Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo was released by the Taliban Monday after two weeks in captivity and days after his driver was executed, news agencies have reported. Sources privy to the deal told local Pajhwok Afghan News that the La Repubblica journalist was handed over to Italian officials in the Hazarjuft district of the southern Helmand province at 5:10pm (local time). "My head is...
A total of 97 journalists and 37 media support staffers have been killed in the line of duty since the war began on March 20, 2003. The media death toll in Iraq has steadily climbed since 2003, when 14 journalists — most of them reporters working for the international press— were killed. In 2004, 24 journalists were killed, followed by 23 deaths in 2005, and 32 deaths in 2006. The 32 deaths in...
Four years after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains the deadliest country in the world for the press as local journalists continue to suffer disproportionately from the violence, research by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows. The bodies of correspondent Atwar Bahjat (inset), cameraman al-Falahi, and engineer Khairallah were found near Samarra, a day after the...
Suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, a central role in 30 other attacks and plots in the US and worldwide that killed thousands of victims, said a revised transcript released Thursday by the US military. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in 2002, is pictured in...
Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo abducted by the Taliban in Afghanistan last week has appeared in a video shown on television Wednesday appealing to Premier Romano Prodi to work for his release. TV grab from Euronews shows an image from video footage, received by non govenmental organisation Emergency, of Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo who was abducted 10 days ago by a Taliban...
The Turkish military has been classifying journalists by their perceived attitude toward the military and using that classification to grant or deny press accreditations. Leaked reports published in the Turkish press last week show that the news media is classified according to support for government policies and that the procedures for issuing press accreditation are used to undermine critical...
Masked Palestinian gunmen abducted a BBC correspondent from his car in Gaza City on Monday. As he was being taken away, the journalist threw a business card on the street that identified him as Alan Johnston of BBC, Palestinian security officials said. Alan Johnston was born in Tanzania and educated in Scotland. He joined BBC World Service in 1991 and has spent eight of the last 16 years as a...
BBC’s Alan Johnston was the 15th journalist to be abducted in the Gaza Strip since 2004, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). All of the 14 previously abducted journalists were released unharmed, the majority after several hours in captivity. Palestinian Fatah gunmen march during a rally asking for jobs in the Palestinian security forces, at a Rafah camp in the...
The Spanish High Court has decided to close a case in which the family of a cameraman killed in Iraq sought the arrest and questioning of three US soldiers, ruling that his death was a mistaken act of war, a Reuters report has said. JUSTICE DENIED: The Couso family. The court's decision was "outrageous and disgraceful'' and the family was going to appeal Friday's ruling, said Javier Couso, brother...
The US military has defended the erasing by an American soldier of journalists' footage of the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in Afghanistan last week, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The military said that publication could have compromised an investigation and led to false public conclusions. An Afghan man cries as he shouts anti-American slogans after a car bomber attacked...
