Pakistani journalist Jam Saghir Ahmed Lar shot dead in Punjab

Pakistani authorities must thoroughly investigate the killing of journalist Jam Saghir Ahmed Lar and ensure that his murderers are brought to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. On March 14, Lar, a correspondent for the Daily Khabrain newspaper and contributor to local news outlets in the city of Khanpur in central Punjab province, was fatally shot by three unidentified assailants, according to media reports and CPJ’s review of a copy of the first information report (FIR), a document which opens an investigation. “Pakistan authorities must swiftly and transparently investigate the killing of journalist Jam…Read more

Bangladeshi journalist Golam Rabbani Nadim beaten to death after reporting on local politician

Bangladesh authorities must investigate the killing of journalist Golam Rabbani Nadim and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. At around 10 p.m. on Wednesday, June 14, a group of men ambushed Nadim, a correspondent for privately owned website Banglanews24 and broadcaster Ekattor TV, while he was traveling home on his motorcycle in the Bakshiganj area in the Jamalpur district of northern Mymensingh division, according to news reports, security footage of the incident published by Ekattor TV, and a witness account by Al Mujahid Babu, a journalist present at the scene. A group…Read more

Lesotho journalist Ralikonelo Joki killed after radio show 

Lesotho authorities must launch a credible investigation into the killing of journalist Ralikonelo ‘Leqhashasha’ Joki and hold those responsible to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.  Around 10 p.m. on Sunday, May 14, an unknown number of people shot Joki in the head once and body at least 13 times as he left the privately owned radio station Ts’enolo FM in the capital, Maseru, according to multiple news reports and a statement by the Lesotho chapter of regional press freedom group Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).  Joki, the host of the current affairs show “Hlokoana-La-Tsela” (I Heard…Read more

CPJ calls for credible investigation into death of Rwandan journalist John Williams Ntwali

Rwandan authorities must provide a credible account of the circumstances surrounding the death of journalist John Williams Ntwali, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. Police said that Ntwali was killed in the early morning of January 18 in Kigali, the capital, after a car hit a motorcycle taxi he was riding, according to news reports, which said that police arrested the driver of that car. Ntwali reported critically on governance and human rights issues in Rwanda on the YouTube-based outlet Pax TV-Ireme News, which he founded, and worked as an editor for the privately…Read more

RSF calls for independent UN probe into Pakistani journalist’s murder in Kenya

Two weeks after well-known Pakistani TV news anchor Arshad Sharif was shot dead in a car near Nairobi – two wasted weeks marked by contradictory Kenyan police statements and doubts about the impartiality of the Pakistani investigators – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for a UN investigation into Sharif’s brutal murder. Sharif was killed by two shots fired at close range. This is one of the few hard facts to have emerged in the two weeks since his murder in a Nairobi suburb on the night of 23 October. The information comes from a Kenyan…Read more

Malta: Court sentences hitmen to 40 years each for role in assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia

Following a guilty plea, a court in Malta’s capital, Valletta, on Friday sentenced brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio to 40 years each for their role as hitmen in the assassination of Malta’s leading investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia. On Friday, representatives of Article 19 Europe, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists, the International Press Institute, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) were present at court in Valletta to monitor proceedings. They were there to hear the unprecedented guilty pleas and subsequent sentencing. This…Read more

Journalist Hasibur Rahman Rubel found dead in Bangladesh

Bangladesh authorities must thoroughly and swiftly investigate the disappearance and death of journalist Hasibur Rahman Rubel, determine if he was killed for his work, and hold any perpetrators accountable, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On the evening of July 3, Rubel received a phone call and left the office of Kushtiar Khabar, the privately owned newspaper where he worked as acting editor, in the southwest Khulna division’s Kushtia district, according to multiple news reports and a local journalist familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of…Read more

Bangladeshi reporter lured into trap, murdered by drug traffickers

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the cold-blooded murder of a Bangladeshi reporter as he was covering drug-trafficking across Bangladesh’s eastern border with India. The police must ensure respect for the law by bringing the suspects to trial, RSF said. Mohiuddin Sarker Nayeem, a reporter for the Dainik Cumillar Daklocal newspaper, was gunned down at around 11 p.m. on 13 April, just a few metres from a border crossing in Burichang, Chittagong division. Bangladeshi border guards who heard the shots rushed him to a nearby hospital but a doctor pronounced him dead on arrival. Premeditated murder…Read more