Conflict Journalism

A correspondent of an English-language newspaper was one of the at least 40 people who were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral of a slain police officer on February 29 in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The journalist was identified as Siraj Uddin. No organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack on the...

It seems to be becoming a habit of the US — an Afghan journalist working for Canada's CTV television network in Afghanistan has been designated an unlawful enemy combatant. The journalist, Jawed Ahmad, has been held without charge for the past four months at the US military compound in Bagram, 50 km north of Kabul. Major Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the US-led coalition, said that an "enemy

The Iraqi press has once again paid dearly for its commitment to more freedom — the head of the country's largest journalists organisation died on Wednesday, four days after being seriously wounded by gunmen who fired at his car in Baghdad. Jabbar Tarrad al-Shimmari, deputy head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that al-Tamimi, 74

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called on Chadian authorities to end a wave of media repression, which started in November 2006 in the wake of violent conflict in the eastern part of the country and has most recently been seen in the detention and intimidation of media executives. Lazare Djekourninga Kaoutar, the director of FM Liberté radio station, is charged with...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Sri Lanka’s government and its President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to take urgent action to protect the safety of journalists and uphold the rights of the media to report on issues of public interest. A serious deterioration in the press freedom environment and safety of journalists in Sri Lanka since January 2, when the government formally...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called for an investigation into the death of private radio station director Abdou Mahaman, who was killed after his vehicle ran over a landmine Tuesday night in Niger’s capital Niamey. “We are shocked by this brutal killing and we are sending out condolences to his wife, his children and his colleagues,” said Gabriel Baglo, Director of the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has again called on the United States (US) to free Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre for five-and-a-half years. “Sami al-Haj has never been charged with a crime and the US Government has failed to produce any credible evidence against him,” said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. “He should be...

The commander of the Sri Lankan army, Major-General Sarath Fonseka has labelled some journalists and sections of the media as “traitors”. In an interview published in the state-controlled Sinhala daily Dinamina on January 2, Foneska said the “treachery” of the media was the only obstacle hampering the military’s fight to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). “The biggest obstacle is...

The Iraqi Government has promised to shortly issue a full report on targeting and killings of journalists since the invasion of the country five years ago. More than 250 journalists and media staff have died since 2003 says the IFJ-affiliated Iraqi Union of Journalists. With a media killing every five days over the past two years casualties in Iraq have pushed the global death toll of journalists...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed concern over reports from the Afghanistan Independent Journalists Association (AIJA) about a series of attacks against journalists. According to the IFJ-AIJA project office, unidentified gunmen in two cars chased a producer with Afghanistan Radio Television (ART), Ali Asghar Akbarzada, as he drove home from work on December 3. The...