Category Archives: Journalist safety

Two journalists killed in Mexico, meaning three dead so far this year

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Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera shot dead Thursday, and Enrique Garcia killed Wednesday, apparently during work as ride-hail driver

Prosecutors in southern Mexico said reporter Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera was shot to death Thursday, and another journalist was killed just west of Mexico City, bring to three the number killed so far this year in the country. Two other reporters have disappeared.

The prosecutor’s office in the southern state of Oaxaca said Sánchez Cabrera was riding a motorcycle with another person on a rural road when gunmen opened fire on them.

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Biden accused of U-turn over Egypt’s human rights abuses

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Critics say US president’s realpolitik ignores Sisi regime’s ‘hostage-taking tactics’ against dissidents

“It’s a hostage negotiation and it has been all along,” said Sherif Mansour, describing the arrest of his cousin Reda Abdel-Rahman by Egyptian security forces last August as an attempt to intimidate Mansour into silence.

Abdel-Rahman has been imprisoned without trial for nine months. Mansour, an outspoken human rights advocate in Washington with the Committee to Protect Journalists, has since learned that he and his father are listed on the same charge sheet, all accused of joining a terrorist group and spreading “false news”.

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‘Persecuted, jailed, destroyed’: Belarus seeks to stifle dissent

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Journalists and activists targeted in most wide-reaching crackdown since days of Soviet Union

Church bells rang in the city of Byarozawka as hundreds of mourners laid Vitold Ashurak to rest. They draped the white-red-white flag favoured by the Belarusian opposition over his body, as local police kept a wary eye on the funeral.

Sentenced to five years in prison after last year’s mass demonstrations against Alexander Lukashenko, the 50-year-old protest leader survived less than one. When Ashurak’s body was returned to his family, his head was entirely covered in bandages – only his mouth was visible, a family friend said.

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Belarus journalist’s father says video confession carried out under duress

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Raman Pratasevich, seized from diverted Ryanair flight, appeared to have been beaten, says father

The father of the Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich said it was clear his son was acting under duress and had been beaten when he recorded a video “confessing” to organising mass protests against the regime.

Dmitry Pratasevich said Raman was “very nervous” and “spoke in a way that was unusual for him”.

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‘No safe place’: Associated Press reporter describes Gaza office attack

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A rush for escape as Israeli forces bombed the building that housed the US news agency and Al Jazeera

On Saturday, Israeli forces bombed the office which houses Associated Press and Al Jazeera in Gaza, alleging that Hamas military intelligence was operating inside the building.

Twelve AP staffers and freelancers were working and resting in the bureau when the Israeli military telephoned a warning, giving occupants of the building one hour to evacuate. The AP journalist Fares Akram told how he escaped the building.

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Threats to safety force dozens of Afghan journalists to go into hiding

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Network of safe houses set up amid fears of rising violence as Nato forces prepare to pull out in September

Dozens of journalists have moved to safe houses across Afghanistan, and others have been sent abroad, as threats against media workers continue to rise.

New safe houses have been set up in several Afghan cities as evacuations increase, offering some security for targeted journalists.

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UN catalogues ‘chilling tide of abuse’ against female journalists

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Misogyny, bigotry and threats ‘cut public trust in critical media’, warns report after major investigation

An epidemic of online violence against female journalists worldwide is undermining their reporting, spilling over into real-life attacks and harassment, and puts their health and professional prospects in jeopardy, the UN has warned.

The avalanche of misogynistic abuse and threats is not only damaging women working in media, it is also weaponised “to undercut public trust in critical journalism and facts in general”, a report commissioned by the UN’s cultural agency Unesco has found.

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Burkina Faso: two Spanish journalists and Irish conservationist killed

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Spaniards David Beriáin and Roberto Fraile, and Rory Young, a Zambian-born Irish citizen, ambushed by jihadists

Two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist have been killed after they were ambushed by jihadists while on an anti-poaching mission in Burkina Faso.

On Tuesday, Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said 44-year-old David Beriáin, a reporter, and 47-year-old Roberto Fraile, a photographer, were believed to have been murdered on Monday, after they were identified from an image provided by Burkinabe authorities.

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‘Worrying picture’: Journalists in Europe face increasing risk, press freedom group warns

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Reporters Without Borders speaks of pressures on press freedom after murder of Giorgos Karaivaz in Athens last week

The murder of a high-profile Greek journalist last week marks the fourth killing of a reporter in Europe in the past five years and has underlined growing concerns about a steady decline of press freedoms in several EU member states.

Related: Greek crime journalist shot dead in Athens in ‘execution-style’ murder

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Greek crime journalist shot dead in Athens in ‘execution-style’ murder

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Government says killing of Giorgos Karaivaz, reportedly by two men on a motorbike, has ‘shocked us all’

A prominent Greek crime journalist has been shot dead in what was described as an “execution-style” murder near his home in Athens.

