Posts Tagged ‘journalist’
April 6th, 2011
The chief crime reporter for the Urdu-language daily Extra New was
gunned down in Karachi on 2 April. Zaman Ali was the 14th Pakistani journalist to be killed in the last 13 months.
Witnesses claimed that he was murdered shortly after attending a gathering of Benazir Bhutto supporters, his assailants have not been caught. Pakistan’s Crime Reporters Association condemned his murder, calling for greater protection for working journalists.
February 14th, 2011
Journalist and blogger Olena Bilozerska has managed to
recover some of the equipment and material which was
illegally seized from her home in Kiev on 12 January. The police interrogation on 8 February included
questions about her sources. The police returned some items but have kept 162 CDs and DVDs which contain material needed for her work. She regained her camera and video camera, neither of which was working. The authorities also returned her computer, which had been dismantled.
November 10th, 2010
A Russian editor who was nearly killed in the attack two years ago, has been
convicted of slander.
Mikhail Beketov, who is confined to a wheelchair and can barely speak, has been found guilty of insulting the local mayor by the court in Khimki. He has been instructed to compensate damages by paying 500 roubles (100 British pounds).
Beketov had been covering the plans to build the road through Khimki’s protected forest. Although the motorway works have been stopped, another journalist and an ecologist have been assaulted this month.
Oleg Kashin, a correspondent of Russia’s well-known paper Kommersant, has been badly beaten with an iron bar on Saturday. Two days earlier, Khimki opposition activist Konstantin Fetisov had his skull broken after being released from police, where he was questioned about the protest.
Mikhail Mikhailin, editor-in-chief of
Kommersant said he is sure the attacks are connected to the articles written about the motorway. It has also been said that they carry the same signature.
Before
Beketov endured brain damage and lost his right leg and four fingers in the attack in November 2008, his car was set on fire and his dog was killed. Nobody has been brought to court.
October 11th, 2010
Turkish journalist
Ismail Saymez could be
jailed for 79 years if convicted of charges related to newspaper articles he has written. He has been charged with “violating the secrecy of an investigation” for his reporting on the
Ergenekon trials. He also faces charges of “insult” and “attempt to influence a fair trial.” According to The
International Press Institute National Committee, Saymez stated, “I only do my job as a reporter, inform the public on the events that the public is interested in, and supply them with objective information. I do not try to influence in any way. They sue me with imprisonment of tens of years on every word my newspaper reports.”
Among the
articles at issue are “What Prosecutor Cihaner was asked” of 18 February, “Assassination with a tick, coup of the tea vendors” of 12 February 2010, “Cihaner: I do not know Çiçek, I did not see him – Ciçek: I do not know anybody in Erzincan” of 20 February, “Did you meet Dursun Çiçek?” of 22 February, and ”Love games in Ergenekon – The Ergenekon prosecutor also took the judge’s statement” published 8 June. These articles were published in the newspaper
Radikal.
His first hearing is to take place on 28 January 2011.
September 17th, 2010
A radio news anchor and opposition political activist in Uganda’s central district Mukono was
beaten to death with metal bars on 13 September. Dickson Ssentongo routinely
read the 7 a.m. news bulletins for Prime Radio station in the Luganda language, but now becomes the second journalist to be killed in the country in three days. On Saturday, the journalist Paul Kiggundu was
beaten to death by taxi-drivers. Both Kiggindu and Ssetongo died in hospital some hours after being attacked. No arrests have been made in either case.
September 13th, 2010
The editor of opposition newspaper Listok has been
charged with defamation after calling the administration of the Altai republic a “nest of vipers”. He also referred to the governor of Altai as an “alcoholic”. If convicted, Sergei Mikhailov will face up to four years in prison and a fine of up to $14,000. Supporters of the journalist say the case is politically motivated, particularly since Mikhailov was elected to Altai’s legislature in March.
August 24th, 2010
Police in eastern Ukraine have reclassified the case of a missing journalist as ”
premeditated murder“. Vasyl Klymentyev, chief editor and reporter for newspaper Novyi Stil, was
last seen on 11 August getting into a BMW with an unknown man. The Kharkiv-based weekly newspaper is well known for reporting on corruption in local government and law enforcement. Klymentyev’s most recent articles criticised a local prosecutor and head of the regional fiscal police, and the
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged investigators to focus on his journalism as a motive.
Klymentyev’s deputy said that the editor had been threatened several times before and had been offered bribes to keep damaging information quiet.
July 27th, 2010
Emadden Baghi, an Iranian human rights activist and journalist, has been given
a year-long prison sentence and banned from any political activity for five years. He was arrested during
anti-government protests in 2009. He faces a second trial relating to accusations surrounding an
interview he conducted with cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri for BBC Persia. Baghi is a previous winner of the French Republic’s Human Rights Prize and the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.
