06 Mar 12 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
An Indian newspaper reporter has been beaten to death, less than two weeks after another journalist was clubbed to death in the same area. Rajesh Mishra was attacked and beaten on 1 March in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Mishra, from weekly newspaper Media Raj, received threats following his reports about alleged mismanagement of a number of regional schools owned by Rajneesh Banerjee, the publisher of another Rewa-based newspaper, Vindhya Bharat. The journalist was invited to meet the editor of Vindhya Bharat at a tea stand, where he was attacked. Fellow journalist Chandrika Rai was beaten to death in Madhya Pradesh, along with his wife and two children, last month.
06 Mar 12 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
A web editor was jailed for 10 days for reposting an unconfirmed report that two local officials had been caught with prostitutes in China. Shang Laicheng, an editor at Tiantian Xin news forum was arrested on 17 February as he left work, and his family were informed he had been formally detained for spreading misinformation. The Foshan Procuratorate office said that the information in the post, suggesting two local prosecutors were caught using prostitutes at a sauna, was fabricated and had damaged the reputations of authorities. The original author of the post remains unclear.
06 Mar 12 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
A Somalian journalist has been shot dead by gunmen. Ali Ahmed Abdi who worked for a Somali news website was shot in the head several times by masked men as he walked home on Sunday evening in the northern town of Galkayo. Until recently, Abdi had been working for the privately owned Galkayo Radio. Abdi is the third Somalian journalist to be killed this year. On Saturday, a media director in Puntland was arrested and detained following the closure of radio station Radio Voice of Peace. Officials did not give motive for Ali’s arrest, nor the shutting down of the radio station.
05 Mar 12 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Ten Indian journalists were attacked by a group of lawyers outside a court in Bangalore last week. On 2 March, following the high-profile case of a former minister accused of illegal mining, the lawyers attacked journalists, most of whom were TV camera operators, with stones, iron chairs, and flowerpots. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd. Some reports said the lawyers were angered by “one-sided” coverage of a protest in January, while other news reports said the dispute occurred after the lawyers were angered by television crews blocking the entrance to the courts.
