Asia

Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto was fatally shot during armed exchanges between Thailand soldiers and antigovernment protestors on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Muramoto, a Japanese national, was shot in the chest while filming an early-afternoon confrontation and was pronounced dead at a Bangkok hospital, according to local and international news reports...

The Thai government should restore access to news outlets censored after a state of emergency was declared Wednesday in response to antigovernment protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Journalists reporting on the unrest are increasingly vulnerable to physical assault as clashes between protesters and authorities escalate. A number of opposition websites and at least one...

Freelance Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka had apparently been abducted in northern Afghanistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said quoting a Japanese official. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told journalists he was aware of Japanese media reports about the abduction, according to Tokyo-based agency Kyodo News and international news reports, but declined to comment...

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has pardoned former journalist Ahmed Ghous Zalmai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in September 2008 for publishing a translation of the Koran into Dari (the Persian dialect spoken in Afghanistan), according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Issued a few days ahead of the Persian New Year festival of Nawruz, the pardon also affects Mohammad Ateef Noori...

Grenade attacks were launched against two state-owned television news stations in Thailand on Saturday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The attacks—one against army-run Channel 5, the other against the National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT)—took place Saturday night in the capital, Bangkok. “We call upon both sides of Thailand’s political conflict to exercise...

A series of death threats have been received by Marites Dañguilan Vitug, editor-in-chief of the online news outlet Newsbreak, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Vitug, a veteran editor and reporter based in Manila, told New York-based CPJ she received four threatening, anonymous text messages on her mobile phone between Monday and today. The first message, received Monday...

The Malaysian home affairs ministry has issued to leading English-language daily, The Star, a warning about an article criticising the caning of three Muslim women under Sharia law, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. “As one of the country’s most widely-read newspapers, The Star should have a free hand to provide its readers with the broadest range of news and views on social issues,” Paris...

Police in Nepal must immediately investigate Monday’s fatal shooting of publisher and business owner Arun Singhaniya, the second murder of a media executive in the country in a month, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Wednesday. An unidentified group on motorcycles shot Singhaniya at point-blank range near his home in southern Dhanusa district around 6 p.m. on Monday, killing him...

Intelligence officials in Afghanistan privately issued a ban on live coverage to news outlets on Monday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) spokesman Said Ansari told media managers not to report live from the scene of a terrorist attack anywhere in Afghanistan in a series of individual meetings held Monday, saying the order was for the...

One month after the disappearance of her husband Prageeth Eknelygoda, the journalist’s wife, Sandhya Eknelygoda , has said that she has not been able to get police or other government officials to actively investigate the case. “I have written to the president and have not gotten a response,” Eknelygoda told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Our children want their father back, and we...