Intimidation & Harassment

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

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

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

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

This statement was originally published on hrnjuganda.org on 29 March 2017. Five youth supporters of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party have been found guilty of assaulting three Entebbe-based journalists, thereby occasioning them actual bodily harm and maliciously damaging their property contrary to sections 335 and 236 of the Penal Code Act, respectively. “The accused persons had the intention of stopping journalists from covering the events (elections). The complainants were just doing their work as journalists and them being stopped [and] beaten was willful and unlawful. Therefore the accused persons are convicted…Read more

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the beating that Standard Media Group reporter Isaiah Gwengi received from a special border police unit in the western town of Usenge yesterday and calls for an investigation into this unacceptable act of police brutality. After arresting Gwengi, members of the Quick Response Team (QRT) stripped him naked and gave him a severe beating, inflicting injuries to his head and parts of his body, and confiscated his phone and SIM cards. Gwengi was arrested together with human rights activist Rodgers Ochieng while interviewing Usenge residents who have been…Read more

This statement was originally published by Human Rights Network for Journalists - Uganda on 9 March 2017. It was 12 January 2015 when WBS Television journalist Andrew Lwanga – who was covering a peaceful procession by a group of unemployed youth along Namirembe Road in Kampala – met his unfortunate fate. Lwanga was brutally assaulted by a senior police officer – the then District Police Commander (DPC) of Old Kampala, Joram Mwesigye. Lwanga was rushed to hospital in a critical and life-threatening condition. On 13 of January 2015 a group of journalists – led…Read more

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Maldives Journalists Association (MJA) strongly condemn the death threat to some journalists and express concern over 'protective custody' of journalists on the island of Nilandhoo, Faafu Atoll. The IFJ urges the Maldivian government to investigate the death threats and ensure safety of the targeted journalists and create a conducive environment to safely report on issues of national interest. Raajje Television reported death threats against its staff to the Maldives Police Service (MPS) on Thursday, March 2, 2017, after the station received phone calls threatening to…Read more