New York, November 13, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by media reports in Pakistan and Canada that Khadija Abdul Qahaar, publisher of the Web site Jihad Unspun, was kidnapped Tuesday while traveling in the Bannu district in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, on the border with Afghanistan.
The release of CBC correspondent Mellissa Fung, who had been abducted by a criminal gang in Afghanistan, is the focus of a few stories today. The Associated Press has coverage of her month-long ordeal, and that piece has been picked up by various papers including The Boston Globe and The Baltimore Sun.
New York, September 2, 2008–A journalist who had been kidnapped by a local Taliban group was killed when a Pakistani airstrike hit the private jail where he was being held in the Swat Valley in Pakistan’s tumultuous North West Frontier Province on Friday, according to local news reports citing a Taliban spokesman. Militants abducted Abdul…
August 25, 2008 Irshad Akhtar, Aaj TV and Asaap Aslam Jahangir, ARY TV and Nawa-e-Waqat Gulzar Baloch, Samaa TV and Bakhabar Saleem Buzdar, Geo TV ATTACKED The four journalists sustained minor injuries after Pakistani paramilitary forces fired on a rally they were covering in the town of Turbat, Baluchistan province.
Mr. Prime Minister: We are deeply concerned about the safety of the staff of the Urdu-language Daily Aaj Kal newspaper. According to Najam Sethi, the paper’s editor-in-chief, clerics at the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad have repeatedly issued inflammatory statements aimed at the newspaper and its staff. The accusations leave them vulnerable to attack by militant groups at a time when civil violence is on the rise.
New York, May 22, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the fatal shooting of Express TV reporter Mohammed Ibrahim near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan today. Ibrahim, a reporter for the Express News channel, was gunned down by unknown men outside Khar, the main town of the Bajaur tribal area in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province,…
New York, May 12, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Pakistani Supreme Court to drop its efforts to control media coverage. The court today ordered Geo TV, the country’s most popular private broadcaster, and its print affiliate, Jang Group, to present all video clips and news articles dating to November 3, 2007, on…
CPJ’s Impunity Index ranks countries where killers of journalists go free New York, April 30, 2008 — Democracies from Colombia to India and Russia to the Philippines are among the worst countries in the world at prosecuting journalists’ killers according to the Impunity Index, a list of countries compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists…