17 May 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A former interior minister-turned-journalist was targeted in a bomb attack in Colombia earlier this week. Fernando Londoño Hoyos, who is now a radio station programme director and a columnist for various newspapers, was injured after a bomb was thrown onto his car bonnet in Bogotá. Londoño survived the attack, but his driver and bodyguard were killed and 39 others were injured. It is unclear who was behind the bombing.
17 May 12 | Americas
Honduran radio journalist Ángel Alfredo Villatoro was found dead on Tuesday, 15 May, six days after he was kidnapped on his way to work at HRN Radio in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. The murder was a low blow for freedom of expression in this Central American nation. Just minutes before police reported locating a body dumped in a nearby neighbourhood, Honduran President Porfirio Lobo had raised hopes among media workers and family members, announcing government forces had received a video that showed the radio reporter was still alive. Villatoro was the last victim in a spiral of violence against media workers and institutions in Honduras. Twenty-two other journalists have been killed in Honduras in the last two years — four of them murdered in the last five months of this year.
Honduras is quickly becoming one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, up there with Mexico. The adverse conditions for the press in the country started in 2009 after a military coup against President Manuel Zelaya.
Two days ago, the National Commissioner for Human Rights Ramon Custodio, denounced what he claimed was an organised criminal and political network that preyed on the press and human rights defenders. A dozen journalists have also received death threats, according to Custodio.
The same day Villatoro was intercepted by gunmen, Erick Martinez Avila, another young reporter, was found killed. He was a journalist and gay activist. Freedom House has criticised Honduras for not investigating attacks against media workers.
15 May 12 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
The dead body of a kidnapped Pakistani journalist was discovered in Karachi last week. Tariq Kamal was kidnapped on 6 May, along with his friend Fawad Sheikh, who was also murdered. Kamal was visiting a dangerous area of Balochistan for an exclusive report when he was kidnapped. The journalist’s family received a call from him informing them he was going to be killed by his captors. His kidnappers later contacted his family to inform them that Kamal and Sheikh were killed because they were police informants.
14 May 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Nebil Jridet, General Director of the Arabic-language weekly newspaper Al-Oula, has entered his sixth day of hunger strike in protest against the Tunisian government’s “unequal” distribution of state ads among newspapers.
Jridet told Index that the government is distributing state ads according to “newspapers’ political affiliations”.
“The government favours newspapers affiliated with certain political parties, and dedicated to defaming the opposition. Al-Fajr [a weekly newspaper affiliated to Ennahdha Movement, the largest party in Tunisia’s governing alliance], for instance, has a large share in state ads”, said Mr. Jridet.
“We ask the government to support newspapers by an equal and transparent distribution of state advertisement”, he added.
Jridet fears that his newspaper, which he describes as “independent”, may meet the same fate as many other “serious and credible newspapers which became known right after the revolution” that were eventually forced to fold and disappear from Tunisia’s media landscape.
“Economic forces which monopolise the distribution circuits of newspapers, and political forces which interfere in the equitable distribution of state advertisement” deprived these newspapers from getting their share of state ads and made them disappear, said Jridet in a statement published on 9 May.
Sofiene Chourabi, a journalist for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Hana Trabelsi a journalist for Al-Oula, and Walid Hayouni, a professor at a Tunis journalism school have allegedly joined Jridet in his hunger strike.
Statement – Wild Hunger Srike
