Corruption and Crime

The intermediary in the June 2003 murder of Brazilian journalist Nicanor Linhares has been convicted, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Judge Francisco Mario Liberato sentenced Cássio Santana de Sousa to 23 years in prison on Wednesday for his participation in Linhares' killing in the northern city of Fortaleza, according to local news reports. Santana was...

Authorities found the body of a journalist who covered the police beat in northern Mexico Tuesday morning after he was abducted from his house on Monday night, according to Mexican news reports. Authorities found the body of Eliseo Barrón Hernández, left, a reporter and photographer for the Torreón-based daily La Opinión, in the city of Gómez Palacio, Durango, where he lived, reported the national...

The Philippines government must address a series of shootings that have targeted journalists on the southern island of Mindanao, the latest coming on Wednesday when gunmen critically wounded a local radio broadcaster, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. One of two men riding a motorcycle fired once at Harrison Manalac at about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, according to local news...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned journalist Elena Maglevannaya’s conviction by a court in the southern city of Volgograd of defaming the prison service in articles about torture in Russian prisons that she wrote for the website Vestnikcivitas. Some of the articles were about the case of Zubayr Zubayrayev, a young Chechen imprisoned in Volgograd. In a May 13 ruling, the court found...

Local police arrested one of the alleged gunmen in the 2005 killing of journalist Philip Agustin on May 13 in Pampanga, a province approximately 81 km from Manila, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). The Philippine National Police in Central Luzon arrested Nilo "Boy" Morete in Poblacion village, Mabalacat town, Pampanga at around 3:30 p.m. (local time) on May 13...

A journalist from Bangued was unharmed after gunmen fired at her family's house on May 14, delayed reports have said. Bangued is the capital of Abra, a province approximately 408 km northwest of Manila. Marjorie Bandayrel-Trinidad, news editor of the weekly community newspaper Abra Today, said she and her husband were awakened by the sound of breaking glass at around 3:30 a.m. (local time) on May...

Iraqi trade minister Abdelfalah Al-Soudani’s has decided to withdraw the lawsuits he had brought against two independent daily newspapers, Al-Mashriq and Al-Parlament, over articles linking him directly to cases of alleged corruption. The minister had been demanding 150 million dinars (95,000 euros) in damages from Al-Mashriq and 50 million dinars (31,500 euros) from Al-Parlament. The move was...

A murder attempt was recently made against Mohamed Ould Zeine, editor of the independent Arab-language daily in Mauritania El Wattan and star presenter on Radio Mauritania, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The journalist was left for dead after being battered and slashed by two men wielding baseball bats and knives on the evening of May 12. He suffered a very serious...

The scheduled arraignments of former leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery, Yusuf Bey IV, and his associate Antoine Mackey have been postponed again on May 13 until May 29, after Mackey’s court-appointed attorney expressed doubts about being able to take on the case, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) . Bey’s lawyers also won a court motion temporarily preventing anyone involved...

A foreign travel ban has been placed on William Tonet, the editor of the independent Luanda-based biweekly Folha 8 (F8), whose passport was seized when he tried to cross by land into Namibia on May 9, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Tonet has been harassed by the authorities ever since the newspaper’s creation in 1995. “The persecution of Tonet because of the stories he publishes is...