Asia

Death threats have been made against TV journalist Farid Alam by the underground Islamist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) following the publication of Alam's book Islamic Militancy: Bangladesh Context, according to Reporters sans Frontières. Blamed by JMB for the death sentence imposed on its leader, Alam fled the country and is currently in exile in Europe. The death threats were made...

China should open Tibetan areas to independent monitors and journalists as a means of diffusing ethnic tensions and preventing violence on the eve of a string of politically sensitive anniversaries, Human Rights Watch has demanded. One year after the largest Tibetan protests for more than two decades, the presence of such observers would serve as an incentive for good behavior for crowds, which...

Press freedom groups have rubbished the charges that Sri Lankan newspaper editor Nadesapillai Vithyatharan helped Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels carry out a suicide air strike on Colombo on February 20. Vithyatharan was arrested Thursday in Colombo. According to friends who were with him at the time, police detained Vithyatharan while he was attending the funeral of a friend in...

An attempt to murder was made on Pakistani editor and civil servant Jan Muhammad Dashti on February 23 in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has reported. The owner and editor of the Quetta-based daily Asaap, Dashti was flown to Karachi for treatment after being shot in the head and arm. The attack has been claimed by a radical Sunni...

Ernesto Rollin, a presenter on local radio DxSY-AM in Ozamiz City, in Misamis Occidental province (on the southern island of Mindanao) was killed on February 23. He was the first journalist to be killed this year in the Philippines, but the 99th since the return to democracy in 1986. Aged about 40, Rollin was gunned down at close range at about 5:30 a.m. in a service station in nearby Oroquieta...

Australian writer Harry Nicolaides has flown back home from Thailand after being granted a royal pardon on February 19. Press freedom groups have called upon authorities to reform the draconian lese majeste laws under which he was sentenced. On his arrival at Melbourne airport on February 21, a moved Nicolaides thanked his fellow Australians for their support during the more than five months in...

China's decision to establish a list of reporters who break reporting rules and prevent them from continuing to report or edit news is a cause for concern, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The decision to create a blacklist was reported in an article on the website of the official China Press and Publishing Journal. The journal's report, titled "Strengthen oversight and service...

A judge in the Philippines has lifted the warrant of arrest he himself had issued against the alleged killers of radio broadcaster Dennis Cuesta. Judge Isaac Alvero Moran, of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 36, of General Santos City, on February 12 revoked the February 3 warrant of arrest issued against Police Inspector Redempto "Boy" Acharon and several other suspects in the killing of...

A Tamil journalist was killed in a Sri Lankan Army bombardment on the north of the country, an incident that the has been described by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) as a "war crime". Punniyamurthy Sathyamurthy was killed during an air raid on February 12 on Thevipuram, Mullaithivu district in the region of Vanni, being fought over by the army and rebel Tamil Tigers (LTTE). He had recently filed...

The Indonesian government should launch an immediate investigation into the death of journalist Anak Agung Prabangsa, a reporter with the Indonesian-language Radar Bali daily, the Committee to Protect Journalists has demanded. On Monday, Prabangsa's body was found floating off the coast of Bali island's Bias Tugel beach near Padangbai Bay. The 41-year-old journalist was first reported missing on...