17 May 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
Nebil Jridet, General Director of the Arabic-language weekly newspaper Al-Oula has ended his hunger strike.
Jridet spent seven days on hunger strike in protest at Tunisian government’s “unequal” distribution of state advertisements among newspapers. He accuses the government of allocating adverts according to “newspapers’ political affiliations”.
The director’s decision came after talks with Samir Dilou, Minister of Human Rights and Transitional Justice on 15 May. Dilou said: “the state advertisement issue is a just cause and requires all concerned parties’ efforts in order to come up with the solutions which would make the distribution of state ads among newspapers a transparent process”.
In exchange, a national conference addressing state advertisement matters will be held at the end of the month. The National Syndicate for Tunisia Journalists and the National Syndicate for Independent and Party Newspapers will head the conference.
“It will take much time and we are going through serious financial problems which might come in the way of issuing the newspaper in the upcoming weeks” Nebil Jridet told Index.
17 May 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
The editor of a Iraqi Kurdish magazine has been arrested for reprinting an allegedly blasphemous article. Hamin Ary, editor of Kurdish and Arabic monthly publication Chirpa (Al-Hamsah in Arabic) was arrested on 7 May after publishing an article by controversial writer Goran Halmat. Ary was arrested for “offences that violate religious sensibilities”, an offence which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. The article, entitled “Me and God” was originally posted on Facebook in 2010, and was deemed “offensive to Islam”.
17 May 2012 | 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 2012 | 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.
