CPJ research indicates that the following individuals have been killed in 2008 because of their work as journalists. They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with a news organization.
See our list of pending investigations into suspicious deaths, called Killed: Motive Unconfirmed.See the list of Journalists Who Disappeared.
See the list of Media Workers Killed.
AFGHANISTAN: 1
Carsten Thomassen, Dagbladet
January 15, 2008, Kabul
Thomassen, a 38-year-old Norwegian who worked for the Oslo daily Dagbladet, was among the eight people who died in a coordinated suicide bomb attack by three men at Kabul’s Serena Hotel, a gathering place for much of the country’s expatriate community. The attack came during a visit by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who was in the hotel but was uninjured. Four hotel guards, a U.S. national, an Afghan guest, and a Philippine spa director also died in the attack, according to news reports. Two of the bombers died as well.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that Stør was the intended target. The Norwegian government held that Stør was not specifically targeted and that the attack was aimed at the country’s foreign community at large. About 500 Norwegian troops are taking part in the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan, and Norwegian press reports said there were plans to raise that number to more than 700 in 2008.
The day after the attack, Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh told a press conference that three Taliban militants wearing suicide jackets filled with explosives ran onto the hotel grounds. The jacket of one assailant exploded after he was shot by a hotel guard outside the building. Another detonated his explosives inside the hotel; the third was arrested later.
BOLIVIA : 1
Carlos Quispe Quispe, Radio Municipal, March 29, 2008, Pucarani
Quispe, a journalist working for a government-run radio station in Pucarani, died March 29 after being severely beaten two days earlier by protesters demanding the ouster of the local mayor.
On the afternoon of March 27, at least 150 protesters rallied outside the government building in Pucarani, a small city about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, La Paz, and called for the ouster of Mayor Alejandro Mamani. The mayor had been accused of corruption, according to local press reports and CPJ interviews. The protesters forced their way into the municipal building and broke down the door to the government-run Radio Municipal. Witnesses told radio station Onda Local that demonstrators destroyed station equipment and identified Quispe as “the mouth on the radio.”
Protestors wielding whips and metal rods beat Quispe in the head and chest, said an official from the mayor’s office who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity. Quispe, a journalism student at La Paz’s Universidad Mayor de San Andrés who had worked as an intern at Radio Municipal for three months, was taken to a clinic in Pucarani and later to a hospital in La Paz, according to reports in the Bolivian press. Quispe died on March 29 from unspecified complications, the Spanish news service EFE reported.
Radio Municipal, the only radio station in Pucarani, provided government information and community news, according to Bolivian journalists. Quispe delivered a daily noontime news report, Juan Javier Zeballos, executive director of the National Press Association, told CPJ. Quispe also hosted a nightly music program and often interviewed Mamani, who talked about government projects and fielded questions from listeners.
Wilson Arteaga, a reporter for Onda Local who traveled to Pucarani to investigate the incident, told CPJ that the Radio Municipal’s facilities were destroyed. The radio station has been off the air since. Local police do not have a land line and CPJ was unable to contact them.
Alaa Abdul-Karim al-Fartoosi, Al-Forat
January 29, 2008, Balad, Saleheddin province
Al-Fartoosi, a cameraman for satellite channel Al-Forat, and driver Alaa Aasi were killed by a roadside bomb as they entered the town of Balad, approximately 50 miles north of Baghdad, at around 6:15 p.m., according to the director of external relations for the channel, Mihssen Mohammad Hussein.
The cameraman and driver were traveling with correspondent Fatima al-Hassani and camera assistant Haidar Kathem when the device struck their car. The crew had just passed a second makeshift checkpoint to enter the town when the bomb exploded. Al-Hassani sustained broken bones in her legs and fractures to her knees and was being treated at a Baghdad hospital, Hussein told CPJ. Kathem sustained light injuries, he said.
Hussein said the crew was on assignment filming a documentary to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, one of the holiest shrines for Shiites. The report intended to cover the political, security, and social life in Samarra since the attack.
Abbas al-Issawi, director-general of Al-Forat, told CPJ it was not clear whether the crew was deliberately targeted. Hussein said the channel was not aware of any official investigation of the incident.
The satellite channel, established in 2004, is backed by the powerful Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a Shiite political party led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
Al-Fartoosi is survived by his wife and two children.
Shihab al-Tamimi, Iraqi Journalists Syndicate
February 27, 2008, Baghdad
Shihab al-Tamimi, head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, died from injuries he sustained from a targeted shooting in Baghdad on February 23.
Jabbar Tarrad al-Shimmari, deputy head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, told CPJ that al-Tamimi, 74, died from a stroke four days after the attack at 4 p.m., after his condition rapidly deteriorated around noon. Al-Shimmari talked to family members who were with him at the hospital.
