Asia

Here are two quick updates on prominent Pakistani cases we've been following:

Despite police claims made soon after the assassination-style killing of Geo TV reporter Wali Khan Babar on January 13, there have been no arrests made in his case, and there is little reason to expect that there will be any. Babar was one of 20 people killed in gang violence in Karachi that day. He was returning home after his report on the violence had been aired. Mark another case in Pakistan's poor record for impunity for the killers of journalists--the country ranked 10^th last year in CPJ's Impunity Index.

New York, February 24, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists sends its condolences to the families and friends of New Zealand killed or missing following Tuesday's earthquake.

On February 18, we noted that the United Nations in New York finally said it received a letter from Sandhya Eknelygoda, the wife of missing journalist Prageeth Eknelygoda. Sandhya had given the letter to the U.N. representative in Colombo, Neil Buhne, on January 24, the first anniversary of her husband's disappearance. It was also channeled to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said. 

Men in plainclothes recently harassed at least six foreign journalists in Shandong province. Vivid news footage shoes a group pelting CNN reporter Stan Grant and his photographer with rocks when they tried to visit the home of an activist under house arrest. Brice Pedroletti from France's Le Monde, Stephane Lagarde with Radio France Internationale, and an unnamed New York Times journalist and photographer underwent similar confrontations in February, according to Agence France-Presse. 

New York, February 22, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists joins with the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) in calling for an investigation into the  drive-by shooting death of Abdost Rind, a 27-year-old part-time journalist in the Turbat area of Baluchistan province in Pakistan's southwest on February 18.

Finally, there has been some movement in the case of Prageeth Eknelygoda, at left, the Sri Lankan journalist who disappeared on January 24, 2010. The United Nations says it has received a letter from Eknelygoda's wife, Sandhya, that she had handed over to the U.N. representative in Colombo, Neil Buhne, on January 24, the anniversary of his disappearance.