Corruption and Crime

Pakistani authorities have been arged to adopt energetic measures following the murder of a journalist and an attack on a privately-owned TV station within a space of 48 hours over the last weekend. On January 24, Aamir Wakil, 40, a married man with four children, was murdered close to his home in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. On January 26, an angry crowd ransacked the studios of Samaa TV in the...

The editor of an independent newspaper in the West African nation of Niger was jailed Monday in connection with an investigative story alleging corruption in the finance ministry, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Boussada Ben Ali, managing editor of the weekly L'Action, was jailed at Niamey's main prison after a public prosecutor...

A Colombian judge has sentenced a former mayor to 28 years in prison for ordering the April 2003 killing of a journalist who had repeatedly denounced the politician as corrupt. The convictions of three former public officials on charges of plotting the murder of Colombian radio commentator José Emeterio Rivas represent a historic step forward in the campaign to end impunity in the killings of...

A broadcast journalist was killed by two unidentified gunmen in a southern Philippine city, according to news reports. Badrodin Abas, 38, was shot in the head by two motorcycle-riding gunmen late Wednesday in Cotabato City, 930km south of Manila, according to the city's police chief, Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane. Dangane said the victim, a broadcaster for a radio station in Cotabato, was...

Miguel Badillo Cruz, editor of Contralínea and Fortuna magazines, was arrested by police near his home in Mexico City on the morning of January 16, the Centro de Periodismo y Etica Publica (CEPET) has reported. The editor has been charged with "insult to authorities" (desacato) by a judge in Jalisco state. He is currently under "administrative arrest", having apparently been detained on a warrant...

The publisher of Vanuatu's Daily Post newspaper, Marc Neil-Jones, was recently attacked in the capital of Port Vila, according to Pacific Islands News Association (PINA). Radio New Zealand International reported that Neil-Jones sustained a broken nose and a black eye. Neil-Jones has filed an official complaint with the police and alleges that those involved are police officers who are employed at...

Abdumumin Sherkhonov, editor-in-chief of the Pazhvok (Echo) newspaper and a freelance reporter for Radio Ozodi (Tajik Service of Radio Liberty), was beaten up in the city of Kulyab, southern Tajikistan, on January 5, accordding to delayed reports. According to Sherkhonov, he was stopped by two young men when he was on his way to the newspaper's office. One of them, who identified himself as an...

A Venezuelan journalist who recently reported on drug trafficking and corruption was shot to death on Friday in Valencia, a city in the north-central province of Carabobo, according to news reports and interviews, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. A motorcycle-riding assailant shot Orel Sambrano, left, director of the local political weekly ABC de la Semana and Radio América...

Several unidentified assailants attacked Yermek Boltai, a reporter and editor for the website of the Kazakh service of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), in Kazakhstan's financial capital of Almaty on Sunday, the broadcaster reported. The assailants reportedly did not take any of the editor's valuables, including his money and cellphone. The attackers hit Boltai...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has voiced its concern after armed men burst into the apartment block of Janet Mba, editor of the magazine The Scroll in Arepo in Ogun State in south-western Nigeria. She escaped attack because she managed to call the police before they could strike. The worldwide press freedom organisation recorded at least 10 cases of physical assaults and eight cases of threats...