News

Reporters Without Borders called today on provincial and national authorities to thoroughly investigate the murder on 21 May of photojournalist Dodie Nunez, of the regional newspaper Katapat, which had criticised corruption. It said the killing may have had political motives. Nunez was returning home in Cavite province, south of Manila, when three motorcyclists stopped the bus he was on and shot...

Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about the action of the Chinese foreign ministry in summoning and warning two western journalists about their reporting from Tibet last month, and it called on Beijing Olympic Games organiser Liu Qi to clarify the status of Tibet in the new rules for foreign journalists. "The Beijing games organising committee has just published a very detailed report...

(IPYS/IFEX) - In testimony given between 16 and 18 May 2007, paramilitary chief Juan Francisco Prada Márquez confessed that on 2004 he ordered the murder of journalist Martín Larrota Duarte because Larrota Duarte had opposed the paramilitary umbrella group known as the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. The paramilitary chief was then the head of the "Héctor Julio Peinado" front, which operated in...

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 19 May 2007, journalist Nelson Álvarez Narváez, a columnist with the newspaper "El Siglo de Maracay", was murdered during a birthday party at his mother's house. A hit man burst into the house and shot him six times. The murderer then fled in a car, accompanied by another man. The crime took place in the city of Maracay, Aragua state, in central Venezuela. The motives for the...

New York, May 25, 2007—The Mexican federal government must provide immediate protection to the Hermosillo-based daily Cambio de Sonora so it can resume publishing, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The paper announced Thursday that it would suspend publication after two bomb attacks and repeated threats. Mario Vázquez Raña, president of the Mexican Editorial Organization (OEM)...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Reuters identified an anonymous source on Friday after Singapore's Court of Appeal ordered a reporter for the international news agency to disclose the name and the source gave permission to do so. The source released the reporter from her duty of confidentiality when it became clear that the reporter would face jail unless she complied with the court order, confirmed by the...

BAKU, May 25, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Elmar Huseynov, an Azerbaijani editor of the journal "Monitor," which focused frequently on corruption, was gunned down outside his apartment on March 2, 2005. Although there have been arrests and confessions, his murder has never been officially solved. Such cases are common across the CIS and, despite protestations from international media watchdogs, journalists...

ASHGABAT, May 25, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The following was written by Halmyrat Gylychdurdy, an RFE/RL Turkmen Service correspondent in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat. RFE/RL correspondents have experienced widespread harassment, threats, detentions, and jail terms since Turkmenistan gained independence in 1991. One correspondent, Ogulsapar Muradov, died in unexplained circumstances last year while jailed...

May 25, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Independent Kazakh journalist Sergey Duvanov has been convicted by an Almaty court of organizing unsanctioned gathering and ordered to pay a fine, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports. Duvanov was among a small group of protesters who turned out in Almaty on May 24 to express objections to constitutional amendments, approved by the legislature, allowing President Nursultan...

New York, May 25, 2007—Colombian radio journalist Rodrigo Callejas has been forced to flee his home in the western Tolima province after receiving death threats from an alleged guerrilla commander. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Colombian authorities today to provide Callejas with the necessary protection to allow him to work without fear of reprisal. Callejas, host of the daily...