On 7 April, Edgar Astudillo Vásquez, radio producer of a news program on Radio Panzenú, received a a pamphlet that said he would be killed before April 20 in any street in his home city of Montería in the Córdoba region. The death threats came the “Los Paisas paramilitary group. Since the murder of the radio journalist Clodomiro Castilla, on 19 March, three journalists in Montería have been threatened.
A Japanese cameraman for Reuters, Hiro Muramoto, was fatally shot in the chest whilst covering protests in Bangkok on 10 April. It is not apparent which side was responsible for the shooting, as Thai police used rubber bullets, tear gas and fired live ammunition into the air, whilst red shirt protesters were also accused of firing live rounds and grenades. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs have issued a statement calling for an independent investigation of Muramoto’s death.
The Spanish National Court has acquitted five executives of a now-defunct Basque-language newspaper, including its former editor-in-chief Martxelo Otamendi, of belonging to the separatist group ETA. The court said the prosecution had not provided enough evidence to support its case, which centred on economic ties between the daily Egunkaria and the proscribed terrorist organisation. The paper was shut down on a judge’s order in 2003 on the grounds that it assisted ETA. Following the closure of Egin in 1998, Egunkaria was the world’s only Basque-language newspaper.
The mayor of Murmansk a city in north-west Russia, has been accused of censorship by the editor of Vecherni Murmansk newspaper. Nataliya Chervyakova’s claims relate to an article that accused local officials of failing to re-calculate citizens’ payments for heating in 2009 – in defiance of a government order. Chervyakova says that she was summoned to the office of Mayor Sergey Subbotin a few days before the article was due to be published on April 6, and told not to publish the story. When she refused to pull the piece , Subbotin allegedly threatened both her and her family.