatar.
Cairo considered it a mouthpiece for Morsi’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood movement, and access to its website has been blocked in Egypt since 2017.
“For Egypt, Al Jazeera remains the most important nuisance in the relationship with Qatar,” said Krieg.
After Morsi’s ouster, authorities arrested three Al-Jazeera journalists, including Australian Peter Greste, provoking international condemnation.
Faced with accusations similar to those levelled against Hussein, they were released in 2015 after receiving pardons from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
El-Sisi’s government is regularly accused of crushing all forms of dissent and repressing political opponents.
Under his rule, authorities have jailed thousands of Morsi’s Islamist supporters as well as liberal and secular activists, including popular bloggers, actors, singers and journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists had said that as of December 2020, at least 27 journalists were imprisoned in Egypt in relation to their work, including several from Al-Jazeera.
Analysts also linked Hussein’s release to Egyptian hopes of wooing investment.
“It may be purely random timing. But it wouldn’t be surprising if the Egyptian government sought ways to remove barriers to ever greater Qatari investment,” said David Roberts of King’s College London.
Tobias Borck of the Royal United Services Institute noted that the day after the Gulf summit renewing ties with Doha, a Qatari delegation was in Cairo for the inauguration of a Qatari-owned hotel.
“I am not sure to what extent this particular move is part of a thawing in relations,” said Borck.
“But it is rather obvious that Cairo and Doha have been in touch for a while – the opening of the $1 billion St. Regis in Cairo the day after the Al-Ula Summit made that pretty clear.”
Egypt frees Jazeera journalist after Qatar thaw
https://arab.news/mqyb3
Egypt frees Jazeera journalist after Qatar thaw
- The 54-year-old was detained in Cairo when he returned for a family holiday
Iraq arrests commentator over online post on Iran-Israel war
- Iraqi forces arrested Abbas Al-Ardawi for sharing content online that included incitement intended to insult and defame the security institution
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities said they arrested a political commentator on Wednesday over a post alleging that a military radar system struck by a drone had been used to help Israel in its war against Iran.
After a court issued a warrant, the defense ministry said that Iraqi forces arrested Abbas Al-Ardawi for sharing content online that included “incitement intended to insult and defame the security institution.”
In a post on X, which was later deleted but has circulated on social media as a screenshot, Ardawi told his more than 90,000 followers that “a French radar in the Taji base served the Israeli aggression” and was eliminated.
Early Tuesday, hours before a ceasefire ended the 12-day Iran-Israel war, unidentified drones struck radar systems at two military bases in Taji, north of Baghdad, and in southern Iraq, officials have said.
The Taji base hosted US troops several years ago and was a frequent target of rocket attacks.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the latest drone attacks, which also struck radar systems at the Imam Ali air base in Dhi Qar province.
A source close to Iran-backed groups in Iraq told AFP that the armed factions have nothing to do with the attacks.
Ardawi is seen as a supporter of Iran-aligned armed groups who had launched attack US forces in the region in the past, and of the pro-Tehran Coordination Framework, a powerful political coalition that holds a parliamentary majority.
The Iraqi defense ministry said that Ardawi’s arrest was made on the instructions of the prime minister, who also serves as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, “not to show leniency toward anyone who endangers the security and stability of the country.”
It added that while “the freedom of expression is a guaranteed right... it is restricted based on national security and the country’s top interests.”
Iran-backed groups have criticized US deployment in Iraq as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, saying the American forces allowed Israel to use Iraq’s airspace.
The US-led coalition also includes French troops, who have been training Iraqi forces. There is no known French deployment at the Taji base.
The Iran-Israel war had forced Baghdad to close its airspace, before reopening on Tuesday shortly after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire.
Grok shows ‘flaws’ in fact-checking Israel-Iran war: study
- “Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims”
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok produced inaccurate and contradictory responses when users sought to fact-check the Israel-Iran conflict, a study said Tuesday, raising fresh doubts about its reliability as a debunking tool.
