25 Mar 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Reporter Sergei Topol was beaten around the head on Wednesday as he left his home in Moscow, leaving him hospitalised. Topol published a series of articles in 2008 in which he alleged that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was going to leave his wife for a 27-year-old Olympic champion gymnast. Putin denied the claims at the time, and told journalists to keep their “snotty noses” out of his private life. Topol’s assailant is unknown and police have declined to comment on the motive.
17 Mar 2011 | Index Index, minipost
The board president of a Honduran radio station was shot in the leg on 13 March by two people who disagreed with his editorial policies. He was hospitalised but his condition has been described as “stable”. Franklin Melendez is the president of the board of community radio station La Voz de Zacate Grande, which has been targeted for supporting local peasant groups in a land dispute. It is claimed that the identity of his attackers is known, but neither the police or the judicial authorities have taken any action in response. The police asked the station “not to make a fuss”.
16 Mar 2011 | Azerbaijan News, Index Index, minipost, News and features
Abbas Atilay, a journalist working for Radio Free Europe’s Azerbaijani service, was reportedly attacked whilst covering Friday’s protests in Baku. Demonstrators were demanding the resignation of President Ilham Aliyev and the release of journalists and activists. Eynulla Fatullayev is one such jailed journalist, who on Monday wrote to the president to express his hope that he would be freed.
10 Mar 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
A BBC news team trying to reach the town of Zawiya were detained, beaten and subjected to mock executions by pro-Gaddafi forces. The team of three were detained on Monday at an army roadblock and taken to a military barracks in Tripoli where they were held for 21 hours. After release they left the country.
The Guardian reports today that its correspondent, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, and his travelling companion Andrei Netto, from the Brazilian newspaper Estado, are missing in Libya. Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi national, was last in touch with the paper through a third party on Sunday.
