Asia

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Monday began a four-day official visit to China aiming to put in place measures that will protect journalists facing new threats as political confrontation intensifies in the run up to the Olympics. "In the last few weeks the political heat has been turned up over Tibet and the Olympics and journalists have found themselves in the crossfire," said...

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a local journalist in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province on Monday. Khadim Hussain Sheikh was on his way to the office with his brother Ishaq on a motor-bike when unidentified gunmen intercepted them and shot them at close range. Khadim died instantly. Ishaq was seriously injured and has been admitted to hospital. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists...

The new Pakistani government’s move to lift restrictions on media imposed by President Pervez Musharraf last year has been welcomed by press freedom organisations. Information Minister Sherry Rehman Friday last introduced a parliamentary bill to repeal amendments made to media laws when Musharraf suspended the constitution in November 2007, . In comments made to journalists, Rehman also promised a...

As a token of paying tribute to late Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi who was brutally beheaded by Taliban insurgents last year, authorities in Afghanistan capital Kabul have named a street after him. The street named "Ajmal Naqshbandi Avenue" is the first of its kind named after a journalist killed in Afghanistan, Xinhua has reported. While unveiling the plaque of the avenue, President of the...

A gunman on a motorcycle shot dead a Philippine newspaper columnist in Manila on Monday night, the first journalist killed this year in the Southeast Asian nation, Reuters reported quoting police sources on Tuesday. Benefredo Acabal was walking close to a friend's house on Monday night when a man on a motorcycle shot him five times in the head and the body, police officer Lardy Ignacio said. The...

A Bangladeshi journalist who has reported extensively on alleged police corruption has been detained by the police and accused of robbery. Rabiul Islam, a journalist for the Daily Sunshine, a Rajshahi-based newspaper in the Bangla language, has written several reports implicating the Durgapur police force in alleged corruption and malpractice. On March 28, Rabiul was taken in to custody accused of...

A reporter and a correspondent of China Mining News, a newspaper supervised by the Ministry of Land and Resources, were sentenced to seven and six years in jail for taking bribes when covering news in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua has eported. The man, surnamed Liu, 32, a reporter in the Shanxi provincial bureau of China Mining News, was...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed shock at the attack on Radio Zafar, an independent radio station close to Kabul, on March 28. The Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA), an IFJ associate, received reports from the head of the radio station that four unidentified gunmen illegally entered the station at 1:00 am and tied up two security guards, before fire...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed a decision by the Cebu Regional Trial Court (RTC) in the Philippines in finding John Lloyd Ortiz guilty of attempted murder of Cebu radio broadcaster Cirse “Choy” Torralba on June 8, 2004. According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), an IFJ affiliate, Judge Estela Alam Singco issued the 29-page decision on...

Press freedom organisations have expressed outrage at the campaign being waged by the Afghanistan ministry of information and culture, the lower house of Parliament and the Council of Ulemas against privately-owned TV stations, especially Tolo TV, for broadcasting footage of men and women dancing together. The Council of Ulemas and the information and culture ministry announced on March 30 that...