With tech platforms reducing their reliance on human fact-checkers, users are increasingly utilizing AI-powered chatbots — including xAI’s Grok — in search of reliable information, but their responses are often themselves prone to misinformation.
“The investigation into Grok’s performance during the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict exposes significant flaws and limitations in the AI chatbot’s ability to provide accurate, reliable, and consistent information during times of crisis,” said the study from the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council, an American think tank.
“Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims.”
The DFRLab analyzed around 130,000 posts in various languages on the platform X, where the AI assistant is built in, to find that Grok was “struggling to authenticate AI-generated media.”
Following Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, Grok offered vastly different responses to similar prompts about an AI-generated video of a destroyed airport that amassed millions of views on X, the study found.
It oscillated — sometimes within the same minute — between denying the airport’s destruction and confirming it had been damaged by strikes, the study said.
In some responses, Grok cited the a missile launched by Yemeni rebels as the source of the damage. In others, it wrongly identified the AI-generated airport as one in Beirut, Gaza, or Tehran.
When users shared another AI-generated video depicting buildings collapsing after an alleged Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, Grok responded that it appeared to be real, the study said.
The Israel-Iran conflict, which led to US air strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program over the weekend, has churned out an avalanche of online misinformation including AI-generated videos and war visuals recycled from other conflicts.
AI chatbots also amplified falsehoods.
As the Israel-Iran war intensified, false claims spread across social media that China had dispatched military cargo planes to Tehran to offer its support.
When users asked the AI-operated X accounts of AI companies Perplexity and Grok about its validity, both wrongly responded that the claims were true, according to disinformation watchdog NewsGuard.
Researchers say Grok has previously made errors verifying information related to crises such as the recent India-Pakistan conflict and anti-immigration protests in Los Angeles.
Last month, Grok was under renewed scrutiny for inserting “white genocide” in South Africa, a far-right conspiracy theory, into unrelated queries.
Musk’s startup xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for the unsolicited response.
Musk, a South African-born billionaire, has previously peddled the unfounded claim that South Africa’s leaders were “openly pushing for genocide” of white people.
Musk himself blasted Grok after it cited Media Matters — a liberal media watchdog he has targeted in multiple lawsuits — as a source in some of its responses about misinformation.
“Shame on you, Grok,” Musk wrote on X. “Your sourcing is terrible.”
Tech-fueled misinformation distorts Iran-Israel fighting
- It is no surprise that as generative-AI tools continue to improve in photo-realism, they are being misused to spread misinformation
WASHINGTON: AI deepfakes, video game footage passed off as real combat, and chatbot-generated falsehoods — such tech-enabled misinformation is distorting the Israel-Iran conflict, fueling a war of narratives across social media.
The information warfare unfolding alongside ground combat — sparked by Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leadership — underscores a digital crisis in the age of rapidly advancing AI tools that have blurred the lines between truth and fabrication.
The surge in wartime misinformation has exposed an urgent need for stronger detection tools, experts say, as major tech platforms have largely weakened safeguards by scaling back content moderation and reducing reliance on human fact-checkers.
After Iran struck Israel with barrages of missiles last week, AI-generated videos falsely claimed to show damage inflicted on Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport.
The videos were widely shared across Facebook, Instagram and X.
Using a reverse image search, AFP’s fact-checkers found that the clips were originally posted by a TikTok account that produces AI-generated content.
There has been a “surge in generative AI misinformation, specifically related to the Iran-Israel conflict,” Ken Jon Miyachi, founder of the Austin-based firm BitMindAI, told AFP.
“These tools are being leveraged to manipulate public perception, often amplifying divisive or misleading narratives with unprecedented scale and sophistication.”
GetReal Security, a US company focused on detecting manipulated media including AI deepfakes, also identified a wave of fabricated videos related to the Israel-Iran conflict.
The company linked the visually compelling videos — depicting apocalyptic scenes of war-damaged Israeli aircraft and buildings as well as Iranian missiles mounted on a trailer — to Google’s Veo 3 AI generator, known for hyper-realistic visuals.
