Swazi journalist Mancoba Nxumalo was held by police on Wednesday (22 June) and accused of “tarnishing” the Kingdom’s image, he has claimed. The journalist believes he was targeted for arranging interviews for South African broadcaster SABC with two Swazi activists jailed over pro-democracy protests in April. He said that police told him he had “conspired with the SABC to tarnish the county’s image”.
The back to back murders of two prominent crime journalists have cast a dark shadow over Mexican press freedom.
Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, 55, a former deputy director and well established crime columnist for the newspaper Notiver of Veracuz was the second journalist killed in Mexico in a week.
Pablo Ruelas Barraza, a freelance crime reporter, received death threats before he was killed on 13 June in the northeastern state of Sonora.
It is not clear who killed Velasco, but it is rumoured that he is the latest victim of drug gangs, supporting the view that cartels are silencing Mexican media. Velasco, his wife and 21 year old son, Misael, were killed by intruders who broke into his home early Wednesday morning, 21 June. Velasco wrote the column Va de Nuez, or “In a nutgraph”.
Notiver is a very important local newspaper that was well known for its crime reporting. According to a Veracruz based reporter, the daily newspaper has tamed its reporting style since last year, supposedly after threats from drug lords.
A review of crime reporting, conducted by the Mexico City-based Fundacion MEPI de Periodismo de Investigacion, found that Notiver had reduced the number of organized crime stories it covered in the first six months of 2010. In 2007, drug traffickers allegedly left a human head in front of the newspaper’s office with left a note that mentioned Lopez Velasco’s nickname.
A bid for greater media freedom put forward by opposition parties in Sri Lanka has been rejected by the ruling party led by President Mahinda Rajapakse. The United People’s Freedom Alliance, which enjoys a two-thirds majority, voted against the proposed Freedom of Information Bill. The bill was presented after opposition members accused the government of trying to stifle media freedom. A total of at least 18 journalists and media employees have been killed in the past decade.
Guardian journalist Waqar Kiani has claimed that he was abducted and tortured by Pakistani intelligence agents on Saturday night. The alleged attack followed a television appearance where he discussed a previous assault which took place in 2008, the details of which had only just been released. Kiani has been working on a story about the illegal detention and torture of Islamist militants by Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence . The 32-year-old claims that he was stopped, dragged from his car and attacked with wooden batons and a rubber whip. He is currently being treated in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.