State Impunity

There has been a new wave of threats and physical attacks on journalists during the past few weeks in both Bishkek, the capital, and the southern city of Osh, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “Harassment and self-censorship are growing, in an explosive atmosphere of ethnic tension,” RSF said. “No serious investigation has been carried out into any of...

A regional prosecutor in Uralsk, western Kazakhstan, has refused to investigate a threatening call against Alla Zlobina, a regional correspondent for the embattled independent weekly Golos Respubliki. Zlobina's daughter was also intimidated. New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called upon regional authorities to thoroughly probe the incidents and bring those...

There is no clear front-runner in the presidential election run-off between Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori that is due to take place on June 5 but, with three weeks still to go, the campaign is already having a devastating impact on Peru’s media, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The most serious case concerns César Levano, editor of the daily La...

Héctor Francisco Medina Polanco, 35, the host of a news programme on provincial TV station Omega Visión, died in a hospital in the northern city of San Pedro Sula on May 11 from the gunshot injuries he had received the day before, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Medina was shot twice in the chest and once in the arm by two men on a motorcycle who...

Yakhya Magomedov, the young editor of the Avar-language version of a bi-monthly magazine that promotes a moderate vision of traditional Islam, was gunned down in northern Dagestan on May 8, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “We offer our condolences to Magomedov’s relatives and colleagues and we urge the authorities not to leave his death unpunished,”...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the police violence to which 15 journalists were subjected while covering the three days of demonstrations in the capital that began on May 5. Making no attempt to distinguish between protesters and media personnel, the police roughed up reporters, carried out arrests and confiscated or smashed equipment. “The use...

The conviction and sentencing of two defendants in the 2009 double murder of freelance journalist Anastasiya Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov is a landmark victory in the fight against impunity in press killings in Russia, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Moscow City Court Judge Aleksandr Zamashnyuk gave defendant Nikita Tikhonov life in a strict-regime penal colony...

A total of 68 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, while another 13 remain missing, says a new report by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), El Universal reports. In addition, the CNDH report catalogs 21 attacks on media facilities and says that since 2005, the organization has received 473 general grievance complaints from journalists and human rights defenders...

Pakistan's president committed to pursue justice for journalists killed in the line of duty, pledging to take steps to reverse the country's rising record of impunity. A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists met President Asif Ali Zardari Tuesday to discuss the growing number of targeted attacks on journalists in Pakistan and urged him to ensure that journalists are free to report...

Journalist Siamak Pourzand, 80, a major cultural figure in Iran, has committed suicide. Detained and under house arrest for ten years, banned from leaving the country and separated from his family, Pourzand killed himself on April 29 in Tehran. "We hold the Iranian authorities responsible for this gesture of despair. Despite several appeals to the authorities by his family and various human rights...