21 Dec 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Hungary’s national media council have taken the radio frequency from the country’s largest opposition radio station, Klubradio. Three frequencies were reassigned by the media council, and Klubradio’s frequency was awarded to Autoradio Musorszolgaltato Kft. In a statement issued by email yesterday, the watchdog claimed Autoradio bid “significantly above” the asking price and promised to broadcast more Hungarian music. The decision from the national media council has been described as a “de facto ban” by Andras Arato, Klubradio’s chairman.
Read Mike Harris on Hungary’s alarming new media regulations
21 Dec 2011 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
Forty
Turkish journalists were
arrested in raids which targeted suspected members of the “press and propaganda wing” of a banned Kurdish separatist group. The arrests in Istanbul yesterday morning came during
continuing investigation into the outlawed Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK). At around 7am yesterday, anti-terrorist police raided the offices of several media organisations, the majority of which were pro-Kurdish media. Hours after the arrests, hundreds of Turkish journalists participated in a hastily organised
protest march.
20 Dec 2011 | Uncategorized
Threats against freedom of the press in Guatemala have been highlighted by the case of freelance journalist Lucia Escobar. While government directed attacks against the press are not currently an issue, paramilitary groups could still pose a threat to journalists. Death threats forced Escobar to flee her home with her family after she denounced a vigilante group in the town of Panajachel. Escobar claimed the group’s “social cleansing” activities were promoted by local government officials.
Escobar‘s story was published in the Guatemalan daily El Periodico, it accused the town mayor, Gerardo Higueros of turning a local citizens group into a death squad with the help of an unidentified fundamentalist Christian group. The vigilante organisation is apparently cleansing the town of Panajachel of “undesirables”, including beggars and homeless people. Within days of writing about the problems,the mayor, Higueros, who is also director of a local television news show, dedicated a couple of hours in a television broadcast to accusing Escobar of lying about the story and trafficking drugs.
Escobar said she knows that despite a number of complaints to local police about the armed group’s activities, none of the cases have been investigated by the authorities. Escobar left her home in Panajachel in early November, and she is still at a loss. “I had no idea it was going to turn into this,” she said in Guatemala City. She is not planning to return to Panajachel until the situation is cleared up. El Periodico complained about the lack of reaction from government authorities in Guatemala City to the attacks against its reporter.
In May another journalist in the provinces was killed after receiving death threats. Yensi Roberto Ordoñez Galdámez, a television reporter was found murdered in his car. His case has not been solved.
20 Dec 2011 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
A Somali journalist was shot dead by a man wearing a government soldier’s uniform on Sunday in Mogadishu. Abdisalan Sheikh Hasan from Horn Cable TV channel was shot after a government soldier in uniform with an AK47 ordered Hasan and his colleague Zakariye Abdulahi to stop their car. Abdulahi said that without any further questions, the soldier opened fire on Hasan. The TV journalist, who had been receiving death threats, later died in theatre from injuries to his shoulder and stomach.
