Category Archives: Journalist safety

Pelé joins calls for Brazil to step up search for pair missing in Amazon

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Three-time World Cup winner joined sports, culture and media figures in calling for action over Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

A host of Brazilian celebrities, led by the three-time World Cup winner Pelé, have joined calls for authorities to intensify their search for a British journalist and Brazilian Indigenous advocate missing in the Amazon rainforest.

Pelé, now 81 and considered one of the greatest players of all time, retweeted a video made by Phillips’s wife appealing for more urgency in the search for her husband and Bruno Pereira.

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Brazilian police say ‘no evidence of crime’ in search for missing journalist

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Police detain man on drugs and weapons charges but say too early to link arrest directly to disappearance in Amazon of Dom Phillips

Authorities in the Amazon investigating the disappearance of a British journalist and an Indigenous advocate have yet to find any evidence of a crime three days after the men went missing in a remote corner of the rainforest.

Police in the far west of Brazil said on Wednesday their inquiries into the disappearance of Dom Phillips, a longtime Guardian contributor, and Bruno Araújo Pereira, an advocate for Indigenous people, had led to the arrest of one man.

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John Kerry commits to look into case of missing British journalist in Brazil

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Dom Phillips, a Guardian contributor, was last seen on Sunday morning travelling with Indigenous expert Bruno Araújo Pereira

The US climate envoy John Kerry has committed to pursuing the facts behind the disappearance of a veteran Guardian contributor and a celebrated Indigenous expert in the Brazilian Amazon.

Dom Phillips and Bruno Araújo Pereira were last seen on Sunday morning travelling by boat through the remote Javari Valley, a region plagued by violence involving illegal fishermen, illegal loggers, drug traffickers and security forces.

Kerry, a former US secretary of state, appears shocked at details of the case recounted by the Brazilian Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara in a WhatsApp video of the encounter seen by the Guardian.

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Missing British journalist’s wife pleads with Brazil to find ‘love of my life’

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Alessandra Sampaio, whose husband Dom Phillips was last seen in the Amazon on Sunday, makes appeal in tearful video message

The wife of the British journalist who has vanished in a remote corner of the Amazon with a celebrated Indigenous expert has issued an emotional plea for Brazilian authorities to work harder to find “the love of my life”.

“I want to make an appeal to the federal government and the relevant organs to intensify their search efforts, because we still have some hope of finding them,” Alessandra Sampaio, the wife of longtime Guardian contributor Dom Phillips, said in a tearful video message.

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‘Every second counts’: wife of British journalist missing in Amazon urges action

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Alessandra Sampaio, wife of Dom Phillips, tells Brazilian authorities: ‘Please answer the urgency of the moment with urgent actions’

The wife of a British journalist who has gone missing in a remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon notorious for illegal mining and drug trafficking has urged authorities to intensify their search efforts.

Dom Phillips, a longtime Guardian contributor, vanished on Sunday morning while journeying by boat through the Javari region of Amazonas state where he was reporting for a book he is writing about conservation.

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Fears for safety of British journalist missing in Brazilian Amazon

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Dom Phillips disappeared on a trip to one of the remotest corners of the Amazon days after receiving threats

Fears are growing over the safety of a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert who have disappeared in one of the remotest corners of the Amazon just days after receiving threats.

Dom Phillips, a longtime contributor to the Guardian in Brazil, was last seen over the weekend in the Javari region of Amazonas state – a vast region of rivers and rainforests near the border with Peru.

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Revealed: Afghan journalists facing death threats and beatings, despite UK pledge to save them

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Group who worked with UK media to sue government over failure to relocate them to Britain

A group of Afghan journalists who worked closely with the UK media for years have revealed how they face beatings, death threats and months in hiding, and accuse the government of reneging on a pledge to bring them to Britain.

Having fought in vain for clearance to come to the UK since the return of Taliban rule last summer, the eight journalists are now taking legal action against the government. They have applied for a judicial review after waiting months for their applications to relocate to the UK to be processed. They report only receiving standard response emails from the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) programme.

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Israeli forces deliberately shot Shireen Abu Aqleh, Palestinian probe finds

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Israel claims the Al Jazeera journalist was killed during a battle between its soldiers and Palestinian militants

A Palestinian investigation into the shooting of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh has concluded that she was deliberately killed by Israeli forces as she tried to flee, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced.

The conclusion echoed the results of a preliminary investigation announced nearly two weeks ago and was widely expected. Israel rejected the findings, with the defence minister, Benny Gantz, calling them, “a blatant lie.”

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Widow of man killed in Libya accuses South Africa of ‘silence’ in hunt for his body

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The South African government sent Anton Hammerl’s passport to his widow in 2016 but has refused to say how it came to have it

The widow of a British-based photographer who was murdered by Col Gaddafi’s forces in Libya in 2011 has accused South Africa of withholding crucial information about her husband’s death that could help in efforts to locate his body.

Anton Hammerl was killed in an incident in May 2011 that saw other journalists, including James Foley – who was later kidnapped and beheaded by Islamic State in Syria – taken prisoner.

