Corruption and Crime

Death threats have been made against Iryna Khalip, Belarus correspondent for the Moscow-based independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. In a memo to Novaya Gazeta, Khalip said she received threatening email, phone calls, and a telegram from anonymous senders who warned her not to publish the investigative report she wrote and...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over Ma’an Aqil, a journalist who was arrested at his office in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra in Damascus on November 22 by police from the national criminal investigations department, who took him to their headquarters for questioning. The police have not explained why he has been arrested. Two days after his arrest, the Union of Press...

The body of José Galindo Robles, the head of Radio Universidad de Guadalajara, was discovered at his home in Guadalajara, in the western state of Jalisco, on November 24, after it was noticed that several days had gone by with no word from him, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. His body was found wrapped in a blanket and with the hands tied with cable. The prosecutor’s office said the...

A Mexican reporter who had recently covered corruption and organized crime was reported missing this week in the western state of Michoacán, The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. María Esther Aguilar Cansimbe, was last seen on November 11 near her home in Zamora. CPJ called on state and federal authorities to do everything in their power...

Officials from the Odessa Public Utility Service and mayor’s office have been physically obstructing the work of several Ukranian television and radio stations on the grounds of alleged building renovation, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. On Monday, city officials first barred reporters from entering their offices in the Odessa...

Albanian newspaper editor Mero Baze was beaten unconscious by a pro-government businessman and two bodyguards three days ago, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the prime minister’s office in Tirana Wednesday to protest against the frequency of attempts to intimidate journalists in Albania. Baze, who edits the leading newspaper Tema and...

Assailants badly beat Mero Baze, chief editor of the independent Albanian daily Tema and host of the prime-time television show “Faktor Plus,” at a bar in the capital, Tirana, on Monday, according to news reports. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the attack and called on authorities to bring the assailants to justice. Baze lost consciousness after the attack and...

Crime reporter Bladimir Antuna García was found murdered Monday night, according local news reports, after reportedly being abducted from a street in the Mexican city of Durango that morning. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Mexican authorities to show their commitment to press freedom and the protection of Mexican journalists by immediately bringing all those...

Police in Kyrgyzstan should investigate work-related motives in a weekend assault that left Kubanychbek Zholdoshev, a reporter with the government weekly Osh Shamy, with a concussion and broken ribs, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Tuesday. Three assailants beat Zholdoshev as he was returning home from dinner in the southern city of Osh on Sunday night, the...

Colombian journalist Claudia Julieta Duque, who is under an interior ministry protection programme for journalists, is being harassed and intimidated by the intelligence services, who obtained information about her from her alleged protectors, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Duque, of Radio Nizkor, is about to present a file to the authorities exposing the persecution she has...