Asia

  
Journalists protest the attack on television anchor Hamid Mir outside the press club in Karachi on Monday. (Reuters/Akhtar Soomro)

Trials, not tribunals, needed in Pakistan

Raza Rumi is alive. It appears Hamid Mir will survive. Shan Dahar is dead.

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CPJ condemns attack on TV news anchor Hamid Mir

New York, April 19, 2014­–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the continuing violence directed at journalists in Pakistan. Geo News senior anchor Hamid Mir today was shot three times soon after he and his driver left Karachi’s main airport, according to media reports. The driver was not wounded.

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Charles Xue released from Chinese prison on bail

Charles Xue Biqun, a Chinese-born American billionaire venture capitalist and a prominent government critic, was released on bail April 16, 2014, after being arrested in August 2013 for alleged involvement in prostitution, according to news reports.

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Journalists face criminal defamation charges in Thailand

Bangkok, April 17, 2014–A Thai court today formally charged two journalists for the local Phuketwan news website with criminal defamation, according to news reports. The charges were brought by a Thai navy official. 

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In Pakistan, no taxation without investigation

In Pakistan, reporting on the military intelligence services or insurgent groups or machinations within political parties is the normal grist for the media mill. A lot of the coverage relies on reporters with inside sources. The sources use the media as a battleground for their infighting, relying on sympathetic reporters to put forward their positions.…

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Election staff carry electronic voting machines through tea shrubs on their way to polling stations on the outskirts of the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri April 16, 2014. (Reuters)

Censorship in India on the rise amid elections

This month, Indians are voting in the largest election in history. It’s an exciting exercise in democracy, but it comes against a grim backdrop: censorship in the country is on the rise, according to a quarterly report by the South Asian media watchdog, The Hoot.

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Getting Away With Murder

CPJ’s 2014 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and the killers go free IraqUnsolved Murders: 100Population: 32.6 millionRank: 1 SomaliaUnsolved Murders: 26Population: 10.2 millionRank: 2 The PhilippinesUnsolved Murders: 51Population: 96.7 millionRank: 3 Sri LankaUnsolved Murders: 9Population: 20.3 millionRank: 4 SyriaUnsolved Murders: 7Population: 22.4 millionRank: 5 AfghanistanUnsolved Murders: 5Population: 29.8 millionRank: 6 MexicoUnsolved…

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Journalists in Japan face threats 3 years after Fukushima

At the end of last month, an evacuation order declared during the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant power plant meltdown was lifted for residents of a small town in Fukushima Prefecture, the first time an area so close to the site was declared suitable for habitation. Yet, three years after Earthquake Tōhoku killed 15,000 people and triggered…

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Prominent dissident Cu Huy Ha Vu, shown here in a Hanoi court in 2011, has been released and allowed to leave Vietnam, but most journalists do not have his connections. (Reuters/Thong Nhat/Vietnam News Agency)

Confronting the suffering in Vietnam’s prisons

Dinh Dang Dinh, a former Vietnamese schoolteacher and blogger, died on April 3 from cancer of the stomach. Near death, he had been released from his six-year prison sentence on March 21, and allowed to return home to die in Dak Nong province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. His crime, to which he had pled not…

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Journalist murders silence the press

CPJ to launch 2014 Impunity Index New York, April 9, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists will release its 2014 Impunity Index, a global tally of countries with the highest number of unsolved press murders. The index, which calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population, shows that authorities are often unwilling or…

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