Conflict Journalism

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has issued a pardon to Sri Lankan journalist JS Tissainayagam. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is waiting for official clarification, however, concerning several important details. The country’s recently appointed external affairs minister, GL Peiris, announced the pardon at a press conference in Colombo. “President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to pardon...

The Israeli military obstructed an Al-Jazeera crew trying to cover a rally in the village of Bil’in west of Ramallah on Friday, according to news reports and interviews. Israel Defence Forces arrested Al-Jazeera cameraman Majdi Bannoura and assistant Nader Abu Zer when they arrived in Bil’in to cover a weekly protest against the separation barrier being erected there by Israel, the Committee to...

Three Nigerian journalists were killed in two separate incidents over the weekend. Muslim rioters killed two reporters working with a local Christian newspaper on Saturday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Also on Saturday, court reporter Edo Sule Ugbagwu, from the private daily The Nation was shot dead at his home by two gunmen, according to local journalists. "Reporting...

Soldiers stormed the building of 14 October, a national media company based in Al-Ma’ala, in the southern Yemen province of Aden, on the evening of April 21 in order to seize the latest issue of Al-Tariq, a daily newspaper it publishes, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The building remained surrounded until Thursday morning. “What happens in Yemen is hallucinating,” Paris-based RSF...

Saad al-Aossi, editor-in-chief of the critical Iraqi weekly Al-Shahid, has gone missing, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Armed men entered al-Aossi’s home in central Baghdad on the morning of April 14, seized his computer and took him to an unknown location, according to local and regional news reports. The identity of the armed men remains unclear; various news sources...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over the continuing wave of press freedom violations in Iraq, and reiterated its appeal to the Iraqi parliament to pass a law protecting journalists. “Many journalists and media have been the target of physical attacks or lawsuits since the March 7 parliamentary elections,” Paris-based RSF said. “The threats come from both the security forces...

The Kyrgyzstan provisional government’s Coordinating Council in the southern region of Osh introduced a new system of censorship on April 15, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). and reiterates its appeal to interim President Rosa Otunbayeva’s administration to keep its promises to respect the rule of law. The opposition to ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s government’s criticised its...

Members of the Kyrgyz counter-espionage service temporarily overran the office of independent news agency 24.kg in Bishkek on April 15, eight days after the revolt that toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Journalists said armed men, led by Aspekov Talant, the head of the service, stormed into the office and, without giving any reason, announced that...

Anti-riot police assaulted journalists covering two different protests in Sulaimaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan on Saturday and Tuesday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Several journalists told the New York-based CPJ on Tuesday that police prevented them on Saturday from covering clashes between security forces and students who had taken to the streets to protest the Ministry of...

Another Pakistani journalist, Azamat Ali Bangash, a correspondent for Saama TV, has been killed in a suicide bombing, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) reported that Bangash was killed in an April 17 suicide bombing while covering food distribution in a refugee camp near Orakzai, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near...