Asia

“Nothing seems able to stop the violence against journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said today after learning that A Philippines radio commentator Eugene Paet was wounded in a shooting attack Thursday in a the northern province of Ilocos Sur, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The motive for the attempt to kill Paet is not yet clear but his family said it could be linked to...

Several Afghan journalists’ organisations have appealed to the people who are holding a France 3 television crew hostage to free them without delay. More than 30 journalists in the provinces of Kapisa, Panshir and Parwan issued a statement Thursday call for the release of their “French colleagues.” The France 3 crew that was abducted on December 29 while investigating the construction of a road in...

A court has imposed a 20-year jail sentence on Hla Hla Win, a freelance video reporter who provided material to the Burmese exile broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma. Detained since September, she was already given a seven-year sentence in October, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and Burma Media Association (BMA) have reported. “People had been expecting signs of an opening and goodwill gestures...

Canadian journalist Michelle Lang died Wednesday while embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Lang was working for the Calgary Herald and Canwest News Service when she was killed along with four Canadian soldiers while travelling in a Canadian military convoy. Their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb about two miles...

A TV crew working for the French TV station France 3 that was abducted in the northeastern province of Kapisa on December 29. The victims include two French journalists and at least two Afghans, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The security situation in Afghanistan, including the Kapisa region, is such that we cannot rule out any hypothesis,” Paris-based RSF said. “We will have to...

A suicide bomber detonated an explosive Tuesday on the grounds of the Press Club building in Peshawar, in the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local and international media reports. Three, possibly four, people were killed, though none of the approximately 30 journalists waiting for a press conference to start...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the behaviour of the authorities in the southwestern province of Balochistan in letting seven days go by before admitting that they were holding Rehmatullah Shaheen, a reporter for the Baloch nationalist newspaper Daily Tawar in Bolan District. Shaheen was reported missing on December 8 but it was only after a wave of protests that the local...

Three journalists, all on assignment for the Guardian, were abducted in December 2009 and released after six days, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting the paper. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi, ad two unnamed Afghan journalists had been planning to interview militants in Afghanistan’s mountainous Kunar province near the border with Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province...

On the 100th day after the sentencing of journalist JS Tissainayagam, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to use his constitutional powers to release him from the 20-year prison sentence that was given to him on August 31. Tissainayagam, also known as Tissa, was one of dozens of ethnic Tamil journalists who were swept up...

Police in Nepal should thoroughly investigate reports that journalist Tika Bista was brutally attacked on Tuesday in reprisal for her work, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Wednesday. Bista was discovered unconscious near her home in Rukum district, western Nepal on Tuesday afternoon, with serious injuries to her head, legs, and arms, according to local press freedom...