CPJ research indicates that the following individuals have been killed in 2007 because of their work as journalists. They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with a news organization.

See our list of pending investigations into suspicious deaths, called Killed: Motive Unconfirmed.

See the list of Journalists Who Disappeared.

See the list of Media Workers Killed.

AFGHANISTAN: 2

Ajmal Naqshbandi, freelance
April 8, 2007, Helmand province

Taliban fighters beheaded reporter Ajmal Naqshbandi in the Garmsir district of Helmand province after the Afghan government refused demands to free jailed Taliban leaders in exchange for the journalist’s release.

Naqshbandi was abducted on March 4 with La Repubblica reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo and the group’s driver, Sayed Agha, in Helmand province. Agha was slain a few days after the abduction, while the Italian Mastrogiacomo was released March 19 in exchange for five Taliban prisoners.

Naqshbandi, a freelance journalist with several clients, was accompanying Mastrogiacomo on a trip to interview Taliban leaders when the kidnapping took place.

Zakia Zaki, Sada-i-Sulh
June 5, 2007, Parwan province

Unidentified gunmen shot Zaki seven times after storming into the bedroom of her home north of Kabul, according to colleagues. Zaki’s six children were unharmed in the attack, which occurred near midnight. Her husband was not at home.

Zaki, 35, had launched Sada-i-Sulh, or Peace Radio, soon after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Sada-i-Sulh became a partner in 2002 with the U.S.-based media nonprofit Internews, which had seen several of its stations come under attack. She was also a prominent local leader who was critical of warlords and represented Parwan in the national tribal assembly. She had recently been warned by local warlords to shut down the station, Rahimullah Samander, head of the Afghan Independent Journalists Association, told international reporters.

Sada-i-Sulh was the only independent radio station in Parwan province. Under Zaki’s direction, it covered women’s issues, human rights, education, and local politics. Zaki had received several death threats over the years, and her staff had become accustomed to being harassed. Threats came from local community and religious leaders opposed to her political views and to the concept of a female station manager. Station staff and Internews colleagues said they were convinced that she was killed because of the stances Sada-i-Sulh had taken.


BURMA: 1

Kenji Nagai, APF News
September 27, 2007, Rangoon

Nagai, 50, who was working for the Tokyo-based video and photo agency APF News, was killed by Burmese troops cracking down on antigovernment demonstrations in Rangoon, according to official Japanese state-run television.

Nagai appeared to be deliberately targeted by a Burmese soldier, according to video footage shown on Japan’s Fuji News Network. The footage shows Nagai filming near a group of demonstrators before being pushed to the ground and shot at near point-blank range. The Japanese embassy in Burma confirmed the killing and said that the path of the bullet through Nagai’s body was inconsistent with Burmese authorities’ claims that Nagai died as a result of a stray shot.

The journalist had entered Burma just three days before, according to media reports.

According to the Burma Media Association and Burmese exile-run news sources, the military government disconnected nearly all mobile phone services in Rangoon on September 27. The cuts took place at 3 p.m., coinciding with the time when security forces confronted and opened fire on Buddhist monk demonstrators at Sule Pagoda in central Rangoon.

Ten people were killed in the September 27 crackdown, according to the government; diplomatic sources cited in news reports said the death toll was higher.

Troops were seen clearing demonstrators from the streets, telling protestors to leave within 10 minutes before they would open fire.

ERITREA: 2

Fesshaye “Joshua” Yohannes, Setit
Date unknown (death disclosed February 2007), location unknown

Yohannes, a publisher and editor of the defunct weekly Setit and a recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 2002, died in prison, several sources in the Eritrean diaspora disclosed to CPJ in February 2007. Yohannes was among 10 independent journalists rounded up in a massive 2001 government crackdown that shuttered the nation’s private press.

Several sources said Yohannes died on January 11, 2007, after a long illness in an undisclosed prison outside Asmara; one source said the journalist may have died much earlier in a prison in Embatkala, 21 miles (35 kilometers) northeast of Asmara.

In a June 2007 interview, Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu told CPJ that he had nothing to say about Yohannes. “I don’t know,” he said. “This is an Eritrean issue; leave it to us. I have nothing to say.”

