Corruption and Crime

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed alarm at the shooting of a Mexican journalist’s house in the southern state of Oaxaca, in what appears to have been a targeted attack, on April 18. The day before the shooting, Melchor López, general director of Radio Mixteca (88.7 FM), a commercial station based in Santiago Juxtlahuaca, said he was followed by white Jeep Liberty truck after...

Two indigenous women radio presenters have been shot dead in Mexico. On April 7, Teresa Bautista Flores and Felicitas Martínez, working for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (“The Voice that Breaks the Silence”), a community radio station serving the Trique indigenous community, were shot in Putla de Guerrero, in the southern state of Oaxaca. The two young women were returning from doing a report in...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the killing of a Panamanian television cameraman and photographer who was stabbed while covering a gang fight in Panama City. Eliécer Santamaría died in the early morning hours on Tuesday after he was stabbed while on assignment covering a story about gangs exchanging gunfire in the capital, according to reports. "This killing...

A Bangladeshi journalist who has reported extensively on alleged police corruption has been detained by the police and accused of robbery. Rabiul Islam, a journalist for the Daily Sunshine, a Rajshahi-based newspaper in the Bangla language, has written several reports implicating the Durgapur police force in alleged corruption and malpractice. On March 28, Rabiul was taken in to custody accused of...

Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal case into the mysterious death in July 2003 of an investigative journalist and liberal lawmaker, news agency RIA Novosti has reported quoting an investigation committee spokesman on Friday. Yury Shchekochikhin, who reported on high-profile corruption cases, died after a brief and puzzling illness almost five years ago, at the age of 53. A post mortem...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned Thursday’s attack on Arseny Makhlov, founder of the independent weekly Dvornik, in the western city of Svetlogorsk, Kaliningrad region of Russia. An unidentified assailant stabbed Makhlov twice in the back at around 7:00 pm as he was leaving a local restaurant, the journalist told New York-based CPJ. The attacker fled the scene immediately...

Journalist Sanjuana Martínez Montemayor has been informed that her services will not longer be required by the daily Milenio, in Monterrey, Mexico, due to a "restructuring of the newspaper." The last article published by the journalist was titled "Ernestina: a year of ignominy" in the newspaper's 'A Bocajarro' column. In the article, Martínez Montemayor criticised the federal government's handling...

The suspect in the 2004 killing of radio broadcaster Herson Hinolan surrendered to the authorities on after a key witness retracted his earlier testimony against the suspect, according to the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). Alfredo Arcenio, a former mayor of Lezo town in Aklan, approximately 345 km south of Manila, surrendered to the Kalibo Regional Trial Court...

Four members of the military police have been in connection with the May 2007 murder of Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho, a journalist based in São Paulo state of Brazil. “These arrests constitute the first step in a victory over impunity, one that could not be taken for granted given that those arrested are police officers,” Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said in a statement. “It is an...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed concern at the safety of tabloid newspaper reporter Jet Sinocruz after death threats were sent to his mobile phone via text message. Sinocruz, a reporter for Abante, received a text message from an unknown sender on his birthday, warning him to enjoy his birthday celebrations as they would be his last. According to the National Union...