Asia

Press freedom organisations have called for the prompt dismissal of Sri Lanka’s Labour Minister, Mervyn Silva, following his physical and verbal abuse of officials of the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC). According to news reports, Dr Silva assaulted SLRC’s news director, TMG Chandrasekara, at the premises of Sri Lanka’s main public television broadcaster on December 27, 2007. The assault...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the arrests of two men suspected of murdering Aklan broadcaster Rolando Ureta on January 3, 2001. According to the National Union of Journalists, Philippines (NUJP), an IFJ affiliate, Jessie Ticar surrendered to police after learning that fellow suspect Amador Raz was captured on November 26 after a Kalibo court issued a warrant for...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has announced it support for the ”Stop Criminalisation of the Press” campaign by its local affiliate in the Philippines, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), after two incidents involving criminal charges against journalists resurfaced this month. Risang Bima Wijaya, a journalist and former general manager of Radar Yogya Daily, was...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), have called upon all political parties in Pakistan to sign a declaration that they will not support any move to pass anti-media laws after national elections on January 8. PFUJ’s President, Huma Ali, and Secretary General, Mazhar Abbas, will meet the heads of all political parties...

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has threatened to ban live television reports about Pakistan’s national elections and impose penalties on journalists if they do not comply. According to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), an International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) affiliate, and reports by GEO TV and Dawn, PEMRA sent a letter of warning to the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed concern over reports from the Afghanistan Independent Journalists Association (AIJA) about a series of attacks against journalists. According to the IFJ-AIJA project office, unidentified gunmen in two cars chased a producer with Afghanistan Radio Television (ART), Ali Asghar Akbarzada, as he drove home from work on December 3. The...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed deep concern over a decision of the High Court of Sindh to dismiss two petitions by the owners of GEO Television network challenging bans imposed on four of its news, sports and entertainment channels after emergency rule was decreed on November 3. After 19 days of hearings, the court agreed on December 4 with the government’s...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the initiation by authorities of a complaint to police in Islamabad against the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and its subsidiary union, the Rawalpindi Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ). According to PFUJ, an IFJ affiliate, a first information report (FIR) was filed against the two unions at Aabpara police station in...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the actions of the Philippines police in detaining and arresting 17 journalists who were reporting on the takeover by rebel army soldiers of a hotel in Manila on November 29. The obstruction of journalists in the conduct of their work came as the Philippine National Police stormed the Peninsula Hotel to end a seven-hour stand-off with...

The Sri Lanka military air strike last week on the Voice of Tigers, the radio station of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the country, is being described as a war crime. Three of the station’s staff, who had not been given any warning, and six other civilians were killed in the bombardment by air force jets. "Voice of Tigers is a propaganda radio operated by the LTTE rebels, but the rules