Yohannes went by the name of “Joshua” among family and friends. Formerly a member of the guerrilla movement fighting for Eritrean independence from neighboring Ethiopia, he turned to journalism when Eritrea became a state in 1993. In November 1997, he joined Setit as co-owner and board member, a former colleague told CPJ. He became a popular writer, and Setit grew into the nation’s largest-circulation newspaper.

Setit’s staff tackled tough issues in the young nation, including poverty, prostitution, and Eritrea’s lack of infrastructure for handicapped veterans of the 30-year independence struggle. The weekly’s criticism angered the government, and by May 2001, Yohannes asked CPJ to help him create a journalists’ union to improve press freedom conditions.

He and other journalists never got the chance. President Isaias Afewerki’s government launched a crackdown on all critical voices, including those in the press, just one week after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States had diverted the world’s attention. Under the pretext of combating terrorism, the government shut down every independent media outlet and arrested independent journalists on sight.

At the time, he and other imprisoned journalists still had contact with the outside world. In May 2002, Yohannes and several other colleagues staged a hunger strike in hopes of spurring their release. Instead, government officials transferred the journalists to undisclosed locations. Online news reports, which have not been confirmed, suggest that as many as three other journalists also may have died in government custody. The other jailed journalists continued to be held incommunicado in secret jails throughout 2007, according to CPJ research.

Paulos Kidane, Eri-TV and Dimtsi Hafash
June 2007, northwest Eritrea

Kidane, a presenter with the Amharic service of state broadcaster Eri-TV and state Radio Dimtsi Hafash (Voice of the Broad Masses), died in unknown circumstances after setting out on foot to cross into Sudan with a group of seven asylum-seekers, according to several CPJ sources. Kidane sought to leave Eritrea because of years of professional repression, according to family, colleagues, and personal notes he sent out of the country that were reviewed by CPJ.

Kidane’s companions were forced to leave him in the care of residents of a village in northwest Eritrea after the journalist collapsed from seven days of walking in temperatures of more than 100 degrees, according to a woman who traveled with him and who spoke with CPJ through an interpreter. He was suffering from severe foot blisters and had an epileptic seizure, she said. Kidane’s condition was not critical when the group left him, the woman insisted, saying that even in the event of complications, he would have survived had he received proper medical care. She believed Kidane may have been captured by government security forces. The village in which he was left is believed to be populated by government informants.

In a telephone interview with CPJ in August, Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu acknowledged that the journalist died while attempting to leave the country, but he offered no information about the circumstances. “We don’t know,” he said.

Kidane’s passions for sports, particularly soccer, and poetry had led him to begin his journalism career as a freelance sportswriter in his native Ethiopia in the mid-1990s, according to his brother. In May 1998, at the outbreak of the border war, he was among more than 65,000 people of Eritrean descent deported from Ethiopia. He became the sports editor of the now-defunct independent weekly Admas in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, according to exiled Admas founder Khaled Abdu. In 2000, authorities exploited his skill in Amharic and knowledge of Ethiopia by conscripting him into state media service to broadcast anti-Ethiopian propaganda, and as a film and stage actor playing the roles of villainous Ethiopian military officers. In November 2006, he was among nine state media journalists summarily detained for several weeks without charge, according to CPJ research.

Kidane, 40, was survived by a wife and infant daughter, according to his brother.


HAITI: 1

Jean-Rémy Badio, freelance
January 19, 2007, Port-au-Prince

Badio, a freelance photographer, was gunned down outside his home in the southern Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Martissant, Haitian press freedom advocate Guyler Delva told CPJ. Gang members were suspected in the shooting, said Fred Blaise, a U.N. spokesman.

Badio photographed gang confrontations in Martissant, where he lived with his family, and sold them to local dailies, including the Port-au-Prince newspaper Le Matin. Badio was a member of Delva’s press group, SOS Journalistes, and the Haitian Association of Photojournalists.

Rival gangs had been battling in Martissant for months, The Associated Press reported. According to the Port-au-Prince-based Radio Métropole, the escalating gang violence made Martissant one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Haitian capital. Delva said gang members seldom allow journalists to take their pictures for fear of being identified by local authorities. According to colleagues interviewed by CPJ, Badio had received threats from local gang members beginning in October 2006.

Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis said he had authorized U.N. peacekeepers to increase patrols in Martissant. Still, Badio’s wife and children were forced to flee their home after receiving further threats from Martissant’s gangs, Delva told CPJ.


HONDURAS: 1

Carlos Salgado, Radio Cadena Voces
October 18, 2007, Tegucigalpa

Unidentified individuals intercepted Salgado, host of the radio program “Frijol el Terrible,” as he was leaving the studios of Radio Cadena Voces at 4 p.m. The assailants shot Salgado at close range at least seven times and sped away in a gray Toyota 4Runner, according to witnesses quoted in local press reports.

Dagoberto Rodríguez, director of Radio Cadena Voces, said he believed the killing was in retaliation for the station’s critical reporting on official corruption. The Honduran Commissioner of Human Rights, Ramón Custodio López, told CPJ no other motive had come to light. Police said Salgado’s murder was unrelated to his work, but they did not disclose any other motives, local press freedom advocate Thelma Mejía told CPJ.

Salgado, 67, was noted for his satirical criticism of the country’s political system, according to Rodríguez. His show combined humor with coverage of everyday problems, such as the prices of food and transportation. “Frijol el Terrible,” which was on the air for more than 20 years, reached a nationwide audience, Rodríguez said. He described Salgado as respected by his colleagues and admired by his listeners.

Rodríguez told CPJ that Radio Cadena Voces had been harassed continuously for its reporting on government corruption. Over the last two years, he said, hackers had repeatedly erased information on the radio station’s Web site, the staff had received anonymous telephone threats, and at least one journalist had been attacked by a local government official. Rodríguez and his family were themselves forced to flee Honduras on November 1, after police informed the journalist that his name had appeared on a hit list, Custodio told CPJ.

Sandra Aguilar, the victim’s wife, described Salgado as a quiet man who divided his time between the radio station and his small study at home. Aguilar told CPJ her husband had never had problems or received any threats. Several days after Salgado’s murder, hundreds of journalists protested in the streets of Tegucigalpa. They called on local authorities to ensure justice.

On October 26, authorities arrested German David Almendárez Amador after witnesses identified him as the gunman, the Tegucigalpa-based daily El Heraldo reported. Almendárez was not immediately charged but was placed in preventive detention. Almendárez and his family insisted that he was innocent and had an alibi, local news reports said.


IRAQ: 32

Ahmed Hadi Naji, Associated Press Television News
January 5, 2007, Baghdad

Naji, 28, a cameraman for Associated Press Television News, was found in a Baghdad morgue with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, six days after he had gone missing.

The journalist left his home in southwest Baghdad’s Ashurta al-Khamsa district for work on the morning of December 30, 2006, AP reported. His wife, Sahba’a Mudhar Khalil, reported him missing that evening, the news agency said. The circumstances surrounding his death were unclear, according to AP. A coroner’s report could not pinpoint a date of death, a CPJ source said.

The source said Naji had received telephone threats a year previous, prompting him to move his family to a safer location. Naji also worked as a messenger for the news agency.

Naji was the second AP employee killed in less than four weeks. On December 12, 2006, Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah, 35, was gunned down by insurgents while filming clashes between Iraqi police and insurgents in the northern city of Mosul.

Falah Khalaf al-Diyali, Al-Sa’a
January 15, 2007, Ramadi

Several gunmen in a car followed al-Diyali, a photographer for the Baghdad-based newspaper Al-Sa’a, and then shot him in Ramadi’s central neighborhood of Malaab, a journalist familiar with the case told CPJ. Al-Diyali died at the scene, the journalist said.

Just before he was killed, al-Diyali photographed damage to the central mosque in Ramadi caused by a U.S. bombardment the previous day, the source said. Witnesses said al-Diyali was being watched while he was taking photographs. The gunmen caught up with al-Diyali after he drove away from the mosque, the source told CPJ.

Al-Sa’a was established immediately after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow in 2003. It is a political and social weekly owned by prominent Sunni cleric Ahmad Kubeisi. Al-Diyala also contributed photographs on a freelance basis to the state-run daily Al-Sabah, the source said.

