Abducted

During the past year, ninety-five journalists in 32 countries paid with their lives for exercising their profession. This figure, according to the 2008 Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) report, is lower than the record 115 journalists killed last year, but this drop of 17.5 per cent is solely due to an improvement in security in Iraq. On average, nearly two journalists were killed every week in the

Press freedom groups have expressed concern over the abduction of freelance photojournalist Shadreck Manyere and attempted abduction of Obrian Rwafa, a reporter with the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). These incidents happened just 10 days after the abduction of journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, who is still missing. “Whoever was responsible, these...

Obrian Rwafa, a news assignment editor with the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), was on December 13 abducted and severely assaulted by unknown assailants in Harare, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. Rwafa, who was admitted at a private hospital, reportedly suffered head injuries and bruises. He said three unidentified men who were driving a white...

Prominent Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko was abducted at dawn on Wednesday from her home near capital Harare. The journalist, a former broadcaster at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) then privately-owned Voice of the People (VOP), was snatched from her home in Norton, 40 kilometres from the capital, by 15 men in plain clothes, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human...

Four journalists were abducted on Wednesday in the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland. The abduction took place in the port city of Bosasso, from where several foreigners have been abducted over the past year. The journalists were reported to have been investigating the spate of piracy incidents in Somali waters. There was some confusion over the nationalities of those taken, according to...

A Canadian journalist was abducted this week while gathering materials for a documentary in the Bannu district in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, on the border with Afghanistan, officials said Thursday. The English-language Pakistani paper the News International, citing unnamed sources, first reported the story on Wednesday. Beverly Giesbrecht, 52, also known as Khadija Abdul...

Afghan abductors kept a Canadian journalist captive, sometimes blindfolded and chained, in a cave for four weeks before she was freed, the reporter said Sunday. Mellissa Fung, a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in Afghanistan, was freed on Saturday after being abducted a month ago near capital Kabul. Fung was the second abducted foreign journalist to be released in two days. On...

A Belgian reporter has been abducted by pro-government Mai-Mai rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported Thursday. RSF has called on the Mai-Mai militiamen holding Belgian journalist Thomas Scheen, together with his interpreter and his driver, in the Rutshuru region of the eastern province of Nord-Kivu to release them at once. Scheen is a correspondent...

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has condemned the August 23 abduction of Canadian female journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan at KM13, a western suburb of Mogadishu between Afgoye district and the capital city. These two journalists arrived in Mogadishu on August 20. Lindhout, who is a Baghdad-based journalist, is freelancing for French TV...

Two journalists and their companion were Friday abducted by the local Taliban in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal region even as scribes expressed concern at the deteriorating law and order situation in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, says a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. Reporter Pir Zubair Shah, photo-journalist Akhtar Soomro and Abdul Hassan, a leader of the local unit of the ruling...