CPJ alarmed by gun attack on Sri Lankan journalist
We issued this statement today after learning that Radhika Devakumar, a provincial correspondent of the Thinakaran newspaper, a Tamil daily, survived an attack in her home during which she received three gunshot wounds.”This attack has the earmarks of an assassination attempt. The government must immediately act to bring the perpetrators to justice. Sri Lanka’s record of…
Putin and the tiger
This Monday, the fourth anniversary of the Beslan school hostage crisis, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sedated a Siberian tiger to save–or so legend has it–a state television crew. As survivors of the Beslan tragedy gathered at the graveyard outside the North Ossetian town to mourn the more than 330 victims–mostly children–killed in the massacre,…
Brutally attacked in Guatemala…again
Two days after being abducted and badly beaten in Guatemala, prominent journalist José Rubén Zamora was still in shock. “I can’t remember what happened, but I was drugged and left unconscious in a hospital in the outskirts of Guatemala City,” he told me on Saturday after he was released from the local hospital.His colleagues at…
Olympics: FCCC cites attacks, harassment
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China just released its updated list of “cases of reporting interference.” What’s reporting interference? I’ll let the FCCC’s reporters speak for themselves:Since the beginning of the Olympic period on July 25, the day the Main Press Center officially opened, the FCCC has received more than 30 confirmed cases of reporting…
Senegal attacks prompt worry, speculation
In the Senegalese capital, Dakar, speculation surrounded Air Transport Minister Farba Senghor after unidentified men using a government vehicle ransacked the newsrooms of 24 Heures Chrono and L’As, two independent newspapers. The attacks came just three days after Senghor threatened unspecified retaliation against the papers over critical stories. CPJ issued an alert on Tuesday, calling…
Olympics-China Media Watch: Careful coverage of stabbing
Despite reports of censorship, several Chinese newspapers have reported on the stabbing death in Beijing on Saturday of a relative of the U.S. men’s volleyball coach. But most of the reporting has been limited to official statements. Emphasizing that the attacker acted alone, Beijing Youth Daily yesterday quoted Beijing Olympic Committee official Wang Wei in identifying the victim…
Mexican journalists vs. security forces
While organized criminals and drug traffickers account for the bulk of attacks against Mexican journalists, CPJ has documented an increasing number of assaults committed by security forces. Just last week, this reality was brought into sharp focus with the accusation by a reporter that he had been roughed up by the military.
Olympics: Police get rough in Kashgar
Police in Kashgar apparently didn’t get the message about new tactics for relating to the media. Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported that Masami Kawakita, a photographer from the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper’s Tokyo headquarters, and Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Nippon Television Network’s China general bureau, were slightly injured when police in Kashgar dragged them from…