Conflict Journalism

Reporters Without Borders called for justice in the case of five journalists killed almost 30 years ago in East Timor as the judge at a coroner’s court in Glebe, Sydney (Australia) adjourned the three-week old inquiry to 1st May. The worldwide press freedom organisation said that based on testimony so far, it was possible to assert that British journalist Brian Peters and his four colleagues were...

Reporters Without Borders has hailed the warrant issued on 1 March 2007 by Sydney coroner Dorelle Pinch for the arrest of Yunus Yosfiah, the former Indonesian army officer who led the attack on the East Timor border town of Balibo on 16 October 1975 in which five journalists working for two Australian TV stations were killed. "We applaud Dorelle Pinch's efforts and determination to end the silence...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by criminal defamation prosecutions of three Yemeni editors. Independent weekly Al-Deyar Editor-in-Chief Abed al-Mahthari was charged with defaming Watani Bank for Trade and Investment; Al-Shoura.net Editor Abdelkarim al-Khaiwani was charged with publishing false information about the Defense Ministry and defaming Armed Forces Moral Guidance...

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) arrested a local television director and harassed several journalists during a military operation in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. An Israeli soldier gestures towards the camera during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank City of Nablus February 26, 2007. Israeli forces continued...

Reporters Without Borders voiced scepticism today about a claim made by Chechnya’s acting President Ramzan Kadyrov at a news conference in Grozny on 20 February that Boris Berezovsky (a Russian businessman and former politician now living in exile in Britain) ordered the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. Kadyrov claimed that he was personally present...

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Sri Lankan security forces’ improper use of the anti-terror law to arrest people working for the media. Dushantha Basnayake, financial director of Standard Newspapers Private Limited (SNPL), which publishes the Sinhalese-language weekly Mawbima, was arrested in the capital Colombo on 26 February 2007. Officers of the Terrorist investigation Division (TID...

Reporters Without Borders has voiced outrage at the pressure applied by the Australian federal government so that three hearings in a coroner's enquiry into the death of Brian Peters and four others journalists in East Timor in 1975 are held in camera. "The secrecy now surrounding the hearings is the result of disquiet within the government about the increasingly serious allegations of lying by...

A Pakistani journalist abducted in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) last month along with a friend was rescued Wednesday by law enforcing agencies from a tribal area, according to news reports. Suhail Qalander, Resident Editor of Urdu newspaper Daily Express kisses his son after returning homein Peshawar, Pakistan, Wednesday February 21, 2007. (Associated Press of Pakistan) Qalander and...

The Russian police raided the offices of a British organisation that supports journalists in conflict zones on Wednesday as part of a probe into alleged financial irregularities. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) is a nongovernmental organisation which seeks to support objective journalism in some of the world's most hostile regions, from Iraq to the Caucasus and Afghanistan. IWPR...

A Swedish freelance photographer, Lars Björk, was arrested Monday in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara after he took photos of a demonstration by young Sahrawis waving the flag of the pro-independence Polisario Front. During the four hours that Lars Björk was detained in the centre of El Aaiún, his camera and passport were confiscated and he was interrogated for four hours in the city’s main...