Asia

Local Taliban have threatened four journalists in the South Waziristan Agency of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), warning them to give up their profession or face the consequences, Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) has reported. According to press reports, the threat was issued in pamphlets circulated by local Taliban in the town of Wana in South Waziristan. The pamphlet...

A reporter of a Rangoon-based weekly journal, Ecovision, has been charged with "committing crimes against public tranquility" and "inciting hatred against the government," according to Mizzima News. Ma Eint Khaing Oo of Ecovision was produced before the Tamwe Township Court in Rangoon Division for the first time on June 24 and charged under Section 505(b) and 124(a) of the Criminal Code. Offences...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern over the attack Monday evening on Namal Perera, freelance journalist and deputy head of the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI), a media rights advocacy group. Perera was attacked by men with iron bars in Colombo while travelling in a car with a British diplomatic official, according to international news reports. Perera is recovering from...

Sri Lankan media owners Wednesday offered a cash reward to catch assailants involved in an attack on a journalist, while the country's media protested against the increasing wave of violence against them, says a Reuters report. A defence analyst attached to Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI), along with a British High Commission official, was brutally assaulted on Monday, prompting media groups to...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned a June 26 decision by a Nanjing court sentencing Chinese journalist Sun Lin to four years' imprisonment for "disturbing the social order" and "concealing a weapon". Sun, who writes for US-based website Boxun News under the pen name Jie Mu, and his wife He Fang were arrested on May 30, 2007, after reporting on civil rights violations...

Burma’s military government should immediately release all journalists arrested in connection with the Cyclone Nargis disaster, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Four journalists are being detained by Burmese authorities, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners Burma (AAPP), a Thailand-based assistance and rights monitoring group, and the Burma Media...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the four-year prison sentence handed down to Nanjing journalist Sun Lin, who was charged with possessing illegal weapons and assembling a disorderly crowd. Sun’s sentence was delivered on Thursday in a hearing closed to his lawyers and family, according to the Associated Press (AP). In his trial, Sun and his lawyers argued that the charges...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Philippine government to fully investigate the shooting death of Robert "Bert" Sison Tuesday in Sariaya town, about 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Manila. Sison reported for the weekly Regional Bulletin, which has published articles on crime and stories critical of local officials. Sison, 60, was shot in his car by two unidentified gunmen...

South Korean newspaper readership is falling, the Korea Press Foundation (KPF) said Monday. Only three to four people in every ten surveyed said they were newspaper subscribers, the media watchdog said, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA). Details: KPF said it conducted the survey in one-to-one interviews with 5,000 adults between May 3 and June 9. KPF added that in 1996, seven in ten...

Burmese authorities on Sunday deported South Korean freelance journalist Lee Yu Kyong and confiscated four compact discs containing photos she had taken of damage caused by Cyclone Nargis. Lee was met in the early morning of June 22 by five police officials at her guesthouse in Rangoon and told she must leave the country that same day because she had entered on a tourist rather than journalist...