Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

Pakistani journalists are being forced to flee or go into hiding to escape acts of violence and intimidation that usually go unpunished. The authorities have not kept their promise to protect media personnel and are sometimes even responsible for these abuses.

A publisher and a reporter were summoned to the gendarmerie in Dakar on 15 July and questioned for several hours about a report that Senegalese troops were being sent to participate in the Saudi-led military operations in Yemen.

Held in isolation in Tehran’s Evin prison, Rezaian, who has Iranian and American dual citizenship, has been living a nightmare for the past year just for doing his job as a reporter.

Reporting is a dangerous job in some countries and journalists who ask irritating questions or shine a light on government corruption often find themselves the targets of presidential anger.

Hussein Ghrer and Hani Al-Zitani were arrested more than three years ago along with Mazen Darwish, head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression. At least 30 journalists and bloggers continue to be held in the regime’s many jails.

Reporters Without Borders calls on EU countries that still have blasphemy laws to follow the example of Iceland, which has just repealed its blasphemy legislation in a highly symbolic move six months after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.

Reporters Without Borders has written to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto calling for urgent measures to protect media personnel and to combat impunity for crimes of violence against them.

Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev was shot dead on 9 July 2013 as he left for work in Makhachkala, Dagestan. He had actively reported on human rights violations against Muslims by the police and Russian army.