The Veo watermark is visible at the bottom of an online video posted by the news outlet Tehran Times, which claims to show “the moment an Iranian missile” struck Tel Aviv.
“It is no surprise that as generative-AI tools continue to improve in photo-realism, they are being misused to spread misinformation and sow confusion,” said Hany Farid, the co-founder of GetReal Security and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Farid offered one tip to spot such deepfakes: the Veo 3 videos were normally eight seconds in length or a combination of clips of a similar duration.
“This eight-second limit obviously doesn’t prove a video is fake, but should be a good reason to give you pause and fact-check before you re-share,” he said.
The falsehoods are not confined to social media.
Disinformation watchdog NewsGuard has identified 51 websites that have advanced more than a dozen false claims — ranging from AI-generated photos purporting to show mass destruction in Tel Aviv to fabricated reports of Iran capturing Israeli pilots.
Sources spreading these false narratives include Iranian military-linked Telegram channels and state media sources affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, NewsGuard said.
“We’re seeing a flood of false claims and ordinary Iranians appear to be the core targeted audience,” McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher with NewsGuard, told AFP.
Sadeghi described Iranian citizens as “trapped in a sealed information environment,” where state media outlets dominate in a chaotic attempt to “control the narrative.”
Iran itself claimed to be a victim of tech manipulation, with local media reporting that Israel briefly hacked a state television broadcast, airing footage of women’s protests and urging people to take to the streets.
Adding to the information chaos were online clips lifted from war-themed video games.
AFP’s fact-checkers identified one such clip posted on X, which falsely claimed to show an Israeli jet being shot down by Iran. The footage bore striking similarities to the military simulation game Arma 3.
Israel’s military has rejected Iranian media reports claiming its fighter jets were downed over Iran as “fake news.”
Chatbots such as xAI’s Grok, which online users are increasingly turning to for instant fact-checking, falsely identified some of the manipulated visuals as real, researchers said.
“This highlights a broader crisis in today’s online information landscape: the erosion of trust in digital content,” BitMindAI’s Miyachi said.
“There is an urgent need for better detection tools, media literacy, and platform accountability to safeguard the integrity of public discourse.”
BBC shelves Gaza documentary over impartiality concerns, sparking online outrage
- The film, titled “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” had been under editorial consideration by the broadcaster for several months.
LONDON: The BBC has decided not to air a highly anticipated documentary about medics in Gaza, citing concerns over maintaining its standards of impartiality amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
The film, titled “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” (also known as “Gaza: Medics Under Fire”), was produced by independent company Basement Films and had been under editorial consideration by the broadcaster for several months.
In a statement issued on June 20, the BBC said it had concluded that broadcasting the documentary “risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the BBC’s editorial standards.” The rights have since been returned to the filmmakers, allowing them to seek distribution elsewhere.
The decision comes in the wake of growing scrutiny over how the BBC is covering the Israel-Gaza war. Earlier this year, the broadcaster faced backlash after airing “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone,” a short film narrated by a 13-year-old boy later revealed to be the son of a Hamas official. The segment triggered nearly 500 complaints, prompting an internal review and raising questions about vetting, translation accuracy, and the use of sources in conflict zones.
BBC insiders report that portions of “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” had been considered for integration into existing news programming. However, concerns reportedly emerged during internal reviews that even limited broadcast could undermine the BBC’s reputation for neutrality, particularly given the politically charged context of the ongoing war.
Filmmaker Ben de Pear and journalist Ramita Navai, who worked on the documentary, have expressed disappointment at the decision. They argue that the film provided a necessary and unfiltered look at the conditions medical workers face in Gaza. “This is a documentary about doctors — about the reality of trying to save lives under bombardment,” said Navai. “To shelve this is to silence those voices.”
