Attacks on the Media

Malaysian police raided Al-Jazeera’s Kuala Lumpur office and seized two computers in an ongoing criminal probe into the global broadcaster’s July 3 report on the government’s treatment of undocumented migrant workers during the COVID-19 crisis, news reports said. Six of Al-Jazeera’s Malaysia-based reporters and staff members are being investigated on criminal charges including sedition, defamation, and violation of the country’s Communications and Multimedia Act for the “101 East” program “Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown,”reports said. In a statement, Al-Jazeera condemned the raid as a “troubling escalation” and called on Malaysian authorities to end investigations into their journalists.…Read more

Pakistan authorities should conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the disappearance of journalist Matiullah Jan and ensure his safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. This morning, several unidentified men intercepted Jan’s car in Islamabad’s G-6 Sector, forced him into another vehicle, and drove away, according to news reports, Abdul Razaq Jan, the journalist’s son, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview, and security footage of the abduction, which CPJ reviewed and which was shared on social media. In the footage, about a dozen men are seen exiting at least three vehicles and forcing a…Read more

Nigerian authorities should cease their intimidation of journalist Saint Mienpamo Onitsha and ensure that security forces permit the press to work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. At about 1 a.m. on May 9, four masked Department of State Services agents forced their way into the home of Onitsha, the founder of Naija Live TV, an independent news website, in Yenagoa, the capital of Nigeria’s southern Bayelsa state, blindfolded him, and drove him around for more than three hours before bringing him to the department’s local headquarters, according to the journalist, who…Read more

Authorities in South Africa should conduct a swift investigation into the beating of journalist Paul Nthoba and drop all charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On May 15, at least four police officers in Meqheleng, in Free State province, beat Nthoba, the owner and editor of the weekly Mohokare News local newspaper, who had photographed them while they were on patrol enforcing the area’s COVID-19 lockdown, according to news reports and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. The officers later charged Nthoba with obstructing law enforcement under a COVID-19 regulation…Read more