Hussein al-Zubaidi, Al-Ahali
January 28, 2007, Baghdad

Gunmen abducted al-Zubaidi, an editor for the independent weekly Al-Ahali, in early morning in Baghdad’s eastern neighborhood of Al-Saleekh, a source at the paper told CPJ. Although there are conflicting dates for al-Zubaidi’s death, the source said he was killed on January 28. People identifying themselves as the abductors contacted al-Zubaidi’s family and demanded $20,000 but could not provide proof that the journalist was alive, the source said. Iraqi police notified the family the following day that al-Zubaidi’s body had been found.

Two sources at the paper told CPJ that they believed al-Zubaidi was targeted for his work. One of them said that the journalist was active in his profession, carrying a press card and frequently visiting government ministries and civil society organizations. The other source said no other motive for his killing was evident.

Al-Zubaidi, who was born in 1953, specialized in investigative reporting, a source at the paper said. He also covered civil society organizations and higher education, and worked as head of information at Baghdad University’s College of Dentistry.

Abdulrazak Hashim Ayal al-Khakani, Jumhuriyat al-Iraq
February 5, 2007, Baghdad

Iraqi police discovered the body of al-Khakani, 45, an editor and news presenter at Jumhuriyat al-Iraq radio, and that of his cousin, in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Jihad. The bodies had several gunshot wounds, al-Khakani’s brother, Majid, told CPJ.

Gunmen abducted the two on February 4.

The family identified the journalist on February 19 in Baghdad’s Al-Tib al-Adli morgue. The abductors had taken his identification cards, the brother said.

The kidnappers spoke several times with the family using al-Khakani’s cell phone. Majid al-Khakani told CPJ that the kidnappers told him they killed al-Khakani because he was a journalist who was harming Iraq. They identified themselves as belonging to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Khakani had returned to Iraq in 2003 after spending 21 years as a prisoner of war in Iran following his capture in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq war. Al-Khakani presented a news show for the radio station that addressed government and politics, Majid al-Khakani told CPJ.

Radio Jumhuriyat al-Iraq is part of the state-run Iraqi Media Network. Insurgents have frequently targeted state-run media because of their ties to the U.S.-supported Iraqi government.

Jamal al-Zubaidi, As-Saffir and Al-Dustour
February 24, 2007, Baghdad

The body of al-Zubaidi, 56, an economics editor for the Baghdad-based dailies As-Saffir and Al-Dustour, was identified by his family in a Baghdad morgue. Al-Zubaidi’s son, Riyah, told CPJ that police found the editor’s body with gunshot wounds to the head in Baghdad’s southwestern neighborhood of Al-Aamal.

Al-Zubaidi’s identification cards and cell phone were taken by the gunmen. He was last seen leaving As-Saffir’s offices in the central Karada neighborhood around 1 p.m. on February 24.

Al-Zubaidi had worked for As-Saffir and Al-Dustour for three years. Two journalists for As-Saffir were killed by gunmen in September 2005 in Mosul. Another was kidnapped and held for ransom for nearly three weeks in March 2006.

Mohan Hussein al-Dhahir, Al-Mashreq
March 4, 2007, Baghdad

Several gunmen in two vehicles attempted to abduct al-Dhahir, 49, managing editor of the Baghdad daily Al-Mashreq, at 8:30 a.m. while he waited outside his home in Baghdad’s Al-Jamia neighborhood for the paper’s car to pick him up for work, according to sources at the paper. After a struggle, the sources said, the gunmen shot al-Dhahir six times in the back and once in the head.

Al-Mashreq is a privately owned, widely read Baghdad newspaper that publishes commentary critical of the government, according to local journalists. The paper had received numerous warnings to stop publishing, local journalists said. Al-Dhahir worked nearly four years for the paper.

Yussef Sabri, Biladi
March 7, 2007, Baghdad

Sabri, 26, a cameraman for the Biladi satellite channel, was among several journalists filming pilgrims traveling southwest from Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, according to sources at the station. Iraqi security forces had set up checkpoints to safeguard the way for the pilgrims. Sabri and other journalists were traveling in a convoy with Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta al-Mussawi, Iraqi spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, who was reviewing the checkpoints.

