Pakistan’s new effort to improve safety, combat impunity
Representatives from 40 Pakistani and international press groups, development organizations, and media houses came together in Islamabad last week to discuss ways to better protect local journalists at risk of violence, and means to combat the virtually perfect record of impunity that assailants enjoy in this country. It’s none too soon. Three journalists have died…
In Mali, one journalist’s detention ignites press revolution
Mali’s press has endured one attack too many. Since the coup d’état of March 22, 2012, CPJ has documented a staggering 62 anti-press violations across Mali. Journalists and media houses have become ready targets of attacks, threats, intimidation, assassination attempts, arbitrary arrests, detentions, and censorship by separatist and Islamist militant groups and government security forces…
In Mali, a journalist stabbed for his critical reporting
Lagos, Nigeria, March 11, 2013–Authorities in Mali must investigate an attack on a critical radio journalist that came two weeks after he received threats warning him to resign from the station, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Letter bomb sent to home of Colombian journalist
Bogotá, Colombia, March 11, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Colombian authorities to investigate an attack on a journalist who had denounced political corruption and the activities of leftist guerrilla groups in the region. Juan David Betancur received a letter bomb in the mail on Thursday that failed to explode and did not injure…
In tense climate, Kenyan press can draw on solidarity
Amid a tense presidential election, Kenyans have avoided a repeat of the deadly violence that followed the vote in 2007, when half a million people were uprooted and more than 1,000 people were killed. Still, the situation today is fraught. Ethnic identity dominates the nation’s political divisions–and those same loyalties can undermine solidarity in the…
Arrests in Torreón press crimes; will it make difference?
Twenty-one people have been arrested for a wave of crimes that included 11 murders (six of which were committed against police officers), the abduction for hours of five employees of El Siglo de Torreón newspaper, the murder of a mayoral candidate, and attempted murder of a current mayor in a large metropolitan area in central…
Brazil officials back OAS human rights system
“Leave me in peace. Wallow in your garbage,” Brazilian Chief Justice Joaquim Barbosa said in a rage when a reporter with one of the leading national newspapers, O Estado de Sao Paulo, tried to ask him a question Tuesday at a meeting of the National Council of Justice in Brasilia, the capital. Stunned by Barbosa’s…
Gunmen shoot at offices of two news outlets in Mexico
Gunmen shot at the offices of the daily El Diario de Juárez and the television station Channel 44 in Ciudad Juárez early in the morning of March 6, 2013, according to news reports. The attacks resulted in slight material damage to the buildings, but no injuries.