Attacked

NATO carried out airstrikes on the Tripoli headquarters of the state-owned national TV broadcaster Al-Jamahiriya and two of its installations on July 30. According to Al-Jamahiriya, three of its journalists were killed and 21 others were wounded in the airstrikes but this could not be immediately verified. The impossibility of immediate verification is yet another reminder of the difficulty of...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has caleld for a swift and thorough probe into the July 31 arson attack on the home of Oleksiy Matsuka, a well-known investigative journalist based in the eastern city of Donetsk. Matsuka edits the regional news website Novosti Donbassa. “The authorities must react with firmness and, as this journalist’s life is clearly in serious...

A savage attack was carried out July 29 on Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, 59, the editor of the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, who was beaten by unidentified men with iron bars in the northern city of Jaffna. He was rushed to hospital, where he was in a critical condition with serious head injuries and still unconscious. “We demand a rapid and thorough investigation into this appalling crime,” Paris...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the latest arson attack on a car displaying the colours of the Podgorica-based daily Vijesti on the night of July 23. It was the third such attack on a Vijesti vehicle in the space of a week . In the latest incident, an unidentified individual tried to set fire to a Vijesti car parked on the street but a policeman who...

At least seven journalists covering protests that took place in several cities during the past two days have been attacked by the police in Malawi. Some of the journalists were briefly detained. The government expressly banned radio stations from covering the demonstrations, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “We are very disturbed by the particularly...

While hailing Tunisia’s progress in respect for civil liberties, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) is disturbed by the violence that the security forces deliberately used against journalists during a demonstration in central Tunis on July 15 and by the fact that the Prime Minister Béji Caïd Essebsi held the media partly responsible July 18 for the current social and...

Many journalists have been the target of deliberate physical attacks in the past week as police officers and members of the security forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main parties that form the government in Iraqi Kurdistan, looked on without intervening. In one incident, reporters were attacked by gunmen in civilian dress while covering a fire in a building near the...

An arson attack was carried out on two cars owned by the independent daily Vijesti in the early hours of July 14 in Podgorica. Unidentified individuals dowsed the two parked cars with gasoline before setting them alight and fleeing. The cars were clearly marked with the newspaper’s colours, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “We firmly condemn this latest attack...

Mashiyul Haque, the correspondent of daily Dainik Samakal and president of the Kalia Press Club, and his wife, Reena Parvin, were badly injured in a bomb attack on their home on July 11 in the southwestern locality of Kalabaria, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). They were taken to a hospital in the capital, Dhaka, where they were reported to be in a...

Iraqi journalists are now often sued by politicians and public figures and, at the same time, are often the targets of physical attacks which, in many cases are carried out by members of the security forces, including the bodyguards of leading politicians. “These practices, which are designed to intimidate journalists and censor the media, constitute serious violations of freedom of expression and...