Conflict Journalism

US troops raided the offices of the Iraq Syndicate of Journalists in central Baghdad and arrested armed 10 guards, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has reported. IFJ condemned as “outrageous and inexcusable” the action of American soldiers who carried out an armed raid on the Baghdad offices of the journalists syndicate. Iraq Syndicate of Journalists chairman Shihab al-Timimi...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has backed new calls from Sudanese and Arab world journalists for the release of Sami al-Haj, a cameraman working for Al-Jazeera, who has been held for five years, tortured and accused of terrorism offences at the notorious Guantanamo detention centre in Cuba. He has never been charged or brought to trial. According to Reporters sans Frontières...

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the government of Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to drop sedition charges against critical The Daily Tribune publisher and two columnists. In its February 14 case against publisher Ninez Cacho-Olivares and columnists Ramon Señeres and Herman Tiu-Laurel, the government said their writing could “lead or stir up the people against lawful...

In two more days of testimony on 9 and 12 February 2007 to a coroner's court in Glebe, Sydney, witnesses provided more details about the circumstances in which cameraman Brian Peters and four other journalist working for Australian TV stations died in the East Timor border village of Balibo on 16 October 1975. A former fighter with the Fretilin guerrillas, who was 16 at the time, confirmed on 9...

Media groups based along the Thai-Burmese border claim that threats against them have hindered their ability to cover news about conflicts among leaders of the Karen National Union. Reporters with the Mae Sot-based Karen Information Center and an international broadcaster with the BBC Burmese Service say they have received threats after publishing news reports on the growing strife within the...

Indonesian soldiers shot dead five Australia-based journalists even as they were surrendering at the town of Balibo in East Timor in 1975. An inquest into the death of one of the five Australia-based journalists, Brian Peters, began in Sydney on Monday, more than 30 years after his death on the then Indonesian-occupied island. An East Timorese eyewitness told a Sydney inquest Monday he saw four of...

New York, February 6, 2007—Three staff members of Akuna, a bimonthly trade union newspaper, were seized on Monday from the suburbs of Colombo, according to news reports. The men, who are also trade union activists, may be in government custody. “We fear for the safety of the three missing newspaper staff members, and we call on the government to publicly disclose any information regarding their...

Though King Gyanendra, regarded as Nepal's worst suppressor of the media, was ousted from power last year, his role is now being taken over by Maoist guerrillas, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in its annual report on media freedom worldwide. In its annual press freedom report published Thursday, RSF looked at the media situation last year in 98 countries, tabling the worst violations in...

Baghdad: There is good news in Iraq. For our journalists, this week's high points were the safe return of two colleagues seized by a death squad which shot two other hostages and the survival of the teenage nephew of another employee who was kidnapped and tortured in Baghdad. The lows, as I complete nearly two years running the agency's operations in Iraq, were sending condolences to the family of...

International press freedom groups have called for action in the case of a Pakistan journalist who has been missing for one month. Twentyeight-year-old Sohail Qalander, who works with Pakistan’s second largest Urdu language newspaper Daily Express, disappeared on January 2, near the Khyber Agency tribal area, according to the Pakistan Federation of Union of Journalist (PFUJ). International...