Asia

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) expressed alarm over the report that a woman journalist, Jameela Rishteen Qadiry, reportedly received telephone calls threatening her with the same fate as that of murdered BBC journalist Abdul Samad Rohani in Afghanistan. According to information received from an IFJ affiliate, the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association (AIJA), Qadiry, a...

Angered by film footage and photographs depicting the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis which have appeared in media outside of Burma, the junta is now undertaking to seize all still photography and video cameras being used by small-scale professionals, and even those that are privately owned by households, Mizzima News has reported. In particular, authorities have targeted smallscale, private...

Hudson Samarasinghe, recently appointed the chairperson of the state-controlled Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC), called for the death of senior journalist Poddala Jayantha. This outrageous incitement to murder and violence by Samarasinghe was made 8 June 2008 during a breakfast radio talk show called "Isira". Jayantha is the general secretary of Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association...

The Sri Lankan government pressured owners and editors of several independent dailies, including the Nation and the Daily Mirror, to dissuade them from publishing critical or embarrassing articles during a visit by a European Commission trade delegation from June 9-11. "The government is mistaken if it thinks it can improve relations with the EU by using threats to silence the independent press,"...

The Burmese junta has taken a series of measures in the past few days to control news and information coming out of the cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta According to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Burma Media Association (BMA), an organisation of Burmese journalists in exile, the blogger and comedian known by the stage name of Zarganar was arrested without explanation on June 5...

The editor-in-chief of the opposition-aligned, Khmer-language daily newspaper Moneakseka Khmer in Cambodia has been arrested. Dam Sith was arrested on Sunday by plainclothes police at a car wash and interrogated for several hours at the national military police headquarters in the capital, Phnom Penh. A criminal court charged Dam Sith the same day with defamation and disinformation in connection...

One of the Philippines' top TV reporters and her two assistants have been abducted, the ABS-CBN network said on Wednesday, after the team went missing on an island that is a hotbed of Islamic radicals linked to Al-Qaeda. The country's largest television network said that Ces Drilon, cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion, and assistant cameraman Angelo Valderama had been abducted for ransom on Jolo island...

A new 90-day extension of a detention order has been issued against Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam, who has been held without charge since his arrest on March 8. Tissainayagam is being detained under the Emergency Regulations (2005) Act. The latest detention order was issued by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lankan police force on June 5. TID has refused to provide...

The Sri Lankan defence ministry has initiated a campaign against independent news media, especially journalists who cover military affairs. The ministry’s website is carrying virulent attacks on journalists critical of the government, accusing them of being in cahoots with the “terrorist enemy,” the Tamil Tiger rebels. Two long articles—headlined “Stop media treachery against armed forces members...

The publisher of a daily newspaper critical of the Arroyo government has been found guilty of libel and sentenced to a minimum of six months to a maximum of two years in prison. She was also ordered to pay P5 million (US$113,480) in moral damages and P33,732.25 (US$765) in civil damages, the Manila-based Centre for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has reported. Makati Regional Trial Court...