Ahmed Shihab-Eldin

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin (; born September 16, 1984) is an American-born Kuwaiti journalist, actor and media personality of Palestinian descent.

Career

Shihab-Eldin started his career at PBS, and, after joining Al Jazeera English in 2009, He produced several documentaries for Wide Angle on PBS and others for Vice on HBO. The same year, he was featured in the Jordanian film The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was awarded in the short film category at the El Gouna Film Festival. and in the 2025 film Palestine 36, in the role of Maher.

Having previously been an adjunct professor in Digital Media at his alma mater, the Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism,

Awards and recognition In 2008, Shihab-Eldin won a Webby Award for master's digital media project, "Defining Middle Ground: The Next Generation of Muslim New Yorkers."

In 2012, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Most Innovative Program in 2012, for creating and co-hosting the Al Jazeera interactive talk show The Stream.

In 2023, Shihab-Eldin won an Amnesty International UK Media Award in Digital Creativity for his BBC documentary Queer Egypt Under Attack, which also earned him a British Journalism Award for Social Affairs, Diversity & Inclusion.

Imprisonment On March 3, 2026, Shihab-Eldin was detained by Kuwaiti authorities for resharing news articles about the Iran war; the previous day, he had posted images of a U.S. fighter jet crashing over the country. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that he had not been seen publicly in Kuwait, where he was visiting family, since March 2, and that he was under arrest over accusations of "spreading false information," "harming national security" and "misusing his mobile phone;" the incident occurred as part of a wider wave of crackdowns targeting journalists across different Gulf states amid the war.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, confirmed on March 14 that he had been imprisoned by Kuwaiti authorities for his work, and asked that he be released. The following month, the CPJ opened a petition to pressure Kuwait to liberate him "immediately and unconditionally."

On April 29, 2026, an Emiri decree appeared in the official gazette Al Kuwait Al Yawm with a list of citizens who had been stripped of their Kuwaiti citizenship, which included Shihab-Eldin's name. The same day, Jodie Ginsberg from CPJ relayed a new statement from his lawyers that he had not been fully acquitted, with the prosecution having appealed the disposal of the charges.