State Impunity

Media freedom is nowhere on the agenda in the Middle-East, North Africa and the Gulf. The region remains generally opposed to the free flow of news despite some easing of press laws and a few signs of opening up and greater tolerance. The three sub-regions have very different national constitutions and press laws and a variety of regimes (that also often clash with each other, sometimes violently)

Asia replaced the Middle-East as the deadliest region for journalists last year, with 26 reporters, photographers and editors losing their lives in retaliation for their work or in civil conflicts, according to the International Press Institute's annual World Press Freedom Review. Though more journalists were killed in Iraq than in any other country in 2008 for the sixth year in a row, Pakistan

A reporter-cameraman of a privately-owned TV station in Madagascar was shot dead while covering an anti-government demonstration outside the presidential palace in capital Antananarivo on February 7. The 25-year-old Ando Ratovonirina of Radio et Télévision Analamanga (RTA) was among the scores of people who were killed or wounded when security forces opened fired on the protesters, according to...

A Brazilian judge has issued an order calling for the closure of the investigation into the death of journalist Vladimir Herzog. Herzog died while Brazil was under military rule (1964-1984). Federal Justice Paula Mantovani Avelino's decision rejects requests by state prosecutors who have argued that Herzog's murder could be considered a crime against humanity, the Associação Brasileira de...

The International Press Institute (IPI) and the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) have reiterated earlier calls for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to refrain from verbal attacks on the media. This latest call follows the January 30 assault on journalists during a public speech in which the prime minister condemned the press for being biased in their coverage of the recent...

The International Press Institute (IPI) has welcomed a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) resolution urging Ukraine to do more to capture those behind the gruesome 2000 killing of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. The resolution, approved on January 27, applauded the recent convictions of three former police officers, but expressed its deep concern at the lack of progress in...

This year could be the deadliest one yet for journalists. A wave of killings in the first days of the new year have undermined hopes that the falling death toll recorded in 2008 was the first sign of a change in the pattern of killings which have risen dramatically in recent years. "The welcome relief brought about by the decline in the killings of journalists in 2008 has been shot lived," said

Stephan Hachemi has brought up a civil lawsuit against the Iranian government before the Quebec high court claiming damages for the arrest, detention, torture and death of his mother, Zahra Kazemi, a photographer with dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship, in Tehran in 2003. A preliminary three-day hearing was due to begin in Montreal on February 3, but it has been postponed to May, Reporters sans...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged Pakistani authorities to act effectively to protect Kamal Asfar, journalist on the magazine Ash-Sharq (The East), who on February 1 escaped a murder attempt. His brother, journalist, Aamir Wakil, was killed in Rawalpindi on January 24. “I am lucky to be alive today”, Asfar told the worldwide press freedom organisation. Two bearded men had fired several...

Following a vicious attack in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on a reporter for a pro-opposition weekly, the Committee to Protect Journalists has called for the Kazakh authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation and to bring the assailants to justice. At least three young men attacked Bakhytzhan Nurpeisov, 19, of the weekly Obshchestvennaya Pozitsiya (Public Position), at around 9 p.m. on...