A Mexican journalist has been shot dead in broad daylight as violent crime in the country – and attacks on the press – continue amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Related: Mexico’s human rights chief draws fury for asking if journalists have been killed
Continue reading...Sajid Hussain, who wrote about rights abuses in Balochistan, had been granted Swedish asylum
A prominent Pakistani journalist who fled the country after receiving death threats has gone missing in Sweden where he had been granted political asylum.
Sajid Hussain, 39, went into self-imposed exile in 2012 after his reporting on forced disappearances and human rights abuses in the turbulent region of Balochistan had led to death threats. He had continued to run an online newspaper, the Balochistan Times, from abroad covering the same topics.
Continue reading...Son of murdered journalist says Robert Abela is ‘continuity candidate’ and must break with ‘corrupt legacy’
Malta’s new prime minister, Robert Abela, has a few days to prove whether he will break with “the corrupt legacy” of the past, a son of the murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galiziahas said.
Abela, an outsider who beat the favourite to become leader of Malta’s ruling Labour party on Sunday, will be sworn in as the island’s 14th prime minister on Monday.
Continue reading...Agnès Callamard, a UN special rapporteur who led an inquiry into Saudi reporter’s killing but was barred from secretive trial, says ruling that crime was spontaneous rather than premeditated means system that allowed murder to happen remains untouched.
A court exonerated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s inner circle of involvement in the murder at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in October 2018 which plunged the kingdom into a diplomatic crisis
Continue reading...Malta's justice minister, Owen Bonnici, had an egg thrown at him by a protester and was met with chants of 'shame on you' as he arrived for a meeting held to discuss the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The investigative journalist, who had exposed high-level corruption in Malta, was killed in a car bomb attack in October 2017. Amid the ensuing constitutional and political crisis, the country's prime minister, Joseph Muscat, has promised to resign in January
Businessman Yorgen Fenech is telling police Keith Schembri was behind murder, sources say
Police investigating the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia have questioned the prime minister’s closest aide over claims he was the mastermind behind the killing, according to sources close to the inquiry.
The allegations against Keith Schembri were made by a prominent businessman, Yorgen Fenech, who was arrested last week and is understood to be seeking legal immunity in return for his testimony.
Continue reading...Suspect freed as deadline for charges over death of Daphne Caruana Galizia approached
Yorgen Fenech, a prominent businessman arrested on Wednesday in connection with investigations into the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, has been released on bail, police sources said.
He will be under round-the-clock police surveillance as investigations continue.
Continue reading...Activists warn muzzling of press under President Buhari could herald return to dark days of military rule
Fisayo Soyombo was eating an evening snack in Lagos in late October when a colleague called to warn him about a plan hatched by Nigerian government officials at a clandestine meeting to arrest him.
Hours earlier, the second in a three-part undercover series by the Abuja-based investigative journalist on corruption in Nigeria’s criminal justice system had been published.
Continue reading...At least 11 media workers have been murdered in the country since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office
Mexico’s new human rights commissioner has questioned if journalists are actually killed in the country, which has become a cemetery for reporters over the past two decades – and has not become any safer since the arrival of a leftwing government late last year.
After being elected commissioner on Tuesday night, Rosario Piedra Ibarra blithely responded to reporters’ questions on the murder of reporters in the country by asking, “They’ve killed journalists?”
Continue reading...Detaining of Ahmet Altan, who denies alleged links to failed coup in 2016, called a ‘disgrace’
Turkish police have rearrested the journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan, just a week after his release from prison over alleged links to the failed 2016 coup.
Altan and another veteran journalist, Nazlı Ilıcak, were released on 4 November despite having been convicted of “helping a terrorist group”.
Continue reading...Activists speak out after being warned of alleged cyber-attack to infiltrate mobile phones
More than a dozen pro-democracy activists, journalists and academics have spoken out after WhatsApp privately warned them they had allegedly been the victims of cyber-attacks designed to secretly infiltrate their mobile phones.
The individuals received alerts saying they were among more than 100 human rights campaigners whose phones were believed to have been hacked using malware sold by NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons company.
