State Impunity

The director of HornAfrik, one of Somalia's leading radio and television stations, was killed by three masked gunmen in the Bakara Market area of Mogadishu on Tuesday afternoon, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The assailants shot Said Tahlil repeatedly as he and six other senior journalists were walking to a meeting with members of the militant Al-Shabaab group. "We send...

Assailants on motorbikes attacked a Sri Lankan newspaper editor and his wife as they drove to work Friday morning, stabbing them repeatedly, the Associated Press (AP) has reported quoting authorities. The couple received minor wounds and both were expected to recover. Four people on motorbikes blocked Upali Tennakoon's car outside of Colombo as he and his wife were heading to work at the...

A Colombian judge has sentenced a former mayor to 28 years in prison for ordering the April 2003 killing of a journalist who had repeatedly denounced the politician as corrupt. The convictions of three former public officials on charges of plotting the murder of Colombian radio commentator José Emeterio Rivas represent a historic step forward in the campaign to end impunity in the killings of...

A broadcast journalist was killed by two unidentified gunmen in a southern Philippine city, according to news reports. Badrodin Abas, 38, was shot in the head by two motorcycle-riding gunmen late Wednesday in Cotabato City, 930km south of Manila, according to the city's police chief, Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane. Dangane said the victim, a broadcaster for a radio station in Cotabato, was...

The shocking murders of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and young journalist Anastasia Barburova on Monday brings Russia's human rights record to a new low, press freedom groups have said. The crime is compounded by the knowledge that Russia has a culture where impunity reigns and murderers are rarely brought to justice, ARTICLE 19 and Index on Censorship have said. Even in the case of a journalist as...

A human rights lawyer well-known for his work on abuses in Chechnya, Stanislav Markelov, and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot to death Monday in broad daylight by a masked gunman who trailed Markelov from a press conference in Moscow. Markelov had at the January 19 press conference condemned the early release of Yuri Bodanov, a Russian former colonel who was sentenced in 2003...

Yasser Abu Hilaleh, the Al-Jazeera network's bureau chief in Amman, was beaten by riot police while he was covering a demonstration in Rabia on January 9. Abu Hilaleh, who was reporting on the protest involving clashes between demonstrators and the Gendarmerie Forces, was approached by two individuals dressed in civilian clothing who asked him to leave the scene and threatened to assault him, the...

A Rio de Janeiro court that oversees sentence implementation has reversed a decision to put Cláudio Orlando "Ratinho" de Nascimento, one of the convicted killers of Rede Globo television reporter Tim Lopes, on a semi-release regime that let him out of prison by day to visit relatives and friends, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The prison administration granted "Ratinho" semi-release...

Sri Lanka's government censured a senior international diplomat after he spoke at the funeral of a newspaper editor whose murder has been blamed on the island's rulers, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Wednesday. German ambassador Jurgen Weerth was ordered to the Colombo foreign office and told of Sri Lanka's anger over his graveside eulogy for Lasantha Wickrematunga, officials who declined to...

Press freedom groups have expressed shock at the December 30, 2008 announcement that Cláudio Orlando "O Ratinho" do Nascimento, like Claudino "Xuxa" dos Santos Coelho before him, has been granted a partial release for "good behaviour." The two men, known members of a Rio de Janeiro gang, were sentenced in 2005 to 23 years and six months in prison for the June 2002 murder of TV Globo reporter Tim...