6 Mar 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
An Indian newspaper reporter has been beaten to death, less than two weeks after another journalist was clubbed to death in the same area. Rajesh Mishra was attacked and beaten on 1 March in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Mishra, from weekly newspaper Media Raj, received threats following his reports about alleged mismanagement of a number of regional schools owned by Rajneesh Banerjee, the publisher of another Rewa-based newspaper, Vindhya Bharat. The journalist was invited to meet the editor of Vindhya Bharat at a tea stand, where he was attacked. Fellow journalist Chandrika Rai was beaten to death in Madhya Pradesh, along with his wife and two children, last month.
6 Mar 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
A web editor was jailed for 10 days for reposting an unconfirmed report that two local officials had been caught with prostitutes in China. Shang Laicheng, an editor at Tiantian Xin news forum was arrested on 17 February as he left work, and his family were informed he had been formally detained for spreading misinformation. The Foshan Procuratorate office said that the information in the post, suggesting two local prosecutors were caught using prostitutes at a sauna, was fabricated and had damaged the reputations of authorities. The original author of the post remains unclear.
6 Mar 2012 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
A Somalian journalist has been shot dead by gunmen. Ali Ahmed Abdi who worked for a Somali news website was shot in the head several times by masked men as he walked home on Sunday evening in the northern town of Galkayo. Until recently, Abdi had been working for the privately owned Galkayo Radio. Abdi is the third Somalian journalist to be killed this year. On Saturday, a media director in Puntland was arrested and detained following the closure of radio station Radio Voice of Peace. Officials did not give motive for Ali’s arrest, nor the shutting down of the radio station.
6 Mar 2012 | China
Woeser, a Tibetan writer who has authored online articles and non-fiction books about her birthplace, has been prevented from attending a ceremony in which the Dutch Ambassador in China was to present her with an award from the Prince Claus Fund.
The writer was prevented by police from leaving her house in Beijing to accept the award at the Dutch Embassy last Thursday.
Woeser wrote Notes on Tibet in 2003 and has been widely published in Taiwan. It is rare for Tibetan writers (she is three-quarters Tibetan) to write in Mandarin Chinese, Woeser maintained two blogs within China before they were shut down in 2007. Woeser now maintains a blog outside of China, which is also sometimes hacked.
She blogged about the prize, reposting a statement released by the Dutch embassy:
Woeser is honoured for her courage in speaking for those who are silenced and oppressed, for her compelling combination of literary quality and political reportage, for recording, articulating and supporting Tibetan culture, and for her active commitment to self-determination, freedom and development in Tibet.
It is a politically sensitive time for the Tibetan writer — who cannot travel abroad without permission. The Chinese capital is in the midst of its annual National Legislative Sessions and March also marks the fourth anniversary of the Tibet uprisings.
Immolations in Tibet have escalated recently, the Western media have reported around 25 Tibetans self-immolating since last March, 18 of whom are believed to have died.
