Asia

Six months after the unexplained disappearance of Sri Lankan journalist and cartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda, the government has refused to offer any assistance or provide answers to his wife, Sandhya. The government’s attitude is a clear indicator of the anti-media polices of President Mahindra Rajapaksa, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Eknelygoda, a political reporter and...

A Thai journalist wounded during an army crackdown on a mass protest in April is suing prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and other top officials for attempted murder, his lawyer said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Bodin Watcharobol, a 42-year-old freelance photographer, was shot and seriously wounded as armed troops tried to clear an area of the capital of demonstrators, leaving 26...

The Chinese government is all set to press charges against Gheyret Niyaz, a Uighur journalist and website manager. According to the Uyghur American Association (UAA), Niyazi will be tried in Urumqi, the capital of China’s far-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region on July 28. Niyaz faces charges of “endangering state security” stemming from ethnic unrest in Xinjiang in July 2009, New York-based...

Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs should stop threatening to close opposition party newspapers, reverse bans on politically sensitive books, and end harassment of independent journalists, Human Rights Watch has said. The government should also repeal the 1984 Printing Presses and Publications Act, which gives the Home Affairs Ministry effective censorship over all publication content, Human...

Threats have been made against the family of senior Sri Lankan journalist Gamini Pushpakumara. Pushpakumara, who is an executive committee member of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association (SLWJA) and secretary of the program producers' union of the state-owned Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC), was summarily dismissed from employment at SLRC after presidential elections in Sri Lanka...

Thai authorities, using the emergency decree, have recently shut down 26 more community radio stations in nine provinces, media reports said. The Nation said six more stations were pressured to discontinue their operations. The English-language newspaper also reported that 35 people working for these stations, like radio hosts, station managers and executives, are facing lawsuits for allegedly...

Vijay Pratap Singh, The Indian Express Senior Reporter who was injured in the blast outside an Uttar Pradesh minister's house in Allahabad on July 12, succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday. He would have turned 39 on July 30. He is survived by his wife Shashi, five-year-old son Yash and 10-month-old daughter Adya. Singh was among seven people injured in a bomb attack aimed at UP Institutional...

Singapore released on bail Tuesday a British author arrested two days earlier as part of a criminal defamation investigation related to his book on the city-state's death penalty policy. Alan Shadrake, a 75-year old freelance journalist, posted $10,000 Singapore dollars ($7,250) bail, said his lawyer, M Ravi. Police confiscated Shadrake's passport, interrogated him about the book and will question...

The Malaysian Islamic opposition party newspaper has escaped closure and won a new publishing permit from the government which had accused it of violating laws, an official said Thursday, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report. The government has in recent weeks also refused to immediately renew the licences for two other opposition newspapers in what critics have said is a crackdown...

Press freedom groups have condemned the Malaysian government’s decision to suspend the distribution of three opposition newspapers – Suara Keadilan, Kabar Era Pakatan and Rocket – since June 30 and restrict the distribution of a fourth, Harakah, since Thursday. “This is the second time since Prime Minister Najib Razak’s election in 2008 that the opposition press has been subjected to this kind of...