State Impunity

Taliban militiamen have beheaded Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi who had been held capitive since March 4, news reports have said. The death of Naqshbandi came on a day of heavy violence in Afghanistan that also saw the deaths of seven North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) soldiers in roadside bombings in the south. A government official confirmed Naqshbandi’s slaying hours after a...

The fourth anniversary of the still unexplained killing of three journalists by US troops in Baghdad was marked Sunday by a preceding week of shocking attacks on journalists in Iraq. Four journalists were killed during the week. Thursday last saw the brutal murder of Khamaail Mohsin, a mother of three and journalist with Radio Free Iraq, the US-funded Radio station in Arabic, and the bombing of...

Foreign militants killed the brother, father, uncle, and cousin of Urdu-language Inkishaf reporter Din Mohammed at his home in South Waziristan in apparent retribution for his work, colleagues told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Three other family members were also abducted. Pakistani tribesmen stand guard at a checkpoint in Wana, the main town of the South Wziristan region bordering...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by death threats made against Dinko Gruhonjic, head of the Vojvodina branch of the independent news agency BETA and chairman of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, by a local neo-Nazi group. The threats, which were posted on a neo-Nazi Web site this week, stem from Gruhonjic’s coverage of National Formation, a neo-Nazi group based...

Free expression groups worldwide have joined Afghan journalists in demanding the release of the independent journalist and translator who was kidnapped by the Taliban at the same time as a now-freed Italian journalist. La Repubblica reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo, his driver, Syed Agha, and his translator, Ajmal Naqshbandi, who is also a journalist, were kidnapped on March 5 by the Taliban in...

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston began Monday his third week in captivity in the Gaza Strip wven as efforts were stepped up to secure his release. Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) urged leaders attending an Arab League summit on March 28-29 in Saudi Arabia to issue a joint appeal for his release. BBC Middle East Bureau Editor Simon Wilson, right, listens to BBC Gaza correspondent Fayed Abu Shammala...

Slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya's diaries, published in English this week, paint a damning picture of a Russia where democracy is stifled, fascism is on the rise and ethnic minorities are brutally repressed. For her, one man is to blame -- President Vladimir Putin. Her hard-hitting account of Russian news and politics over two years, including the parliamentary elections in 2003 and the Beslan...

Hundreds of protesters blockaded an Afghan hospital where freed Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo was staying on Tuesday, demanding details of the death of his beheaded driver, news agencies have reported. More than 200 relatives and friends of executed driver Syed Agha protested outside the Italian-run Emergency hospital in the capital of southern Helmand province, Lashkar Gah, demanding...

Four years after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains the deadliest country in the world for the press as local journalists continue to suffer disproportionately from the violence, research by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows. The bodies of correspondent Atwar Bahjat (inset), cameraman al-Falahi, and engineer Khairallah were found near Samarra, a day after the...

The second jury trial of two men in the July 2004 murder of Forbes Russia Editor Paul Klebnikov had to be postponed again Wednesday after one of the defendants went missing. It was the second time that Kazbek Dukuzov, who is 32 or 33, failed to turn up at the Moscow City Court. Dukuzov missed a February hearing. Musa Vakhaev, accused of murdering U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov, speaks to...