International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)

The threatening calls against the Maldivian news website Addu Live, which the site alleges come from acquitted suspects from the criminal courts, often demand the outlet take down reports on corruption of judges and articles critical of the government.

There are strong concerns about the media restrictions that surround Australia’s asylum seeker policy and its offshore immigration detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

The IFJ and MEAA commemorated the 40th anniversary of the killing of the Balibo Five, with the establishment of a scholarship to develop journalism skills in East Timor. The five young Australian journalists were killed in East Timor by Indonesian military troops after witnessing an incursion by Indonesian soldiers.

Jacky Sutton, director of Institute of War and Peace Reporting, was found dead in at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport on 17 October. Local media reported that the cause was suicide. However, friends and family have questioned how local authorities were able to come to this conclusion so quickly.

Numerous online media reports speculated that the attack on veteran journalist Yang Yanfang was related to his 2012 report which revealed that the Head of Land Resource and Housing Administrative Bureau in Henan, China, accepted a bribe.

RTNB cameraman Christophe Nkezabahizi, his wife and two of their children, were shot dead by security forces on 13 October in Bujumbura. The Burundian Union of Journalists said that the cameraman was targeted for being a media worker.

Al Azal TV correspondent Amir Bou Owaydan, Yemen Al Yawm correspondent Mohamed Al Makri, and cameraman Akram al-Yamani were kidnapped on 12 October in Mukalla city, Hadramout region while covering a protest against the presence of al-Qaeda in the city.

The killing of Hemant Kumar Yadav is the sixth murder of journalist in India in 2015 and the third in Uttar Pradesh in 2015 and joins its India affiliates in calling on the government to immediately take steps to improve the alarming security situation for journalists in India.

The IFJ said “We condemn the charges against Anthony Kwan, who was simply carrying the equipment for his own personal safety. The IFJ supports and advocates the rights of journalists to safe and secure working conditions, including the right to protect themselves adequately in the field.”

IFJ and AJI condemn the arrest and prosecution of two British journalists in north-western Indonesia; they demand all charges be immediately dropped and the two journalists be allowed to leave Indonesia and return home.

Political cartoonist Zunar announced Malaysian police had begun an investigation into his latest book. An online sales assistant on Zunar’s website has been called in for questioning under the Sedition Act.

“Turkish authorities must be accountable for all the damages that occurred in workplaces and for the media freedom violations in Diyarbakir. Kurdish journalists hold the same rights as every other journalist in the country to report freely and to carry out their job for the benefit of the public’s opinion.”

IFJ condemns the threats issued to Indian journalists Nikhil Wagle and Shyamsundar Sonnar by Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindu group in Mumbai, India. The IFJ calls on the Indian authorities to immediately investigate the threats and ensure journalist safety across the country.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) wrote to the leader of Ansar Allah Movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, warning him of his personal responsibility for the safety of Yemeni journalists, following a recent video message in which he described journalists as “traitors” and said that “something should be done to face them.”

Italian cameraman Andrea Bernardi and his Palestinian colleague photographer Abbas Momani, both clearly identifiable as journalists, were violently assaulted by soldiers at Beit Furik, near Nablus while they covered clashes between the army and Palestinian protesters.

A recent journalism graduate, Yama Behroz, was killed when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) exploded at his doorstep in Faizabad, Northern Afghanistan. Some of the reports suggested that the IED was planted at his door, and he was then called and asked to come out of the house.