The head of public relations at Iraq’s Al-Rasheed satellite TV station was injured by a car-bomb on 13 April, which took both of his legs and seriously injured two others. Omar Ibrahim Al-Jabouri’s car exploded in Doura, a suburb of Baghdad. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
On 11 April, Mauricio Medina Moreno, director and founding member of the indigenous community radio CRIT 98.0 FM Estéreo, was murdered in his home in the town of Ortega. Medina, 50, died of multiple knife wounds. Although police described the murder as a ‘crime of passion’, some organisations said that this label is often applied in order to avoid investigating links to a journalist’s work. (RSF)
On 12 April, a court dropped all the charges against the former commissioners of the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL), accused of the closure of two media during the political crisis of 2009. The Human Rights special prosecutor had accused them of the crime of abuse of authority, for ordering the closing of Channel 36 and Radio Globo, in the context of the political crisis created after the coup d’état against Manuel Zelaya.
Two journalists in Tunisia have been targets of harassment and violence this month by unknown assailants. Mouldi Zouabi, a journalist for Radio Kalima, was anonymously attacked and had his wallet and press credentials stolen from him outside of a police station in Jendouba on 1 April. Moez Jemai, an independent blogger and a correspondent for Kalima, has recently received threats on his phone at work. In January, Jemai was arbaitrarily arrested, detained for eight hours and had his equiptment confiscated by the police.