In Lybia
Lybian journalist Dhayf al-Ghazal critical of al-Qadhafi (Kaddafi) tortured and killed.
Al-Ghazal was a contributor to al-Zahf al-Akhdar (the Green March).
disappearance, for it was well known that he had received several death threats.
The organisation said al-Qadhafi’s government often silenced journalists it considered a nuisance.
more below the fold.
More on Lybia
Col. Gaddafi’s efforts over a number of years to improve his image and return Libya to the international fold largely paid off in 2004. The former pariah state’s rehabilitation has been going well, helped by Western oil companies tempted by investment opportunities in Libyan oil, “one of the best and cheapest to produce in the world,” according to industry specialists.
And this is one of Bush’s success stories?! As long as the oil flows from Lybia, what does it matter that reporters are tortured and murdered and human rights violations are rampant.
3 June 2005 – Samir Kassir was killed when his car blew up today in Beirut. A writer and historian with both French and Lebanese citizenship, Kassir had been criticising Syria in his columns for the An-Nahar daily newspaper for the past ten years. “The French authorities and the UN commission investigating the assassination of Rafik Hariri should pay particular attention to this new act of terrorism, said Reporters Without Borders. The organisation pledges to remain mobilised until justice has been done.
Florence Aubenas, 43,
2 June – 14:49 : Sheikh Fadlallah calls for Florence’s release
After meeting a Reporters Without Borders delegation led by the organisation’s secretary-general, Robert Ménard, leading Shiite cleric Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah issues a statement calling for Florence Aubenas’s release. “As a Muslim, I energetically condemn the kidnapping of the journalist Florence Aubenas, which I consider to be a barbaric crime because it attacks a profession with the duty to inform,” Fadlallah said. The statement added : “These kidnappings also harm the image of Islam and the Iraqis, by presenting them as barbaric people.” Florence and her Iraqi guide, Hussein Hanoun, are today spending their 148th day in captivity.
Florence Aubenas was kidnapped with her interpreter, Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi in Baghdad, January 5, 2005. Iraq is very dangerous for reporters, 58 journalists and media assistants killed since the start of fighting in Iraq in March 2003, two still missing.
Update [2005-6-6 13:1:26 by sybil]:From a Washington Post article.
“At the moment, things in Iraq are about as bad as it gets for journalists, and it is hardest for Iraqi journalists,” said Robert Shaw, human rights and information officer for the International Federation of Journalists. “When Western media send their people in, they look seriously at questions of insurance, training for hazardous conditions and specialized equipment. But very few Iraqi reporters have these protections. And when they die, families get nothing because their employers don’t have sufficient resources.”
Sybil,
Thanks for keeping us informed about this issue. It is horrible that anyone should be abducted and or killed in all this mess we have created in the world. It is especially concerning that reporters are being attacked in such a manner. We need their eyes, ears and words from these places to educate and inform us.
Let them be safe and return home to their loved ones, that is my prayer.
Thank for holding them in your heart.
Without these courageous people,
where would we be?
Where would we be, indeed.
In a lot worse shape than we already are, I think.
for remembering all those courageous reporters who have paid with their lives.
Another tragic assassination occurred in CisGiordania on May 29th in the suburbs of Ramallah. The victim was Samir Rantisi, the well-known and controversial Palestinian reporter who was one of the promoters of the “Geneva Accords” between Israeli and Palestinian people of goodwill about two years ago. Rantisi was a hard-hitting ethical reporter who had investigated and denounced cases of corruption involving high-ranking Palestinians.
May we never forget.
Ramallah, 30 May 2005
The victim, Samir Rantisi, in his early 40s, was killed by two bullets to the head.
Security officials said the motive appeared to be personal, not political. Security forces said they know the identity of the shooter, who remains at large. Rantisi’s wife was being questioned in the case, the officials said.
[MORE]
He was murdered early Monday morning while he was sleeping in his bedroom in the Sateh Marhaba neighborhood. A lone gunman who broke into his apartment in the Shkukani Building shot him twice in the head in front of his wife.
The wife managed to identify the suspect, who fled the scene but was later arrested by PA security forces.
PA security officials said the murder was criminally motivated and was not linked to Rantisi’s job as a journalist and former spokesman for the information minister.
Thanks for pointing to this journalist and former political aide. He has not been mentioned in Reporters without Borders. Was it because he was not ‘killed in the line of duty’ in their minds?
Reporters without Borders can be slow, their site all the more so. Give them time to triple check. That’s what gives them well merited authority.
While we wait, let’s remember that 64 reporters were killed last year, 30 in Iraq, 12 in the Philippines.
Of course, Veronika Cerkasova was stabbed to death last October, some say 20, others 47, knife wounds. Crime of passion the Bielorussian authorities would have it. Or was it messing around with religious sects?
Certainly nothing to do with her reporting on the corruption of Lukashenko.
since the invasion. Did you see my update?
Small typo, but none the less saddening: 64 reporters were killed in 2003, 89 in 2004.
With the death of the Somalian reporter, Duniya Muhiyadin Nur, at a militia road-block near Mogadiscio today, this year totals 36.
Reporters in China don’t get killed very often, they just get locked up for a very long time, or if they are lucky just lose their jobs. These are the reporters who are doing their jobs, exposing corruption, fraud and political mismanagment the real evils of our society here.The government calls them state secrets.
On the great website you link to above, Reporters san Frontieres, you will find the name Cheong Ching, Taipei Times, born in HK, locked up 2 months ago for offending a politician it seems. His government contacts have also been locked up. On Saturday people shouted his name at the Tiananmen memorial. Journalists in China are now in a state of shock. Hard labour camps are vicious places.
Hu Jintao, Chinese president, has a reputation as a reformer, and certainly is on the economic front. Let’s see if he can modernise his country without allowing the freedom a modernising society needs. He’ll fail if he tries.
I stopped short at those killed or kidnapped. There are more kidnapped reporters that should be on the list as well. One day soon I will try for a more inclusive world diary about all the reporters, killed, kidnapped or imprisoned in recent times.
to read of these deaths of brave reporters in other countries while here in our own country our admiration for journalists has gone down and down because they don’t take chances.
I was in J-school and then, briefly, a reporter, before the days of Wood-Bern. The main reason I got out of it, even then, was that I didn’t think I was tough enough or brave enough. Hey, little did I know. . .if I’d waited long enough in this country, I would have fit right in.
Brave journalists take my breath away.