ARCHIVES: Asia
Nepalese journalist Shreedeep Rayamajhi is being subjected to violent attacks and continuing threats in connection with his online reporting, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Rayamajhi told CPJ that he began receiving threatening emails from an unknown sender in June, warning him to stop writing and to erase his profile from online news outlets. The email's sender did not say what report sparked their anger. On November 16, several men attacked him while... MORE
Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) is supporting a request by Shakil Turabi, the editor-in-chief of the Islamabad-based South Asian News Agency (SANA), for the authorities to carry a rapid and thorough investigation into his 18-year-old son's disappearance since January 5 this year. Turabi believes that military intelligence agencies were involved in abducting his son, Hasan Sharjeel. He received a letter in June purporting to come from the abductors, who indicated... MORE
After repeated death threats, journalist Misri Khan was shot dead Tuesday by unidentified gunmen outside his office in Hangu, in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. No one claimed the killing but his son thought a religious group could have been involved. Khan was the correspondent of the dailies Mashriq and Ausaf and ran a newspaper distribution agency. Khan’s 25-year-old son, Umer Farooq Orakzai, told Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), “I think my... MORE
China's colossal Sanmenxia dam has a new victim – Xie Chaoping, a journalist who was arrested without a warrant in the northeastern city of Weinan on August 19 after writing a book about the fate of those displaced by the dam, according to delayed reports. He is now reportedly being held by the Public Security Department in Beijing. Much has been written about this dam, a major source of environmental damage and human suffering, but it seems the authorities do not welcome any investigative... MORE
A British journalist held hostage by militants in north-west Pakistan has been freed after spending almost six months in captivity. Asad Qureshi was abducted with two former Pakistani intelligence officers while travelling in the Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan. Local newspapers reported that a ransom of 14m rupees was paid although there was no independent confirmation. Qureshi went missing en route to North Waziristan on March 26 to interview Taliban leaders for a documentary. A... MORE
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern at an Indonesian Supreme Court ruling against Erwin Arnada, editor of the now-dormant Playboy Indonesia . Arnada faces up to two years in jail after prosecutors said recently that they would enforce a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that found the magazine's editor guilty of public indecency, according to news reports. Defence attorneys have told local and foreign media that they will file a request with the court in mid-September to... MORE
Unidentified assailants stabbed reporter Adams Ledesma Valenzuela to death in an impoverished neighbourhood in Buenos Aires on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local and international press. Ledesma, 41, a Bolivian-born reporter for the community weekly newspaper Mundo Villa and director of local TV station Mundo Villa, was found stabbed to death around 4:30 a.m. near his home in Villa 31, a shantytown in northern Buenos Aires. His wife, Ruth Marlene... MORE
Chinese journalists are increasingly finding themselves the targets of threats and censorship by private-sector companies (and some state companies as well). Several cases with serious implications for press freedom in China have illustrated this privatisation of censorship and violence against journalists in the past few weeks. The phenomenon is not new, but it is tending to grow in an alarming manner. In one case, two journalists had a run-in with the police for writing a story about a... MORE
Journalist AS Mani has been release on bail on an order that his lawyer managed to obtain from a Tamil Nadu appeal court on Thursday last. The publisher and editor of the Chennai-based magazine Naveena Netrikkan , Mani will however have to remain for the next month in Chidambaram, which is 250 km from Chennai. Arrested on the orders of Police Commissioner SR Jangid on July 19 after publishing an article about police corruption, Mani was held on trumped-up charges, including one of attempted... MORE
A prominent Afghan television news journalist and political activist has been murdered near his Kabul home. Sayed Hamid Noori, who was also deputy head of Afghanistan's National Journalists' Association, was found dead of knife wounds late Sunday. "Someone called him and asked him to come down from his apartment last night. His body was found later by police in a tree-covered area near his home," deputy Kabul police chief Khalilullah Dastyar told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Another media rights... MORE
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