State Impunity

A Radio IQK journalist in somalia, Mohamud Mohamed Yusuf, was shot twice in the stomach on Saturday in the capital, Mogadishu, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Yusuf, commonly known as "Ninile," was hit by stray bullets after leaving the station in Afarta Jardin, northern Mogadishu, local journalists told CPJ. According to local journalists and the National Union of Somali...

An unidentified gunman shot and killed Honduran journalist Gabriel Fino Noriega on Friday in the town of San Juan Pueblo, according to local press reports. Noriega, who worked for local radio station Estelar, TV Channel 9, and as a correspondent for national station Radio América in San Juan Pueblo, 217 miles (350 km) north of the capital Tegucigalpa, was gunned down after leaving the radio...

Several journalists have been harassed in Madagascar in recent weeks, a website was mysteriously blocked and a radio journalist was held for two weeks after being the victim of a heavy-handed arrest. “We are alarmed by the current climate of mistrust towards journalists,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “The political tension does not justify the often shocking methods used by the police and...

Nearly four months after the death of Franco-Congolese journalist Bruno Jacquet Ossébi, the Committee to Protect Journalists has called for authorities in the Republic of Congo to publicly disclose a report that was prepared weeks ago on their investigation. A magistrate appointed in February to oversee an investigation into the cause of the fire that ravaged Ossébi's residence in Brazzaville...

A Filipino radio presenter, Jonathan Petalvero, was recently shot dead at a restaurant in Bayugan, in the southern province of Agusan del Sur, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Petalvero hosted a programme that supported a local politician. “It is too soon to say whether this murder was linked to the victim’s work as a journalist, but the authorities must quickly assign enough...

Russia's Supreme Court has overturned the acquittals of three men accused of involvement in the October 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya. A spokesman for the court said on Thursday that there were procedural violations during the trial, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. In February, a 12-member jury in Moscow acquitted Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former...

Pakistan's security forces allegedly opened fire on June 9 on members of a media team of AVT Khyber, a Pashto TV channel, and a photographer of the English daily newspaper Dawn, resulting in injuries to a cameraperson and a driver, the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) has reported. The media team was on its way to cover events in Upper Dir, a volatile district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP)...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has urged the Canadian and Australian governments to work for the immediate release of two freelance journalists who have been held captive in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, since August. On Wednesday last, a woman claiming to be captive journalist Amanda Lindhout called the Canadian broadcaster CTV, saying she fears for her life and pleading for the government...

Hiram Oliveros Ortiz, an alleged participant in the assassination of La Mañana newspaper director Roberto Javier Mora García, was on June 3 sentenced to 16 years in prison by Judge José Alberto Ciprés Sánchez of the Second Bench Criminal Court in Nuevo Loredo, Tamaulipas state, northern Mexico, the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) has reported. Oliveros Ortiz, who is being held at...

Attempts to unravel the murder of journalist Francis Nyaruri have run into problems after key witnesses began receiving death threats. The family lawyer, Andrew Mandi (who practises in the Nyamira District of Kenya's Nyanza Province) and Robert Natwoli (a police officer in Nyamira) have gone into hiding after they were threatened with death, the Nairobi-based Media Institute has reported. The...