15 May 2012 | 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 2012 | 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
11 May 2012 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A senior radio journalist has been kidnapped in Honduras, outside the country’s capital Tegucigalpa. News presenter on HRN Radio Alfredo Villatoro was abducted on the way to his office on Wednesday morning. The journalist’s captors contacted his family, and it is believed they will seek a ransom. Three people have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping. The abduction comes three days after journalist and rights activist Erick Martínez Ávila was found dead at a roadside.
11 May 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Two Vietnamese reporters were beaten while covering a local eviction. Nguyen Ngoc Nam and Han Phi Long, from state-run Radio Voice of Vietnam, were kicked and beaten as they attempted to report on the eviction of approximately 1,000 villagers from their farmland. The journalists were attacked by uniformed police, who ignored repeated explanations that they were members of the press. Twenty people were arrested during the clashes between the farmers and the police.
