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
Continue reading...Doctor says investigative reporter may have suffered concussion and broken ribs
A Russian investigative journalist arrested on controversial drug charges has been severely beaten in custody, his lawyer has said.
A doctor who inspected Ivan Golunov said he may have suffered broken ribs, concussion and a haematoma.
Continue reading...Hundreds of people take park in three-day walk in memory of murdered journalist
Friends of Lyra McKee have started a three-day peace walk from Belfast to Derry, five weeks after the journalist was murdered while watching clashes between police and dissident republicans.
At Writer’s Square in Belfast on Saturday morning, hundreds of people turned out, many wearing T-shirts in her memory and carrying flags bearing messages of peace.
Continue reading...Officers urge dissidents to step away from violence after Lyra McKee shot in Derry riots
Police in Northern Ireland have issued a call for peace in memory of the journalist Lyra McKee, who died after being shot during rioting in Derry on Thursday night.
Evoking the 29-year-old’s own words about the power of conversation, police encouraged relatives of dissident republicans, who have been blamed for shooting McKee, to urge their family members to step away from violence and pursue peace.
Continue reading...Publisher says Atef Abu Saif, also a spokesperson for Fatah, almost killed by masked men
A UK publisher has condemned an attack by masked men in Gaza on a Palestinian writer and political figure, Atef Abu Saif, accusing the assailants of deliberately breaking his fingers.
Comma Press, a not-for-profit publisher that worked with Abu Saif, said that the beating on Monday night had almost killed him.
Continue reading...Even in a country long-used to violence, the cowardly 2017 murder of the Mexican journalist Javier Valdez prompted outrage: reporters held protests, news outlets stopped publishing for a day and the then president, Enrique Peña Nieto, promised that the crime would not go unpunished.
But barely 10 days after Valdez was pulled from his car and shot dead, his widow Griselda Triana was targeted for surveillance with spyware which had been purchased by the Mexican government.
Continue reading...Luis Carlos Díaz, who went missing at about 5.30pm Monday, was taken by Sebin, fellow journalists confirmed
A prominent Venezuelan journalist who had been reporting on the country’s escalating political crisis and electricity blackout out has been seized by secret police, sparking international condemnation.
Related: US pulls all staff from Venezuela as Maduro blames blackout on 'demonic' Trump plot
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