14 Mar 2012 | Index Index, minipost
Arab and foreign media who are in Syria “illegally” are being threatened by the information ministry. On 9 March, authorities threatened to take measures against Arab and foreign journalists who have entered the country “illegally” and against anyone cooperating with them. The minister accused journalists of fabricating reports, complicity with terrorists and suggested that covering the activities of those terrorists justified their crimes. Two Turkish journalists, Adem Ozkose, Middle East correspondent for Gercek Hayat magazine and columnist for newspaper Milat, and cameraman Hamit Coskun, who crossed into Syria a week ago, have been missing for four days.
13 Mar 2012 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A radio broadcaster has been killed in Sabá, northern Honduras, making him the 18th journalist to be killed in the country since 2010. Fausto Elio Hernández, host of The Voice of the News programme broadcast on local station Radio Alegre, was hacked to death by a machete-wielding attacker on 10 March.
While police have reportedly said the killing is not related to Hernández’s work as a journalist, Honduras has the second-highest murder rate for journalists in Latin America, after Mexico.
12 Mar 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Gunmen have shot and seriously injured a journalist in the Philippines. Fernan Angeles, a reporter with The Daily Tribune, was beaten and shot six times by unidentified men near his home in Manila on Sunday night. Angeles, who is assigned to cover President Benigno Aquino III, remains in intensive care. Angeles’ wife speculated that her husband’s attackers were linked to a drug syndicate from their working-class community, who may believe the journalist had leaked information about the syndicate’s operation to authorities.
12 Mar 2012 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
A female journalist has been threatened with genital mutilation after exposing the practice in Liberia. Mae Azango, a reporter for the daily newspaper FrontPage Africa and news website New Narratives was forced into hiding after receiving threatening phone-calls, saying “they will catch me and cut me so that will make me shut up”. Azango published an article on Thursday about Liberian tribes practicing female genital mutilation on as many as two out of every three girls in the country. Several people confronted the journalist about the article, and it was widely discussed on radio programmes.
