State Impunity

Police in Kazakhstan said Monday that they have identified several suspects in this month’s murder of prominent Kyrgyz editor Gennady Pavlyuk, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Police did not identify the suspects or describe their alleged roles, other than to say the suspects are citizens of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. In a statement Tuesday, the Kyrgyz...

José Alberto Velázquez López, owner of the Mexican newspaper Expresiones de Tulum in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, died late Tuesday after being shot in his car by a gunman aboard a motorcycle, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. Mexican authorities must swiftly investigate this crime and bring those responsible to justice...

José Alberto Velásquez López, a journalist and lawyer based in Tulum, in the eastern Mexico state of Quintana Roo, died on the night of December 22 after being shot as he drove home, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The editor of the Diario Express de Tulum newspaper and a contributor to Canal 30, a local TV station, Velásquez left a wife who is about to give birth and a five-year-old...

Kyrgyzstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk, who was thrown from a sixth floor window in Almaty, Kazakhstan on December 16, died Tuesdayin hospital, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “Ten days ahead of taking over the presidency of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Kazakh authorities cannot allow a murder like this to go unpunished and the Kyrgyz side must...

Tuesday morning after falling from an upper-story window of an apartment building in Kazakhstan’s economic capital, Almaty, last week, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Pavlyuk, 40, described by colleagues as one of Kyrgyzstan’s most prominent journalists, had travelled to Almaty from Bishkek on business on Wednesday; the exact purpose of the trip remains...

A suicide bomber detonated an explosive Tuesday on the grounds of the Press Club building in Peshawar, in the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local and international media reports. Three, possibly four, people were killed, though none of the approximately 30 journalists waiting for a press conference to start...

Mortar shells destroyed the Radio Voice of Democracy building Monday morning in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing Amal Abukar, 22, the wife of the director of the station, Abdirahman Yasin, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Abukar died instantly after three mortar shells landed on the station’s building in northern Mogadishu at 10:30 a.m., local...

An unidentified gunman shot and killed Colombian journalist Hárold Humberto Rivas Quevedo in the western Valle del Cauca province on the night of December 15, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. CPJ Thursday called on Colombian authorities to investigate the killing and do everything in their power to bring all those responsible to justice. Rivas, 49, host of...

Unidentified assailants shot and killed Brazilian media owner and radio host José Givonaldo Vieira on Monday morning in northeastern Pernambuco state, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. CPJ called on Brazilian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into Vieira’s killing and to promptly bring to justice all those responsible...

A Russian police officer who fatally shot an online publisher in government custody in 2008 was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in a low-security prison settlement Friday, Reuters and other news agencies reported. The family of the victim, Magomed Yevloyev, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) they would appeal the verdict because their own...