Unidentified gunmen in a white Opel intercepted and opened fire on a car carrying al-Tamimi, his son and driver, Rabie, and an unidentified colleague riding in the backseat. The three were on their way from the syndicate’s headquarters to a meeting in Baghdad’s Al-Waziriya neighborhood, the journalist’s nephew, Arfan Jalil Karim, told CPJ.
Al-Tamimi and his son, Rabie, were both shot several times and hospitalized, Karim told CPJ. Rabie al-Tamimi is recovering from his wounds. The third occupant was not injured, he said.
Al-Tamimi had received threats before. Al-Shimmari said that al-Tamimi received a threat in 2005 during which the caller told him he would be killed the following day. The journalist went into hiding for a month after that. About six months ago, al-Tamimi received calls both on his cell phone and land line threatening his life, according to Karim.
Al-Tamimi, who headed the syndicate since 2003, had been a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its continued presence there, according to Reuters. He is survived by his wife and three children.
ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY:1
Fadel Shana, Reuters
April 16, 2008, Gaza Strip
Cameraman Shana, 23, was killed and soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed was wounded after they stopped their car to film Israeli military forces several hundred meters away, Reuters reported. Shana was filming the tank when it apparently fired on the men.
The Reuters cameraman had gotten out of an unarmed sport utility vehicle bearing the markings “TV” and “Press.” A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Reuters: “In our operations we try to be as surgical as possible and make every effort not to see innocent people caught up in the fighting.”
Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger called for an investigation. At least eight journalists have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza since 2001, seven of them in attacks by Israeli Defense Forces, according to CPJ research. The last attack occurred in July 2007 in the Gaza Strip when Israeli tanks killed Imad Ghanem, a cameraman for the Hamas-affiliated satellite channel Al-Aqsa, as he was filming paramedics transferring victims of an Israeli tank attack.
PAKISTAN: 2
Chishti Mujahid, Akbar-e-Jehan
February 9, 2008, Quetta
An unknown gunman killed Mujahid, a veteran columnist for the weekly, in a targeted attack outside his home in Quetta.
Mujahid, who was also a photographer, was struck in the head and chest as he left his house, according to the Pakistani Federal Union of Journalists and local news reports. The spokesman for a banned insurgent group, the Baluch Liberation Army, claimed responsibility for the murder in a phone call to the Quetta Press Club, saying Mujahid was “against” the Baluch cause, local news reports said.
Mujahid, an ethnic Punjabi, had received several telephone threats after writing about the killing of Baluch leader Balach Marri in November last year, according to the Pakistani Federal Union of Journalists. Akbar-e-Jehan, published by the Jang Media Group, is one of the largest weekly Urdu-language magazines in Pakistan.
Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province in southwestern Pakistan, where ethnic Baluch militants are engaged in protracted combat with government forces for political autonomy and local resources.
Siraj Uddin, The Nation
February 29, 2008, Mingora
Siraj Uddin died in a suicide bombing that took the lives of more than 40 people, according to Pakistani news reports. The attack occurred at the funeral of a slain police officer.
No organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded about 80 others, according to news reports. Pakistani journalists told CPJ that two of their colleagues were wounded: Hazrat Bilal of the local newspaper Shawal was hospitalized for his wounds; Munawar Afridi, who writes for English-language Dawn daily and other papers suffered minor injuries.
Mingora is in the Swat Valley in the tumultuous Northwest Frontier Province. In 2007, militants took over much of the area, which is located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Islamabad and was once a tourist attraction known for its natural beauty and skiing. Government forces reasserted some degree of control by the beginning of 2008, but control of the area is not yet fully settled.
SOMALIA: 1
Hassan Kafi Hared, Somali National News Agency
January 28, 2008, Kismayo
Hared, 38, a reporter for the Somali National News Agency, was killed during a midday attack on a medical assistance vehicle in the southwestern port town of Kismayo, according to news reports and local journalists.
A remotely detonated landmine destroyed a Medecins Sans Frontières-Holland vehicle, killing two aid workers and the driver. Guards with the aid organization opened fire in the area after the explosion, local journalists told CPJ.
Hared and a young boy who were walking near the vehicle also died, local journalists told CPJ. It was not immediately clear whether Hared died from the explosion or from gunshot wounds; both bullet and mine shrapnel wounds were found on his body, local journalists said.
Hared, who also worked for the news Web site Gedonet, was on his way to a press conference at the Kismayo police station when he was killed. The reporter was rushed to Kismayo General Hospital but died an hour later, at around 1 p.m. He was survived by a wife and three children.
IRAQ: 2
Hisham Mijawet Hamdan, Young Journalists Association
February 12, 2008, Baghdad
Police discovered the body of Hisham Mijawet Hamdan, 27, a board member of the Young Journalists Association, according to Haidar Hasoun, founder and head of the association. He told CPJ that the journalist, whose body showed signs of torture, was shot in the head and chest.
