State Impunity

The Turkish interior ministry has asked the judicial authorities to investigate five police officers attached to the Security Directorate in Istanbul on suspicion of failing to take the threats against newspaper editor Hrant Dink seriously and failing to protect him, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Dink, who was of Armenian origin, was gunned down in January 2007. The five policemen...

Iraqi journalist Omar Ibrahim Al-Jabouri, the satellite TV station Al-Rasheed’s head of public relations, lost both of his legs Tuesday as a result of a targetted car-bombing in Baghdad, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). A total of three people were seriously injured when the bomb, attached to the underside of Al-Jabouri’s car, exploded as he set off this morning for work with two...

Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto was fatally shot during armed exchanges between Thailand soldiers and antigovernment protestors on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Muramoto, a Japanese national, was shot in the chest while filming an early-afternoon confrontation and was pronounced dead at a Bangkok hospital, according to local and international news reports...

Al-Shabaab insurgents in Somalia have banned all BBC broadcasts from the areas they control and confiscated the corporation’s FM transmitters and satellite dishes. Local journalists told the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that Al-Shabaab issued a statement Friday announcing the immediate ban, claiming the BBC carried the “agenda of the crusaders” and “opposed an Islamic...

Following Monday’s murder of freelance cameraman Patient Chebeya in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for a renewed commitment from the government to solidly investigate and prosecute those who kill journalists. Armed men in military uniforms jumped Chebeya, around 10 p.m. as his wife let him in his house in the volatile eastern city of Beni...

Disturbing video footage showing a 2007 US military airstrike that killed about a dozen Iraqis in eastern Baghdad, including a Reuters cameraman and assistant, was released Tuesday by WikiLeaks, a website that publishes sensitive leaked documents. The video raises questions about the actions of US military forces and the thoroughness and transparency of the investigation that followed, the...

Freelance Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka had apparently been abducted in northern Afghanistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said quoting a Japanese official. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told journalists he was aware of Japanese media reports about the abduction, according to Tokyo-based agency Kyodo News and international news reports, but declined to comment...

Honduran journalist José Alemán fled the country on Sunday after threatening attacks, including the break-in of two unidentified gunmen at his home in the rural municipality of San Marcos de Ocotepeque, near the border with El Salvador, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said quoting local press reports. Alemán, a correspondent for the daily Tiempo and the national broadcaster Radio...

The conviction on Saturday of four men, including three members of the military police, in the 2007 murder of Brazilian journalist Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho is an important step forward in the global campaign to combat impunity in journalists’ murders, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. A court in Sao Paulo sentenced Captain Adelcio Carlos Avelino, Sergeant Edson Luiz Ronceiro...

An assassination attempt was made Sunday against Muaid al-Lami, head of the Iraqi Journalists’ Syndicate, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Four unidentified gunmen in a car intercepted and opened fire in Baghdad’s Al-Qadisiyya district on a two-car convoy carrying al-Lami and four other individuals, according to news reports. Al-Lami told New York-based CPJ that he was not...