Asia

The security situation for reporters has been deteriorating in Thailand as government forces and anti-government protesters exchange fire in the national capital. Three journalists were shot and injured on Friday when security forces and protesters exchanged fire that resulted in at least seven deaths and more than 100 injuries, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Three...

The body of Sindh-based journalist Ghulam Rasool Birhamani was found Monday morning, outside the village of Wahi Pandhi in Sindh province. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) reported that the journalist was abducted the evening before his body was discovered. They also reported that his body was badly scarred and showed evidence of torture or...

New demands have been made by a militant group calling itself the Asian Tigers, the captors of freelance journalist Asad Qureshi, who has been held in Pakistan since March 26, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In a video sent to the Rome-based news agency Adnkronos International Tuesday, the abductors insisted that Pakistan release at least 160 Islamic militants in exchange...

A militant group has executed a former Pakistani intelligence official who was abducted along with documentary filmmaker Asad Qureshi, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Khalid Khawaja, a retired Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official, was found dead of multiple bullet wounds in North Waziristan on Friday, according to local and international news reports. Khawaja and another...

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has issued a pardon to Sri Lankan journalist JS Tissainayagam. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is waiting for official clarification, however, concerning several important details. The country’s recently appointed external affairs minister, GL Peiris, announced the pardon at a press conference in Colombo. “President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to pardon...

Hang Chakra, editor and publisher of the opposition-aligned Khmer Machas Srok daily newspaper in Cambodia has been released from prison, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). He was granted a royal pardon on April 13 after serving nine months of a one-year sentence on a “criminal disinformation” conviction over a series of critical articles on alleged high-level government...

Another Pakistani journalist, Azamat Ali Bangash, a correspondent for Saama TV, has been killed in a suicide bombing, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) reported that Bangash was killed in an April 17 suicide bombing while covering food distribution in a refugee camp near Orakzai, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near...

The Philippines government has dropped murder charges against Zaldy Ampatuan, former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and his uncle, Akmad Ampatuan, former mayor of Mamasapano on the southern island of Mindanao, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The move, announced in Manila on Saturday, overruled the Quezon City Regional Court, which is hearing the...

One Pakistani journalist was killed and others were injured in a suicide bombing at a hospital in Quetta Friday, according to international news reports. Details are still emerging, and some of the injured are reported to be in critical condition, but Pakistani colleagues told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that a senior Samaa TV cameraman, Malik Arif, died in the attack. Five other...

New demands have been made by a Taliban group that is holding captive two French television journalists, Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier, translator Mohammed Reza, and the group’s driver, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). They were taken in Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, in December. Speaking alternately in English and French, the two French reporters appeared...