Hamdan’s family lost contact with him on the morning of February 10 when he went to buy stationery supplies from a Baghdad market, Hasoun said.
Hamdan was active in an association campaign to support families of journalists killed in Iraq, and he had called on Iraqi government and civil society organizations to do more to assist, Hasoun told CPJ. Hamdan was also part of a committee formed to collect financial contributions for the families of slain journalists. Hamdan had appeared on Iraqi satellite channels advocating on behalf of the families, which may have made him a target, Hasoun said.
Hamdan worked as a political reporter for the bimonthly paper Al-Siyassa wal-Karar, published by the Young Journalists Association. The paper’s print edition had recently become defunct, but the association maintained an online edition, according to Hasoun, who serves as editor-in-chief.
The Young Journalists Association was launched in January 2004 and holds journalism seminars in cooperation with Baghdad University’s media college.
Qassim Abdul Hussein al-Iqabi, Al-Muwatin
March 13, 2008, Baghdad
Qassim Abdul Hussein al-Iqabi, 36, of the local daily Al-Muwatin (The Citizen) was shot and killed in Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite Karradah neighborhood, according to local and international news reports.
Al-Iqabi was not widely known among his colleagues and it is not clear why he was targeted.
The board of the daily Al-Muwatin is headed by Ibrahim Bahr Al-Uloom, former oil minister and a Shiite Member of parliament and “active supporter of the Iraqi government,” Iraqi journalists told CPJ.
The Iraqi Union of journalists, whose head, Shihab al-Tamimi, died on February 27 following a similar fatal attack in Baghdad, said in a public statement about al-Iqabi that “those who are targeting journalists are targeting Iraq and its future.” The IUJ also urged the Iraqi authorities to adopt its “plan to protect journalists likely to help them do their job and make it less risky.”
MEXICO: 2
Teresa Bautista Merino, La Voz que Rompe el Silencio
Felicitas Martínez Sánchez, La Voz que Rompe el Silencio
April 7, 2008, Putla de Guerrero
Unidentified individuals shot and killed Bautista Merino, 24, and Martínez Sánchez, 20, hosts of the community radio station La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice that Breaks the Silence), as they were driving on a rural highway in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Bautista and Martínez worked as hosts and reporters for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio, a community radio station in the Triqui indigenous town of San Juan Copala, 220 miles (350 kilometers) west of the state capital of Oaxaca. The radio station began broadcasting in both Spanish and Triqui on January 19. Jorge Albino, general coordinator of the station, told CPJ that Bautista and Martínez reported on the autonomous indigenous government of San Juan Copala and news on health, education, and indigenous culture. The two women were also indigenous activists, CPJ research shows.
Albino said Bautista and Martínez were coming from a neighboring Triqui town where they were telling people about the station when unidentified individuals ambushed the car they were traveling in. The assailants shot assault rifles at the vehicle, killing the two women, according to local press reports and CPJ interviews. Three others in the vehicle, including a 3-year-old child, were injured, said local news reports.
State authorities have begun an investigation but no arrests have been made. The municipality of San Juan Copala—where Bautista and Martínez worked—has been autonomous since January 2007, but is known for heated and often deadly conflicts between indigenous and political groups. The two women were said to be vocal about indigenous rights and autonomy.
PAKISTAN: 1
Khadim Hussain Sheikh, Sindh TV, Khabrein
April 14, 2008, Hub
Sheikh, a stringer for Sindh TV and local bureau chief for the national Urdu-language daily newspaper Khabrein, was killed by unidentified gunmen as he left his home by motorbike in the town of Hub, 23 miles (35 kilometers) north of Karachi, according to the Pakistan Federation of Journalists Union (PFUJ) and the Associated Press of Pakistan. The motive for the killing is unknown, and no arrests have been made, according to local news reports.
Mazhar Abbas, secretary-general of the PFUJ, told CPJ he had spoken by telephone with Sheikh’s brother, Ishaq Sheikh, who was riding the same motorbike at the time of the attack and has been hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Ishaq told reporters and police that three men on motorbikes carried out the shooting, then checked to make sure his brother was dead before fleeing the scene, according to Abbas. Ishaq said he was unaware of any personal dispute that might have led to Sheikh’s murder, Abbas said.
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sherry Rehman called for a probe into the murder, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan.
PHILIPPINES: 1
Benefredo Acabal, The Filipino Newsmen
April 7, 2008, Pasig City
Benefredo Acabal, 34, was shot several times at close range by an unidentified gunman in Pasig city in the metropolitan region of the Philippine capital of Manila, according to local and international news reports. The gunman fled the scene on a motorcycle, those reports said. Acabal died from his wounds on the way to the hospital.
