Attacks on the Media

Uganda: Police officers stone journalists covering story on fire

Human Rights Network for Journalists - Uganda Police Officers at Katwe Police Station have today, 24 August 2017, stoned five journalists who were covering staff quarters that had caught fire at the police station. The journalists who were attacked are Nassaka Joweria (Kingdom TV), Ivan Mbadhi (BBS TV), Rachel Mabala (Daily Monitor) Carol Nakibule (Delta TV) and Muhumuza Julius of Dream TV. It is alleged that the fire which started at about 9:30am burnt six units and was a result of one electric coil that was being used for cooking in one of…Read more

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency officials assault and briefly detain journalists

Pakistani police should launch a thorough investigation into allegations that Federal Investigation Agency officials assaulted and briefly detained journalists in Islamabad last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. An FIA officer on June 21, 2017 allegedly harassed and detained Channel 24 reporter Saba Bajeer and Dawn News reporter Aitzaz Hassan while they questioned Muhammad Zafar-ul-Haq Hijazi, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, at an Islamabad hospital where he was being examined following his arrest on charges of tampering with records, according to news reports. Bajeer told CPJ…Read more

Pakistani journalist taken from home in Balochistan

Authorities in Pakistan should do everything in their power to ensure the swift release of Zafar Achakzai, a journalist for the newspaper Daily Qudrat, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Men in civilian clothes on June 25 took Achakzai, a senior reporter at the Urdu-language newspaper Daily Qudrat, from his home in Quetta, in Pakistan's restive western province of Balochistan, according to local media and Naimat Achakzai, who is the editor of Daily Qudrat and Zafar's father. Naimat Achakzai told CPJ that the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force organized by the federal…Read more

Pakistani journalist murdered in Haripur

Pakistani authorities should swiftly and credibly investigate the murder of Bakhsheesh Elahi and swiftly bring all those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Elahi, the Haripur bureau chief for the daily newspaper K2, was fatally shot in Haripur, about 80km (50 miles) north of Islamabad, on June 11, according to police, news reports, and his employer. Elahi was on his way to work when unknown assailants on a motorcycle shot him repeatedly, Shuraiz Khan, of the Haripur police department, told CPJ. The Pakistani daily newspaper Dawn reported that Elahi…Read more

Pakistan: Car rams into journalist who covers religious minorities

Rana Tanveer, a Lahore-based reporter for the English language newspaper, The Express Tribune, suffered a broken leg after a car rammed into him on June 9, 2017. He had been receiving death threats from unidentified people for covering stories about religious minorities in Pakistan. Tanveer told Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) that on May 30, when he came out of his home to go to the office, he saw that a death threat had been written on his door. Although Tanveer had received threats earlier dating back to 2013, the latest threats terrified his…Read more

Royal Media group journalist Emmanuel Namisi threatened, assaulted in Kenya

Kenyan authorities should credibly investigate and swiftly bring to justice those responsible for attacking and threatening Emmanuel Namisi, a broadcast journalist for the Royal Media group, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Namisi told CPJ that men he identified as bodyguards of Kenneth Lusaka, governor of the western Kenyan county of Bungoma, threatened him and assaulted him at a Bungoma club on the night of June 5, 2017. He said the men were angry at a story he had written alleging they played a role in the death of a woman at…Read more

Attackers beat TV journalist at his home in India’s Andhra Pradesh state

Authorities in India must investigate and bring to justice those responsible for an attack on freelance journalist Rama Reddy, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Reddy, a TV reporter, was attacked in apparent retaliation for his reporting on illegal sand mining, according to a report in The New Indian Express. Reddy, who lives in the Eluru district of Andhra Pradesh state, was attacked in his home around midnight on May 3 by about four unidentified individuals, according to reports. The assailants knocked on the journalist's door and questioned him about his reports…Read more

Indian police assault journalist

Indian authorities should identify and discipline New Delhi police officers who assaulted journalist Meghnad Bose yesterday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Bose, a reporter with The Quint, a news website, was broadcasting a Facebook Live video outside the city's Jamia Milia Islamia University, where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was receiving an honorary doctorate, when police assaultedBose, the journalist said. "Authorities should swiftly discipline the police officers responsible for assaulting Meghnad Bose simply for doing his job," CPJ Asia Program Director Steven Butler said from Washington, D.C. "The police should train…Read more

Blogger stabbed to death in Maldives

Authorities in the Maldives should swiftly identify and bring to justice those responsible for the murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Rasheed died after he was found with multiple stab wounds in the stairway of his apartment building yesterday, according to media reports. Rasheed was transported to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, where he died while receiving treatment, according to Raajje TV. He had 16 stab wounds to his chest, neck, and throat, the independent broadcaster reported. Rasheed, 29, was known for his satirical political commentary on his…Read more

NTV reporter kidnapped, beaten over post about Ugandan First Lady

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled to learn that TV reporter Gertrude Uwitware was kidnapped andbeaten during the weekend over her coverage of a dispute between well-known university academic Stella Nyanzi and Janet Museveni, who is Uganda's minister of education and President Yoweri Museveni's wife. Gertrude Uwitware, who covers health issues for Nation Television (NTV), Uganda's leading privately-owned TV channel, was walking along one of Kampala's safest and most touristic avenues on the afternoon of 8 April, when a man and a woman forced her to get into their car at gunpoint. After…Read more