Asia

TV reporter Ashiq Ali Mangi has been murdered in the southeastern district of Khairpur in yet another sign of the growing dangers for journalists in Pakistan, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Employed by the privately-owned television station Mehran, Mangi was gunned down as he rode to the local press club in Gambat on a motorcycle on February 17. Sources told RSF that Mangi’s murder...

Two journalists have disappeared in Sri Lanka, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Chandana Sirimalwatte, chief editor of the Sri Lankan weekly newspaper Lanka, was detained by police around noon on January 30, according to his wife, Hemali Abeyratne, and staffers at the paper. Lanka e News journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda has been missing since January 24. Lanka, the weekly...

Over the past month, military-controlled courts in Burma have sentenced two undercover Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reporters to punitive prison terms over their reporting, according to Committee to Protect Journalists. On January 27, a special court attached to Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison sentenced DVB reporter Ngwe Soe Lin, also known as Tun Kyaw, to 13 years in prison on charges...

A life sentence has been passed on hitman Madix Maulana for the 2005 murder of radio journalist Edgar Amoro in Pagadian, on the southern island of Mindanao. Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) regards it as an “encouraging sign” but believes the case should not be closed until the masterminds and accomplices have been identified and brought to trial. In a written message to RSF after sentencing, Amoro...

A Vietnamese journalist has been awarded a jail sentence on charges that she spread anti-state propaganda, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Pham Thanh Nghien, a freelance writer, was arrested during a government crackdown on dissidents in September 2008 and originally charged with staging a protest against Vietnamese policy on a maritime dispute with China, according to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the reported disappearance of Prageeth Eknelygoda, a political reporter for the Sri Lankan news website Lanka eNews. Lanka eNews Editor Sandurwan Senadeera told news organisations that Eknelygoda was last seen leaving the office on Sunday evening. He told news outlets that he fears the reporter may have been abducted. In its own account...

Sri Lankan journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda went missing Sunday night in Colombo. A senior police official told Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) he was too busy with Tuesday's presidential election to make the case a priority. Eknaligoda, who writes political analyses for the Lankaenews website, left work at about 9 p.m. but did not arrive home and has not contacted any family members or friends. He...

Flouting a January 15 supreme court ruling, state-owned TV stations Rupavahini and ITN continue to openly favour President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s campaign to win another term in the presidential election to be held on January 26 with a total of 21 candidates taking part. Detailed monitoring by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has established that 98.5 per cent of the news and current affairs air-time...

Pakistani authorities have been urged to explain what has happened to Mohammad Rasheed, a freelance reporter who is probably being held by the army. It is believed he was arrested after being held for several days by a Taliban group in North Waziristan. “I don’t know where he is; his entire family is very worried,” his wife told Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The authorities must quickly say...

Rupert Hamer, the London-based Sunday Mirror’s defence correspondent, was killed Saturday when the US military vehicle in which he was travelling was hit by a roadside bomb in southwestern Afghanistan. Photographer Philip Coburn was seriously injured in the blast. Hamer, a 39-year-old father of three, and Coburn, 43 were embedded with a US Marine Corps unit. A US marine and an Afghan soldier were...