Acabal published and wrote a column for the local newspaper The Filipino Newsmen in Cavite province, south of Manila. The Philippine Star reported that he was also involved in the trucking business.
Local police are investigating to determine whether the killing was linked to his reporting or his business interests.
RUSSIA: 1
Ilyas Shurpayev, Channel One television
March 21, 2007, Moscow
Firefighters responding to an emergency call found Shurpayev, 32, dead in his rented Moscow apartment; he had been stabbed and strangled. The perpetrators had apparently set the residence on fire to cover their tracks, Channel One reported.
Authorities with the Investigative Committee, an arm of Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office, immediately opened a murder investigation. According to initial press reports, authorities ruled out robbery as a motive since Shurpayev’s valuables, including his laptop, had not been taken. CPJ called Channel One’s newsroom in Moscow but a representative declined to comment on the case over the phone. Investigators initially said they were looking at Shurpayev’s journalism as a possible motive, along with unspecified private matters, Channel One reported on March 21.
According to local press reports, Shurpayev had moved to Moscow in February from his native Dagestan in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region, where he worked as a local correspondent for Channel One. Prior to joining Channel One, Shurpayev worked for the state-controlled NTV channel. He reported from the North Caucasus for both television companies.
Hours before his death, Shurpayev wrote in his personal blog that the owners of one newspaper in Dagestan—later identified in the local press as Nastoyashcheye Vremya (The Real Time)—had banned a column Shurpayev had written, and instructed the paper’s staff to not mention his name in publications. “Now I am a dissident!” was the blog entry’s title. According to his blog, Shurpayev was shocked by the ban because the column was not political.
According to the independent news Web site Lenta, Shurpayev called his building’s concierge around 2 a.m. on March 21, asking for the admittance of two male visitors. Shortly after, Shurpayev’s neighbors called firefighters about smoke coming from the apartment. His body was discovered with stab wounds and a belt around his neck.
A week after his death, several Russian newspapers wrote that a large sum of money—up to 100,000 Russian rubles (about US$4,250)—were missing from Shurpayev’s apartment. However, consequent reports gave conflicting amounts—including one from the independent business daily Kommersant, which said on March 31 that the missing sum was allegedly 1 million rubles (US$425,000), money the journalist had saved up to buy an apartment. The prosecutors were now looking at robbery as the leading murder motive, Channel One reported on March 31.
On March 27, the news agency Interfax reported that a security camera in Shurpayev’s apartment building had captured the images of two young men in their 20s—allegedly the killers—and prosecutors were working on apprehending them. According to Interfax, investigators traced one of the alleged suspects’ mobile phones to Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital. Shurpayev’s friends and relatives refuted the claims, saying that the journalist never kept large amounts of money in his apartment, and that the killers did not rob him, the independent news Web site Lenta reported.
On March 31, local and international press reports surfaced about three Tajik men allegedly involved in Shurpayev’s killing. The three were identified as Masrudzhon Yatimov, and brothers Nazhmiddin and Ziyoviddin Mukhitdinov, but each one’s alleged role in the murder was unclear. All three are in Tajik custody and Moscow is seeking their extradition from Dushanbe, Kommersant reported. Shurpayev’s mobile phone and wristwatch were found in Yatimov’s house, according to Lenta.
According to Kommersant, Shurpayev met the suspects a few days before his killing and invited them to his place hours before his death. After the killing, they fled Russia for Tajikistan but were apprehended in a police operation. Yatimov, Kommersant reported, has a criminal record.
IRAQ: 1
Alaa Aasi, Al-Forat
January 29, 2008, Balad, Saleheddin province
Aasi, a driver for the satellite channel Al-Forat, and Alaa Abdul-Karim al-Fartoosi, a cameraman for the channel, were killed by a roadside bomb as they entered the town of Balad, approximately 50 miles north of Baghdad, at around 6:15 p.m., according to the director of external relations for the channel, Mihssen Mohammad Hussein.
The driver and cameraman were traveling along with correspondent Fatima al-Hassani and camera assistant Haidar Kathem when the device struck their car. The crew had just passed a second makeshift checkpoint to enter the town when the bomb exploded. Al-Hassani sustained broken bones in her legs and fractures to her knees and was being treated at a Baghdad hospital, Hussein told CPJ. Kathem sustained light injuries, he said.
Hussein said the crew was on assignment filming a documentary to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, one of the holiest shrines for Shiites. The report intended to cover the political, security, and social life in Samarra since the attack.
Abbas al-Issawi, director-general of Al-Forat, told CPJ it was not clear whether the crew was deliberately targeted. Hussein said the channel was not aware of any official investigation of the incident.
The satellite channel, established in 2004, is backed by the powerful Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a Shiite political party led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.