Giorgos Karaivaz, who sought to illuminate Greece’s seamier underside with his coverage of law and order stories on the private Star TV channel, died of gunshot wounds outside his home in the south of the city.

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Mexican press freedom dispute erupts as Amlo attacks US and domestic critics

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President hits back over critical US human rights report but also singles out Mexican press freedom group Article 19 for censure

A growing row over press freedom has engulfed Mexico after the country’s nationalist president maligned a routine US human rights report which highlighted his government’s failure to protect journalists – and the behaviour of some officials against media members.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called Amlo, condemned Mexico’s mention in the state department’s annual human rights report as an unwelcome intervention in Mexican matters.

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‘We choose good guys and bad guys’: beneath the myth of ‘model’ Rwanda

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President Paul Kagame – long feted by leaders in the west – is accused of serial human rights abuses in expansive new book

A devastating new book will accuse Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame – long feted by his prominent international supporters as the model of visionary new African leadership – of being a serial human rights abuser, including for his role in a sustained campaign of assassinating his rivals in exile.

Written by Michela Wrong, the author who covered the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when more than 800,000 people – largely ethnic Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus – were killed by Hutu militias over 100 days, Do Not Disturb represents one of the most far-reaching historical revisions of Kagame and his regime.

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Afghan TV station ‘can’t hire women’ over security fears after four killed

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Government blamed for not ensuring safety as broadcaster’s female staff told to stay home after attacks by Isis

A radio and television broadcaster in eastern Afghanistan that has had four of its female employees murdered since December has said it will not hire any more women until security in the country improves.

The broadcaster, Enikass Radio and Television, has also told all female employees to work from home. Islamic State (Isis) has claimed responsibility for killing all four women, but Enikass also blames the Afghan government for not providing adequate security.

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All suspects in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder arrested, says police chief

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Angelo Gafa says all those who masterminded killing of Maltese journalist now apprehended or charged

Every person involved in the 2017 murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been apprehended, Malta’s national police chief has declared.

Commissioner Angelo Gafa was speaking before a court hearing on Wednesday evening at which two new suspects were arraigned.

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Zimbabwe journalist Hopewell Chin’ono arrested for third time in six months

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Chin’ono tweeted that police had taken him from his home, charged with ‘communicating falsehoods’

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested the prominent journalist Hopewell Chin‘ono, for the third time in six months, his lawyer said.

Doug Coltart said he was en route to the police station to confirm the charges against his client.

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Journalist dies in Afghanistan as targeted killings continue

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Violence increases amid stalled Taliban peace talks, with Isis claiming it was behind earlier journalist killing

An Afghan journalist and human rights activist has been shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in western Afghanistan, the fifth journalist to be killed in the war-ravaged country in the past two months, a provincial spokesman said.

Bismillah Adil Aimaq was on the road near Feroz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor, returning home to the city after visiting his family in a village nearby, when gunmen opened fire at the vehicle.

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Mexican photojournalist killed after taking photos of bodies along a road

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Jaime Castaño Zacarías is ninth journalist killed in Mexico this year after he was pursued by gunmen

A Mexican photojournalist has been killed after taking pictures of dead bodies left alongside a road, bringing Mexico’s death toll of journalists to nine this year.

Jaime Castaño Zacarías happened upon the dead bodies with their hands bound in northern Zacatecas state on Wednesday morning, following a clash between drug cartels in the city of Jerez, according to media reports.

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Murder in Mexico: journalists caught in the crosshairs

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The 2012 killing of Regina Martínez, who was investigating links between organised crime and politics, began a wave of violence in the most dangerous country to be a reporter

Regina Martínez Pérez was considered an enemy of the state. The 48-year-old journalist had made powerful foes investigating allegations of collusion between political leaders, security forces and narcotraffickers in the Mexican region of Veracruz.

She was a source of irritation for four consecutive state governors, highlighting violence, abuses of power and cover-ups in the pages of Mexico’s foremost investigative news magazine, Proceso.

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Taliban denies targeting media as 50th journalist dies in Afghanistan

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Rising violence by militants raises fears for press freedom after US troops withdraw in May

The Taliban have denied they are deliberately targeting journalists in attacks amid the surge in violence throughout Afghanistan.

The US watchdog Sigar (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) says Taliban violence has risen by 50% since September, with media workers saying they don’t feel safe doing their jobs.

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Killing of reporter adds to grim toll of violence against Mexican journalists

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Israel Vázquez became the third journalist to be murdered in two weeks – and the eighth this year – while reporting on Monday

Early on Monday morning, Israel Vázquez, a crime reporter in the Mexican city of Salamanca, received a tip that a plastic bag full of human remains had been dumped at the side of a street.

He reached the scene before the police, but as he prepared to broadcast on Facebook live, gunmen opened fire from a passing car, and shot him eight times. He died of his injuries later in the day.

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