Conflict Journalism

Two Iraqi ABC News journalists were killed Thursday in Iraq, ABC News President David Westin has said. Cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, were returning home from work at the ABC News Baghdad bureau Thursday afternoon when their car was ambushed and they were killed by unknown assailants. Aziz, Yousuf, and another colleague were on their way back home.The three men...

The military government in Thailand closed down three community radio stations - Confidante, Taxi Driver Community Radio and Saturday Voice Against Dictatorship - just hours after they broadcast Thursday an interview with deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The authorities have also charged them with violating “national security.” The night of the September 2006 coup, the military pulled...

(FMM/IFEX) - The Free Media Movement expresses serious concern at the continuous threats and harassment directed toward regional and provincial journalists by various power groups. Over the past few weeks, a number of provincial journalists had encountered difficulties in gathering and reporting news from the provinces. While covering a train accident, Ranjith Rajapakshe, a provincial...

The police fired warning shots at the scene of a double bombing Tuesday, enforcing an order banning news photographers and TV camera operators from filming the aftermath of deadly bombings, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The Iraqi government said it decided last weekend to keep photographers and camera crews away from blast sites to prevent them from damaging forensic evidence. Press...

A journalist and a media worker were shot dead Sunday in a renewal of clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Gunmen wearing presidential guard uniforms stopped a taxi carrying Suleiman Abdul-Rahim al-Ashi, 25, an economics editor for the Hamas-affiliated daily Filistin ( Palestine), and Mohammad Matar Abdo, 25, a manager responsible for distribution and civic relations, Editor-in-Chief...

Reporters Without Borders has hailed the progress being made in the inquest into the 1975 deaths of cameraman Brian Peters and four other journalists in East Timor but deplored some of the comments made to the Coroners Court in Sydney on 8 May 2007 by former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his defence minister, Bill Morrison. "We share the anger expressed by some of the journalists' close...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has deplored the action of the Polisario Front's security services in briefly detaining Australian documentary filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw during the first week of May 2007 near the Rabouni refugee camp, 25 km from Tindouf in southwestern Algeria. "Western Sahara under Moroccan control and the refugee camps in Algeria are in the areas that...

The Media Alliance has given evidence calling for greater uniform safety training for journalists at the NSW Coroner's inquest into the deaths of five Australian-based newsmen at Balibo, East Timor, in 1975. Deputy state coroner Dorelle Pinch is examining the murder of Brian Peters and four of his colleagues during the Indonesian invasion of Balibo. The official line has always been that the five...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 9, 2007 - The Palestinian militant group Jaish al-Islam has issued a recording in which it claims to be holding BBC correspondent Alan Johnston and demands the release of Muslim prisoners held by the United Kingdom in exchange for the journalist's freedom. The audio and visual recording, published on an extremist Web site and sent to the local office of Al-Jazeera, comes...

GAZA (Reuters) - A little-known Islamist group claimed responsibility in an audio recording on Wednesday for abducting the BBC's Gaza correspondent, issuing demands immediately rebuffed by the Palestinian government. As evidence that it is holding BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, the group posted on the Internet a photo of his BBC identification card. The posting appeared to be the first tangible...