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Shireen Abu Aqleh: UN security council condemns killing of journalist

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In rare unanimous statement, council calls for ‘immediate and impartial’ inquiry into the Al Jazeera journalist’s death

The UN security council has unanimously condemned the killing of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh while she was covering an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank, diplomats said.

In a rare unanimous statement, the security council also called for “an immediate, thorough, transparent and impartial investigation into her killing”.

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US condemns Israel’s attack on Shireen Abu Aqleh’s funeral

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Antony Blinken says US ‘deeply troubled’ after police stormed procession for Palestinian American journalist

Joe Biden’s secretary of state has issued a statement condemning Israeli forces for their attack hours earlier on the funeral procession in Jerusalem of a Palestinian American journalist who was shot and killed this week.

“We are deeply troubled by the images of Israeli police intruding into the funeral procession of Palestinian American Shireen Abu Aqleh,” Antony Blinken’s statement on his official Twitter account read. “Every family deserves to lay their loved ones to rest in a dignified and unimpeded manner.”

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Chilean journalist dies after being shot while covering Workers’ Day marches

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Francisca Sandoval, 29, is the first journalist to be killed in the line of duty in Chile since the Pinochet dictatorship

A Chilean journalist who was shot in the head by a street trader while covering Workers’ Day marches on 1 May has died of her injuries.

Francisca Sandoval, 29, was reporting in Barrio Meiggs, a ramshackle market district in the centre of the capital, Santiago, when a group of men opened fire after a standoff with the marchers.

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‘I almost got hit’: the Ukrainian journalists turned war correspondents overnight

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Initially writing stories and making television reports was secondary for the journalists as many focused on survival

When the war started journalists in Ukraine found themselves at the centre of the biggest story in the world. They became war correspondents overnight.

Ukrainian journalists were spotlighted this week when the Pulitzer prize board awarded them with a special citation, hailing the country’s reporters for the “courage, endurance and commitment to truthful reporting” they have shown since the Russian invasion.

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Two slain in Mexico are the latest in unrelenting slaughter of journalists

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The president has been accused of failing to address the wave of violence and has been incessant with his attacks on reporters

The unrelenting slaughter of Mexican journalists has continued after two more newspeople were gunned down by unidentified assassins – taking the 2022 death toll to 11 in what is the deadliest country for media professionals outside a warzone.

Yesenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera were murdered in the town of Cosoleacaque, about 350 miles east of the capital Mexico City, around 3pm on Monday.

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Ninth journalist killed in Mexico this year as violence against media soars

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Murder of veteran Luis Enrique Ramírez – found in bag beside road – brings estimated death toll of journalists in president’s term to 34

A Mexican journalist has been found dead in Sinaloa state, authorities say, marking the ninth death of a media worker in a unprecedentedly bloody year for the country which has drawn international scrutiny.

Luis Enrique Ramírez, a veteran journalist and columnist at El Debate, was found dead on the side of a highway, the state’s attorney general said on Twitter.

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Biden will meet with parents of US journalist abducted in Syria 10 years ago

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Marc and Debra Tice are expected to meet with the president at the White House to speak about their son, Austin Tice

Joe Biden said he was meeting Monday with the parents of American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria 10 years ago.

The meeting with Marc and Debra Tice was expected to take place at the White House.

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Prominent Hong Kong journalist Allan Au reportedly held on sedition charge

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Reporter and lecturer’s arrest in dawn raid another blow to city’s press amid Beijing crackdown

A veteran Hong Kong journalist has been arrested by national security police for allegedly conspiring to publish “seditious materials”, a police source and local media said, in the latest blow against press freedom.

Allan Au, a 54-year-old reporter and journalism lecturer, was arrested in a dawn raid on Monday by Hong Kong’s national security police unit, multiple local media outlets reported.

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Attacks on press in Mexico hit record level during López Obrador’s presidency

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Report paints bleak picture of journalist safety under leader who often criticises media and downplays violence against reporters

Attacks against the press in Mexico have increased by 85% since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office, making it the most deadly period for journalists since records began, according to a new report.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists with 1,945 attacks – including 33 murders – between 2019 and 2021, according to the press freedom group Article 19. Another eight have been killed so far this year.

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Ukrainian photographer Maksim Levin killed while covering war

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Levin, who worked for Ukrainian news website and contributed to Reuters, found dead in village north of Kyiv

Maksim Levin, a photographer and videographer who was working for a Ukrainian news website and who was a longtime contributor to Reuters, has been killed while covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He leaves behind his wife and four children.

His body was found in a village north of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on 1 April, the news website LB.ua, where he worked, said on Saturday.

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Eighth Mexican journalist to be killed in 2022 is shot outside his home

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Armando Linares López gunned down six weeks after mourning the murder of a colleague in the same city in Michoacán state

The murder crisis gripping Mexican journalism has claimed another life after a journalist was gunned down in the conflict-stricken state of Michoacán just six weeks after he announced the murder of a colleague.

Armando Linares López, the director of a news website called Michoacán Monitor, was reportedly shot at least eight times on Tuesday afternoon outside his home in the city of Zitácuro. He is the eighth Mexican journalist to be killed in 2022, compared with nine in the whole of last year.

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