Attacked

An angry crowd of mourners attending a mass funeral in Dogo Nahawa, central Nigeria, assaulted state radio reporter Murtala Sani on Monday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Sani, a reporter for the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, was assigned to cover the funeral of more than 40 people killed during a bloody March 7 attack on four villages in central Nigeria. Sani and...

There has been an alarming wave of drug-related violence in the Mexican city of Reynosa, near the Texas border, which is endangering the news media and causing widespread self-censorship, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In the past two weeks, several journalists have been abducted and one reporter has died in unclear circumstances, according to press reports and CPJ interviews...

Political rivalry and tension prompted by the March 7 legislative elections in Iraqi Kurdistan resulted in a wave of violence against independent and opposition journalists in the days preceding the election and on election day itself. Journalists describe it as the most harrowing period since the US invasion of Iraq in April 2003. “I am really concerned about these press freedom violations, which...

Two journalists were shot at in Hondursas on Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Unidentified gunmen in the capital, Tegucigalpa, killed a reporter and seriously wounded a colleague, according to local reports. Joseph Hernández Ochoa, who hosted an entertainment program on TV station Channel 51, was driving his colleague Karol Cabrera home around 8 p.m. when two...

“You have guns, we have pens,” was the message that the Sulaymaniyah-based independent newspaper Hawlati (Citizen) printed on an otherwise blank front page on February 24 in a bold protest against a spate of threats, harassment and physical violence against journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan in the run-up to a parliamentary election on March 6. Hawlati’s front page is just one example of the growing...

Payam Fazlinejad, an Iranian reporter who works for the ultra-conservative daily Kayhan was assaulted earlier this week. The official news agency IRNA said he was taken to Bagiolah Azam hospital after being seriously injured in an attack by several individuals on motorcycles on the evening of February 21in Tehran. Fazlinejad began his career as a journalist working for the weekly Sinema at the end...

There have been renewed cases of threats and physical violence against Bulgarian journalists in the past few days, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). An assault on TV reporter Dimitar Varbanov on February 10 and a police spokesman’s threats against news agency reporter Ivan Yanev in the city of Stara Zagora on February 8 show that a climate of intimidation continues. These incidents and...

Ten journalists who went to cover a major Israeli military operation in the Shu’fat refugee camp, in East Jerusalem, were targeted by Israeli soldiers firing tear-gas grenades, stun grenades and rubber bullets on February 8 and 9, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Many journalists were wounded while covering the Israeli search and arrest operation in the refugee camp on February 8. As...

Flouting a January 15 supreme court ruling, state-owned TV stations Rupavahini and ITN continue to openly favour President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s campaign to win another term in the presidential election to be held on January 26 with a total of 21 candidates taking part. Detailed monitoring by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has established that 98.5 per cent of the news and current affairs air-time...

There has been an increase in press freedom violations and violence against independent journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan since the July 25 regional elections, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Both of the two political parties that control the region have had a hand in these violations, of which there have been several recent cases. The most recent is that of freelance journalist Sabah...