30 May 2012 | Russia
Moscow journalist Sergei Aslanyan was stabbed repeatedly earlier this week. Anslanyan, who specialises in motoring and hosts a programme on state Mayak radio station, was attacked on 29 May after a stranger called him and asked to leave his apartment “for a talk”. Aslanyan was attacked as he left the house. He managed to call an ambulance himself, and is now in a stable condition in hospital, where he is under police guard.
Some of Aslanyan’s colleagues believe the attack was caused by comments about the prophet Muhammad he made on a radio station. Sergei Arkhipov, head or radio at VGTRK state holding, which owns Mayak radio, said Aslanyan heard his attacker say “You dislike Allah”.
The Muslim society of Tatarstan had expressed concerns about Aslanyan’s anti-Muslim comments in an appeal to Russia’s general prosecutor’s office. After the journalist was attacked, they condemned both the assault and premature conclusions about “Muslim trace” in the case. Their leader Rishat Khamidullin told journalists that Aslanyan was treated brutally and “such an attack after his insulting statements is no more than a provocation against the Muslims”.
Attacks on journalists are common in Russia. In April Novaya Gazeta reporter Elena Milashina was beaten near her house. In May three journalists of Novaya Gazeta branch in Ryazan were beaten. Another newspaper’s reporter, Diana Khachatryan, alleged she was threatened by pro-Kremlin youth movements after publishing an article about the United Russia congress.
The latest most scandalous attacks on journalists include the beatings of Kommersant’s Oleg Kashin, and Khimki Truth’s Mikhail Beketov, and the murders of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, who wrote columns for the same paper while working for Memorial human rights centre. In the vast majority of these cases, no one has been brough to justice.
Freedom House placed Russia at 172 out of 197 countries for press freedom this year.
30 May 2012 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
A journalist has been arrested in Malawi for writing an article on a same-sex engagement ceremony. Clement Chinoko, who works for Blantyre Newspapers Limited, was arrested on 26 May after an article appeared in the Malawi’s Sunday Times on 20 May detailing the engagement of two women in the southern city of Blantyre. The journalist has been charged with “conduct likely to cause breach of peace” and police spokesman Nicholas Gondwa has claimed the article is a fake. Chinoko has not yet been taken to court or been released on bail. Earlier this month, Malawi’s President Joyce Banda announced plans to repeal the country’s laws against homosexuality.
30 May 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
The Manouba-based headquarters of privately Tunisian owned TV network, Elhiwar Ettounsi (Tunisian Dialogue), were attacked early Sunday morning.
Taher Ben Hassine, the channel’s chief, told Radio Mosaïque FM that the attackers “vandalised everything”. He said:
History is repeating itself; Ben Ali thugs attacked our headquarters, and burned computers. We elected a national constituent assembly, to protect people, draft a new constitution, and improve the country’s situation, but the situation now is even worse…
Elhiwar Ettounsi was launched in 2003, and succeeded in broadcasting for a few hours per week despite the Ben Ali regime’s tight control over the media sector. Like any other independent media during that era, the channel faced censorship and financial restrictions.
According to a report released by the station, the attackers also stole video recording equipment and laptops. The station condemned the attack as “a subjugation attempt” — but did not make any specific accusations — opting instead to await the results of police investigations.
“We, Elhiwar Ettounsi channel team, do not accuse any party, and we believe that law which is above all, will take the course of justice” the channel said in a statement made on their official Facebook page.
Some have speculated that members of Tunisia’s hardline Islamist Salafis might be responsible for the attacks. National Syndicate for Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) board member Zied Heni pointed out to Radio Mosaïque FM that the attacks “took place following the channel’s broadcast of reports illustrating Salafi groups committing crimes. Elhwiar Ettounsi was among few media outlets to report on such crimes”.
30 May 2012 | Americas
This week, a remarkable six-month investigation into a Guatemalan tragedy which took place 30 years ago was published and aired by ProPublica, Fundacion MEPI and This American Life. Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala, dealt with violence and redemption in ways most stories cannot.
In 1982, a squad of army commanders stormed the tiny north Guatemalan village of Dos Erres and brutally massacred more than 250 men, women and children. Thirty years later a family torn apart by the horrific ordeal were reunited.
My organisation, Fundacion MEPI heard about the story first. But our partnership with larger organisations such as ProPublica and This American Life radio programme ensured this dramatic story reached a huge audience and had a huge impact on the small republic of Guatemala. We chose to tell the story in collaboration because an investigation on a Guatemalan massacre, reported and written by an investigative journalism project such as ours would not have received the amount of attention it deserved. We felt that only a multi-nation journalistic endeavor would do the story justice.
We were lucky that one of the people in the story, Oscar Alfredo Ramirez Castañeda, was an undocumented immigrant living in the United States, and his dramatic story would appeal to US news outlets. We were also lucky that unlike other stories about Guatemalan atrocities, there is a happy ending. Oscar, who was abducted and raised by a soldier who took part in the massacre, has now been reunited with his real father, Tranquilino Castañeda.
A key part of the story was the emphasis how today’s organised crime networks in Guatemala grew strong during the lawless 1980s, when anti-communist military officers discovered illicit ways of making money to fund their brutality. The truth is that even the recent arrival of the vicious Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas, was probably orchestrated by retired military officers. The story of Dos Erres links the carnage of the past with the impunity of the present, as even now those involved in the events at Dos Erres are still afraid to speak out.
We could not have completed our investigation into the story without the help and advice of Jose Ruben Zamora, publisher of the Guatemalan daily El Periodico. An unabashed defender of his country, Zamora’s tough editorial columns have angered dark forces in Guatemala for the last 20 years. He has done something that many of his fellow citizens fear to do — he has spoken out. He has paid dearly for his criticism: In 2003 his home was raided by armed men tied to active duty military officers, and his children and wife were tied up and harassed for several hours. In 2008, he was kidnapped and disappeared for a few days, found abandoned with signs of torture in a remote area.
Reporting on this story included delving into the heartbreaking memories of Don Tranquilino, and the dark secrets of two former ex Guatemala special military commandos known as Kaibiles, who confessed and are now protected witnesses. It was worth it.
Listen to the podcast of This American Life’s report.
Ana Arana is the head of Fundación de Periodismo de Investigación (MEPI), which was launched to promote investigations and work with journalists in the US, Mexico and Central America
