Former TV presenter Sayed Hamid Noori was murderedat his home in Kabul on 5 September. He had been stabbed and his throat had been cut. The motives are unknown but he was an active member of the National Union of Afghan Journalists. Noori was a well-known TV anchor who went into politics and became the spokesman of Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, an opponent of President Hamid Karzai.
Irwan Abdul Rahman, a Malaysian editor and blogger known as “Hassan Skodeng” was charged on 2 September 2010 with publishing false information on his satirical blog. He was accused of publishing online content deemed “obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with malicious intent.” He pleaded not guilty and was later released after posting bail of RM4,000 (approx. US$1,285).
Rahman’s blog article, “TNB to sue WWF over earth hour” posted in March this year claimed that the head of Malaysia’s main electricity firm, Tenaga Nasional, would allegedly sue the environmental group World Wildlife Fund “for urging people to switch off their lights for the annual Earth Hour initiative”. It was taken down two days after it was published.
In Mexico’s northeastern state of Sinaloa, the Noreste newspaper issued a statement saying that its facilities were the target of an armed attack on 1 September 2010. The attack took place after a reporter received a threatening phone call from unidentified members of an organised gang. They fired bullets at the Noreste building and placed a banner with a message accusing the federal government of protecting two men who have been accused of being drug-traffickers.
In Colombia, on 30 August 2010, journalist Marco Tulio Valencia, the editor of the El Norte newspaper in Mariquita in southern Colombia, was the target of an assassination attempt when an unidentified individual fired shots at him. Valencia’s newspaper has reported on small-scale drug trafficking networks in Mariquita and that he believes the assassination attempt and threats could be linked to those reports.
A journalist was killed on 21 August while covering clashes between two villages in one of Indonesia’s southern islands. Police watched the attack but did nothing to intervene. According to International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), journalist Ridwan Salamun was hacked to death by angry villagers. A group of 70 journalists staged a demonstration to express their outrage over his death.