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(FMM/IFEX) - On 30 October 2007, at approximately 11:45 p.m. (local time), journalist Kumudu Champika Jayawardana of the informational website http://www.ethalaya.org was fired upon in Colombo, as he returned home from the office on his motorcycle. Two men in shorts waved at him to stop his motorcycle, but Jayawardana rode past them only to be shot in the back. The shooting took place on Nawala...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has called for the unconditional release of reporter Marc Garmirian of the Capa news agency and photographer Jean-Daniel Guillou of the Synchro X agency, who have been held since 25 October 2007 in the eastern town of Abéché with members of the French association Arche de Zoé (Zoé's Ark) following an abortive attempt to evacuate African children to France...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a sentence of one-month’s forced labour imposed on editor of al-Wafd, Anwar Al-Hawari and Younes Darwish, the daily’s correspondent in Assyout, 380 kms south of Cairo, for “publishing false news” about fraud by two members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Darwish wrote an article that appeared in March 2007 based on a meeting of the regional...

Niamey - Police in Niger have arrested a third journalist in what critics said on Friday is an ongoing clampdown on coverage of the conflict with Tuareg rebels in the north of the country. Daouda Yacouba, correspondent of the bi-monthly Air-Info magazine, was picked up on Thursday at his home in northern town of Ingal and driven to the gendarmerie in regional capital Agadez, a colleague told AFP....

New York, October 26, 2007—A Bangladeshi journalist arrested Tuesday has been beaten in jail, his wife told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Jahangir Alam Akash was arrested at his home in Rajshahi on extortion charges. Akash was taken to the prison hospital on Thursday with leg injuries, his wife told local journalist Shahriar Kabir and press freedom advocate Mainul Islam Khan. Akash, who...

KARACHI, Oct 26 (IPS) - When TV cameraman Arif Khan added to the list of over 140 people who died in the bombings that targeted the welcome procession for former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, on Oct. 18, it highlighted the many risks that journalists in Pakistan now face. Bhutto took special notice of Khan in her press conference the following day, while paying homage to the 'shuhada' (martyrs)...

The Sri Lankan government has ordered the closure of five FM news radio stations run by a single company, ABC, for broadcasting a false report on Wednesday, saying that the LTTE's suicide squad had attacked a Sinhala village near Weerawila, the site for a major airport in South Sri Lanka. The government said that the broadcast had triggered panic in the entire Tissamaharama area, which is a...

(Media Institute/IFEX) - Rwanda's biggest independent private media group has suspended publication of its titles citing continued state blackmail and intimidation. The Rwanda Independent Media Group (RIMEG), publishers of "Newsline" (Wednesday), "Umuseso" (Monday vernacular) and "Rwanda Championi" (Friday), announced it would not be publishing for at least two weeks starting October 23. "With...

New York, October 25, 2007—Sri Lankan authorities should immediately release Sunday Leader reporter Arthur Wamanan Sornalingam, who was detained in Colombo on Wednesday in connection with a story critical of a government minister, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Sornalingam and his mother, with whom he lives, were picked up by Criminal Investigation Division officers at 4:30 a.m...

Reporters Without Borders is deeply shocked by the fatal shooting yesterday of Alisher Sayipov, a young freelance journalist and founder of the newspaper Sayasat (Politics). He was gunned down outside the premises of Radio Free Europe in the southern city of Osh at about 7 p.m. The police have began a criminal investigation and the president’s office has said it is following the case. “Sayipov was...