State Impunity

Some twenty lawyers of the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) attacked reporter Shaheen Attiq and cameraman Mohammed Nasir of private television channel City-42 Thursday last for airing footage of the lawyers beating a policeman a day earlier outside the premises of the Sessions Court, in Lahore, the capital city of the Punjab province. According to the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), Nasir and Attiq...

Forensics experts in Ukraine are trying to identify fragments of a human skull found in the Bilotserkivski district of Kyiv Oblast, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has reported. The investigators suspect that the remains are those of independent journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who was abducted and beheaded by unknown assailants in 2000. Gongadze, known for his criticism of the Ukrainian...

Following a vicious attack on a cameraman for the La Paz-based television network Gigavisión outside the station's offices early Saturday morning, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Bolivian authorities to thoroughly investigate and bring those responsible to justice. At 6 a.m. on Saturday, two people pushed Marcelo Lobo into an alley near his offices and hit him repeatedly...

Mexican authorities found the brutally beaten body of a journalist partially buried near the southwestern resort city of Acapulco Tuesday afternoon, the Committee to Protect Journalists has reported quoting local news reports. Juan Daniel Martínez Gil, anchor of the radio news programs "W Acapulco" on national W Radio and "Guerrero en vivo" on local Radiorama Acapulco, was found buried in a vacant...

Another radio journalist has been killed in the Mindanao island of the Philippines. Two unidentified men Monday shot Godofredo Linao in the back near the offices of Radyo Natin, where he worked as a commentator, in Surigao del Sol province on southern Mindanao Island, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Radyo Natin's manager and owner, Mario Alviso said Linao had been summoned...

A former senior figure in Ukraine's interior ministry has confessed to the murder in 2000 of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze and implicated high-ranking state officials, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported quoting authorities. Details: [ Link] Asked by reporters if the suspect, arrested on Tuesday, had confessed and if he implicated senior Ukrainian officials in the killing, Vassyl Grytsak, deputy...

Unlawful arrests, detention, torture and unfair trials are increasing in the Gambia, repressing already restricted freedom of expression in the country, say journalists and human rights organizations. "Since 2004 the situation has been getting worse and worse," Amnesty International's Gambia researcher Tania Bernath told IRIN, "with unlawful detention, torture, arrests, journalists being targeted

Two journalists were killed in Mexico within a span of 24 hours earlier this week, according to delayed reports received by Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Martín Javier Miranda Avilés, a reporter on the daily Panorama and correspondent for news agency Quadratin, found dead at his home in Zitacuaro, Michoacán state in the south-east on July 12. Ernesto Montañez Valdivia, an editor of...

Prominent journalist and human rights activist Natalya Estemirova has been murdered in Chechnya. Estemirova, 50, was abducted Wednesday morning in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, as she was leaving her apartment for work, Reuters reported. She was found shot in the head and the chest in the neighbouring region of Ingushetia at around 5 p.m.. Estemirova was an activist with the Moscow-based human...

The house of a second Pakistani journalist working in the border area with Afghanistan was looted and burned on Saturday, according to the Khyber Union of Journalists (KhUJ). The attack was similar to one carried out by Taliban militants on Thursday last in the same district, which has been an area of conflict since the government launched an offensive in April. According to the KhUJ and the...