Continue reading...Journalists’ association files judicial review over treatment of media and ‘excessive force’
An Indonesian journalist hit in the face by a rubber bullet during protests in Hong Kong has been permanently blinded in one eye, her lawyer has said, in what is the most serious injury among members of the media since the movement began in June.
There are growing concerns about the threat to journalists from the escalating violence, and an increasingly hostile climate that saw one reporter arrested on Tuesday, after several others were injured by police and one by protesters in a day of chaotic violence. All were wearing high-visibility jackets and “press” markings.
Continue reading...Charges against Erick Kabendera preclude bail, say lawyers, as national media council claims case has been ‘politically handled’
A Tanzanian journalist charged with money laundering and leading organised crime could face up to five years in jail without trial because bail is not guaranteed in cases involving alleged economic crimes, his legal team has warned.
Erick Kabendera’s lawyers and family also criticised Tanzanian immigration authorities for refusing to return his wife and children’s passports, even though allegations over his citizenship have been dropped.
Continue reading...Chun Han Wong, who covered Xi Jinping extensively, is in effect expelled from country
Chinese authorities have declined to renew the press credentials of a Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporter, in effect expelling a journalist who extensively covered President Xi Jinping and Communist party politics.
The foreign ministry said on Friday in response to a faxed question about the Singaporean reporter Chun Han Wong’s visa that some foreign journalists with the “evil intention to smear and attack China” were not welcome.
Continue reading...Erick Kabendera also faces charges of leading organised crime and failure to pay tax
A Tanzanian investigative journalist has appeared in court charged with organised crime and money laundering.
Erick Kabendera, who was arrested by plainclothes policemen last week, appeared in court charged with leading organised crime, failure to pay tax amounting to 173m Tanzanian shillings ($75,000) and money laundering of the same amount. Press freedom advocates have called the charges “clearly retaliatory”.
Continue reading...Journalists say blame lies in ‘grey zone’ between organised crime and authorities
Journalists in Mexico have said the new government is failing to protect them after three reporters were murdered in less than a week.
Jorge Ruiz Vázquez, a reporter with the Gráfico de Xalapa newspaper, was the latest victim, shot dead late on Friday night in Actopan, in Veracruz state. He was supposed to have received protection from state security forces but this was missing on the night of the killing.
Continue reading...The UN report into October’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is the fullest account yet of events and as horrifying as one would expect. Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur, describes a “deliberate, premeditated execution”; secretly recorded conversations before his visit discussed the arrival of the “sacrificial animal” and dismemberment of a body. She concludes that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated because there is “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing – a conclusion also reached by the CIA – despite the kingdom’s insistence that it was a rogue operation.
No reminder should be needed of the brutality of the killing of Khashoggi, a widely respected journalist living in Washington. Even Saudi Arabia’s business and diplomatic allies blanched, or at least felt obliged to put some distance between themselves and the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom, after repeated lies about what happened, announced that it would try 11 suspects for his murder.
Continue reading...Tally of deaths makes it one of most dangerous fields for journalists after war reporting
Thirteen journalists who were investigating damage to the environment have been killed in recent years and many more are suffering violence, harassment, intimidation and lawsuits, according to a study.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which produced the tally, is investigating a further 16 deaths over the last decade. It says the number of murders may be as high as 29, making this field of journalism one of the most dangerous after war reporting.
Continue reading...Ivan Golunov who reports on corruption was arrested on controversial drug dealing charges
Thousands of protesters are to march in Moscow in support of Ivan Golunov, an investigative journalist arrested on controversial drug-dealing charges that are widely seen as an attempt to silence his reports on corruption.
More than 20,000 people have so far expressed an interest on Facebook in attending the march on Wednesday, which has not been sanctioned by the authorities. The protest will pass by the headquarters of the FSB state security service, before ending outside the interior ministry, which oversees the work of the police. Protests were also expected to take place in a number of other towns and cities across Russia, as calls grew for the charges against Golunov to be dropped.
Continue reading...Ivan Golunov has been released from jail pending a trial on drug charges, which he says have been fabricated. Hundreds of supporters picketed police HQ in the lead-up to the surprise decision by the court. Here is the story of the case so far
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