One journalist killed, another reported missing in Syria
New York, October 16, 2012–The heavy toll on news media covering the conflict in Syria has grown yet again over the past week as a journalist for a pro-government TV station was killed and a Ukrainian journalist working for Russian news outlets is believed to be kidnapped.
Sandhya Eknelygoda speaks for Sri Lanka’s disappeared
When I first met Sandhya Eknelygoda in May 2010 in her home outside Colombo, she was a distressed mother of two young boys whose husband had gone missing. He was last seen four months earlier, just prior to the elections that returned President Mahinda Rajapaksa to power after the end of the decades-long war with…
Video shows Turkish cameraman held captive in Syria
New York, August 27, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the immediate release of Turkish cameraman Cüneyt Ünal, who appeared exhausted and bruised in a video aired today in which he said he had been taken captive while reporting in Syria. Ünal, a cameraman for the U.S. government-funded broadcaster Al-Hurra, was reported missing in…
Unknown men abduct radio journalist in Colombia
New York, July 26, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the kidnapping of a Colombian journalist and calls on authorities to secure her safe return. Élida Parra Alonso, who covers children’s rights and hosts a program for Sarare Estéreo radio station, was abducted from her home on Tuesday, according to news reports.
Crime journalist reported missing in Veracruz
New York, July 25, 2012–Mexican authorities must immediately investigate the disappearance of a crime photojournalist who was last seen on Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Miguel Morales Estrada worked in Veracruz, which has become Mexico’s most dangerous state for the press, according to CPJ research.
A heads-up for Sri Lanka press freedom watchers
Former Attorney General Mohan Peiris has been ordered to testify about a statement he made at the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva on November 9, 2011, in which he said that Prageeth Eknelygoda was alive and living outside the country (see “Sri Lanka’s savage smokescreen”). Peiris will have to appear at the Homogama Magistrate’s Court in…
Eknelygoda’s wife latest victim of Sri Lankan intolerance
On Thursday and Friday, we wrote about the ugly government backlash to last week’s U.N. Human Rights Council resolution calling for an investigation into Sri Lanka’s alleged abuses of international humanitarian law during its war with Tamil separatists.