9 Jan 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost, News and features
A Filipino journalist was murdered on 5 January, local reports suggest he was chased down by unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle. Christopher Guarin, publisher and editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Tatak News Nationwide, died in front of his wife and two children. Guarin’s colleagues claim that the journalist received an anonymous threat during his radio programme warning Guarin that he would be killed when leaving the station shortly before his murder.
20 Nov 2011 | Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
Sanat newspaper editor Rafiq Tagi was stabbed on 19 November in Baku. He was said to be in a stable condition after several hours of surgery. In 2007, Tagi was charged with inciting national, racial and religious enmity after he published an article about Islam’s impact on Azerbaijani development. He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and later pardoned by President Aliev. At the time of the uproar over the article, Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani placed a fatwa on Tagi and he received multiple death threats.
16 Nov 2011 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
After speaking out against corruption, the young lawyer was left to die in jail. Two years on, says Jamison Firestone, no one has been brought to justice
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5 Sep 2011 | Americas, Mexico
Free expression and press freedom in Mexico have again taken several hits in recent days. Last week, two Twitter users were sent to jail in Veracruz, the southern state which has seen a rise in drug-related violence thanks to the Zetas Cartel and its confrontations with anti-drug units of the Mexican Navy.
Gilberto Martínez Vera and María de Jesús Bravo Pagola were sentenced to jail for having tweeted warnings about impending drug gang violence around several public schools. Tweeps using the hashtag #verfollow continue to complain about the jail terms and attacks against freedom of expression.
On the same day, the congress of the southeastern state of Tabasco approved a law punishing those who disseminate false alarms via phone calls or social networks. The crime carries a possible sentence of up to six years in prison.
The nerves of Mexican journalists have also been frazzled by the murder last week of two female journalists, Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocío González Trápaga, who were found strangled in a park in Mexico City. Until now, violence against the press in Mexico has spared the capital, Yarce Viveros worked for Contralinea, an online investigative journalism site, and Gonzalez Trapaga, who worked for Televisa a one point, was at the time an owner of a currency exchange centre at Mexico City’s international airport. Investigators have suggested the motive for their murders was not journalism related.