Critics of the BBC’s decision have been vocal on social media and online forums, accusing the broadcaster of yielding to political pressure and censoring Palestinian perspectives. One commenter wrote, “Sorry, supporters of the Israeli government would get very offended if we demonstrated the consequences … so we shelved it.” Others, however, defended the move, citing the importance of neutrality in public service broadcasting.
A BBC spokesperson said the decision was made independently of political influence and reflected long-standing editorial guidelines. “We are committed to reporting the Israel-Gaza conflict with accuracy and fairness. In this case, we concluded the content, in its current form, could compromise audience trust.”
With the rights now returned, Basement Films is expected to seek other avenues for release. Whether the documentary will reach the public via another broadcaster or platform remains to be seen.
Iran’s Internet blackout leaves public in dark, creates uneven picture of war with Israel
- Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings
- Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare
DUBAI: As the war between Israel and Iran hits the one-week mark, Iranians have spent nearly half of the conflict in a near-communication blackout, unable to connect not only with the outside world but also with their neighbors and loved ones across the country.
Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings through their Persian-language online channels. When the missiles land, disconnected phone and web services mean not knowing for hours or days if their family or friends are among the victims. That’s left many scrambling on various social media apps to see what’s happening — again, only a glimpse of life able to reach the Internet in a nation of over 80 million people.
Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare for a nation all-too familiar with state information controls and targeted Internet shutdowns during protests and unrest.
“The Iranian regime controls the information sphere really, really tightly,” Marwa Fatafta, the Berlin-based policy and advocacy director for digital rights group Access Now, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We know why the Iranian regime shuts down. It wants to control information. So their goal is quite clear.”
War with Israel tightens information space
But this time, it’s happening during a deadly conflict that erupted on June 13 with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based group called Human Rights Activists.
Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli military estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel’s multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds others wounded. Guidance from Israeli authorities, as well as round-the-clock news broadcasts, flows freely and consistently to Israeli citizens, creating in the last seven days an uneven picture of the death and destruction brought by the war.
The Iranian government contended Friday that it was Israel who was “waging a war on truth and human conscience.” In a post on X, a social media platform blocked for many of its citizens, Iran’s Foreign Ministry asserted Israel banned foreign media from covering missile strikes.
The statement added that Iran would organize “global press tours to expose Israel’s war crimes” in the country. Iran is one of the world’s top jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and in the best of times, reporters face strict restrictions.
Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported on Friday that Iran had been disconnected from the global Internet for 36 hours, with its live metrics showing that national connectivity remained at only a few percentage points of normal levels. The group said a handful of users have been able to maintain connectivity through virtual private networks.
Few avenues exist to get information
Those lucky few have become lifelines for Iranians left in the dark. In recent days, those who have gained access to mobile Internet for a limited time describe using that fleeting opportunity to make calls on behalf of others, checking in on elderly parents and grandparents, and locating those who have fled Tehran.
The only access to information Iranians do have is limited to websites in the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, Iran’s state-run television and radio stations offer irregular updates on what’s happening inside the country, instead focusing their time on the damage wrought by their strikes on Israel.
The lack of information going in or out of Iran is stunning, considering that the advancement of technology in recent decades has only brought far-flung conflicts in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere directly to a person’s phone anywhere in the world.
That direct line has been seen by experts as a powerful tool to shift public opinion about any ongoing conflict and potentially force the international community to take a side. It has also turned into real action from world leaders under public and online pressure to act or use their power to bring an end to the fighting.
But Mehdi Yahyanejad, a key figure in promoting Internet freedom in Iran, said that the Islamic Republic is seeking to “purport an image” of strength, one that depicts only the narrative that Israel is being destroyed by sophisticated Iranian weapons that include ballistic missiles with multiple warheads.
“I think most likely they’re just afraid of the Internet getting used to cause mass unrest in the next phase of whatever is happening,” Yahayanejad said. “I mean, some of it could be, of course, planned by the Israelis through their agents on the ground, and some of this could be just a spontaneous unrest by the population once they figure out that the Iranian government is badly weakened.
