State Impunity

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned Friday's vicious attack on Zurab Tsechoyev, editor of Mashr, a human rights website based in the volatile North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. At least 50 armed, masked men in camouflage gear raided Tsechoyev's home, shoved him into an armoured personnel carrier, drove him to an unknown location, and interrogated and beat him for five...

Simone Gbagbo, wife of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, and former Ivorian economy minister Paul-Antoine Bohoun Bouabré failed to respond to a summons from French investigating judge Patrick Ramaël for questioning on July 10 in Paris as witnesses in his probe into the disappearance of journalist Guy-André Kieffer, a dual French-Canadian national, in Côte d'Ivoire in 2004. Paris-based Reporters...

Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi died five years ago on July 10, 2003 from a cerebral haemorrhage following beatings she received in Evin prison, Tehran. In January, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial because of irregularities that affected the appeal court's verdict in November 2005. "Five years after the death of Zahra Kazemi and despite the decision to reopen the case, we have...

The man suspected of killing Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 is hiding in Western Europe, Russia's chief criminal investigator said Tuesday, according to Reuters. Some details: "According to our information, the murderer is hiding in Western Europe," Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Prosecutor-General's investigation unit, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. "We even...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Tuesday welcomed a renewed call by European parliamentarians for Ukraine to bring to justice "those who instigated and organised the murder of Heorhiy Gongadze." The call was made by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg who today expressed "deep concern" that Ukraine...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the Pakistani federal government and information minister Sherry Rehman in particular to publish the results of the investigations into the death of Hayatullah Khan, a reporter in Pakistan’s northeastern Tribal Areas, whose body was found two years ago, six months after his still unexplained abduction. "Pakistan is currently outraged by the death of 11...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner to raise the problem of risks to journalists covering fighting in the Palestinian territories at the Israel-EU Association Council meeting in Luxemburg on June 16. "The death of Fadel Shana, of the British news agency Reuters, on April 16, has reawakened our concern about the lack of...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Israeli authorities to release the findings of an army investigation into the killing of a Reuters cameraman by an Israeli tank shell in the Gaza Strip two months ago. In a meeting with Israel’s ambassador to the United States, the CPJ delegation also urged the government to commit to a thorough, impartial, and credible inquiry into the killing...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called is calling on European Commissioner for external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, to raise the problem of risks to journalists covering fighting in the Palestinian territories at the Israel-EU Association Council meeting in Luxemburg on June 16. “The death of Fadel Shana, of the British news agency Reuters, on 16 April 2008, has reawakened our concern...

NTV and other Turkish media have for the past four days been airing footage of the surveillance cameras of a bank and a shop near the Istanbul-based weekly Agos that was recorded on January 19, 2007, the day the newspaper’s editor, Hrant Dink, was gunned down outside. The footage shows other people with the alleged killer, Ogün Samast, and proves that the Dink family’s lawyers were right to...