Corruption and Crime

Shwan Ahmed, a freelance Iraqi journalist, is facing criminal defamation charges based on a series of articles he wrote alleging corruption in Sulaimaniyah, in northeastern Iraq. Ahmed told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) he was threatened by one of the parties in the case. Ahmed said charges were filed against him and that he received the threats after publishing a...

Another Mexican journalist, Hugo Alfredo Olivera, was found dead on Tuesday in Michoacán state, according to news reports and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Unidentified assailants shot Olivera three times with a 32 mm gun and left his body inside the reporter’s truck in a rural area near the city of Apatzingán, a spokesman at the state prosecutor’s office told CPJ. Olivera’s body was...

A Guatemalan investigative journalist with leading daily elPeriódico, who recently reported on corruption and human trafficking, has received death threats, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On June 25, two unidentified assailants broke into Marvin del Cid Acevedo’s home in Guatemala City around 10:30 a.m. while the journalist was at work, the local press reported. The...

Husband-and-wife journalists Juan Francisco Rodríguez Ríos and María Elvira Hernández Galena were gunned down Monday in the Internet café they owned near their home in Coyuca de Benítez, in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero. Their deaths bring the number of journalists murdered since the start of the year in Mexico to seven. Rodríguez was the local correspondent for two dailies, El Sol de...

A former deputy director of the national Colombian intelligence agency has been ordered held for masterminding the 1999 murder of journalist Jaime Garzón. José Miguel Narváez is currently behind bars awaiting trial in a separate case. The attorney-general’s office issued the order on Tuesday after three former paramilitary leaders implicated Narváez in Garzón’s murder, the national daily El Tiempo...

A group of armed individuals fired Friday last on the Televisa Laguna station's broadcasting facilities in the city of Torreón, in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, according to Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social (CENCOS) and ARTICLE 19. The attack took place minutes after the facilities' workers left the building for lunch and several local media outlets have reported that more than 150...

The Foro de Periodismo Argentino (FOPEA) has expressed concern at the difficulties, harassment and threats that journalists in Bariloche have been facing owing to their coverage of events relating to the assassination of a 15-year-old youth by a police officer. During protests that took place on June 17, both in Bariloche's Alto neighbourhood and in the city centre, several journalists said they...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Kuwaiti authorities to drop all charges against journalist Mohammed Abdulqader al-Jassem, who was released on bail Monday. CPJ is also alarmed by local news reports that the Ministry of Information will prosecute Al-Jazeera’s office in Kuwait for violating a ban on local coverage of al-Jassem’s case after the station broadcast a protest...

Newspaper reporter Nestor Bedolido was shot and killed by an unidentified gunmen on Saturday evening in Digos City, Davao del Sur province, in the southern Philippines, according to local and international news reports. He is the third journalist to be murdered over the past week in the Philippines, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. Bedolido, 50, a reporter with The Kastigador...

Philippine radio commentator Joselito Agustin was fatally shot by two motorcycle riding assailants while heading home from work late Tuesday evening near Baccara town in the northern Philippines, according to local and international news reports. The murder occurred just one day after the murder of radio journalist Desidario Camangyan in southern Mindanao. Agustin died from four gunshot wounds on...