Sources at the station told CPJ that an explosives-laden car appeared from a side road in the Al-Saydiya neighborhood of Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed district and fired at the convoy. The car accelerated, hit the last vehicle in the convoy, and blew up. Sabri and the others in the vehicle were killed in the blast, the sources said. The U.S. military said 12 Iraqi soldiers were killed, according to The Associated Press.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq was suspected of carrying out the attack since it controlled the Al-Rasheed district, a hotbed of violence. Sabri had worked for six months at Biladi, an independent channel with a pro-government editorial line established by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Hamid al-Duleimi, Nahrain
March 17, 2007, Baghdad

Gunmen abducted al-Duleimi, a producer for the privately owned Nahrain satellite channel, as he left work in Baghdad’s Al-Aamel neighborhood, a source at Nahrain told CPJ. He had driven only about 650 feet (200 meters) from the station when he was seized.

Late that night, eyewitnesses saw his body being thrown on a pile of garbage in a neighborhood alley, according to the station source. Family and colleagues identified al-Duleimi two days later at a Baghdad hospital morgue. The source said al-Duleimi had several gunshot wounds to the head, and his body showed signs of torture, including multiple burns and broken hands, legs, and neck.

Al-Duleimi, born in 1977, was survived by his then-pregnant wife and three children, another source at the station said. Al-Aamel neighborhood was controlled by the Mahdi Army, led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a local journalist told CPJ. 

Thaer Ahmad Jaber, Baghdad TV
April 5, 2007, Baghdad

A suicide attacker driving a garbage truck packed with explosives set off a blast near the main entrance of Baghdad TV’s offices on April 5, killing Deputy Director Jaber and injuring 12 employees, according to CPJ sources and a statement by the Iraqi Islamic Party.

The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization, reported that the attackers fired at the station’s guards, clearing the way for the truck. The front of the building, which housed the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party-owned Baghdad TV and Radio Dar al-Salam, was destroyed along with several station and employee vehicles, according to news reports. The main transmission equipment was damaged, briefly interrupting broadcasts.

Jaber often helped CPJ document attacks against journalists in Iraq. CPJ learned of Jaber’s death after calling his cell phone and being informed by a family member that he had been killed.

Khamail Khalaf, Radio Free Iraq
April 5, 2007, Baghdad

Radio Free Iraq reporter Khalaf, who was kidnapped April 3 from Baghdad’s Yarmouk district, was found dead in the city’s Al-Jamia neighborhood on April 5, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and CPJ sources. Police received an anonymous call informing them that there was a body on the street. They came under heavy fire by unidentified assailants when they went to retrieve the body, according to RFE/RL and CPJ sources.

RFE/RL reported that an unidentified caller used Khalaf’s cell phone to contact her family, but no demands for ransom were made. Khalaf had received prior threats, according to RFE/RL. It was not clear if the threats were directly work-related.

Khalaf had reported on social and cultural life in Iraq for Radio Free Iraq since 2004, according to a statement by RFE/RL. Radio Free Iraq is the Arabic language service of RFE/RL in Iraq, broadcasting from the network’s headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic.

Othman al-Mashhadani, Al-Watan
April 6, 2007, Baghdad

The body of al-Mashhadani, 29, was found by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad’s northwestern district of Al-Shoula three days after he was abducted.

Al-Mashhadani, a reporter for Saudi Arabia’s daily newspaper Al-Watan, was abducted on his way home from work between the northwestern Baghdad districts of Al-Shoula and Al-Ghazaliya, according to CPJ sources. Colleagues told CPJ that al-Mashhadani was on assignment covering the Baghdad security plan and its effects on the Mahdi Army, led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Mashhadani was shot in the head and chest; his body showed signs of torture and the fingers on his right hand were broken, according to CPJ sources and the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization. His captors called his family hours after his abduction demanding a ransom, but there was no further communication, the organization reported.

The Mahdi Army had a stronghold in Al-Shoula while the predominantly Sunni district of Al-Ghazaliya was under the control of the Islamic Army, the largest Sunni insurgent group.

A colleague told CPJ that al-Mashhadani reported on the activities of the Islamic Army and other militias. Al-Mashhadani began work for Al-Watan in October 2006, according to an article published by the paper. He had also worked as a freelance reporter for the prominent pan-Arab weekly magazine Al-Watan al-Arabi since 2005.

Khaled Fayyad Obaid al-Hamdani, Nahrain
April 12, 2007, Abu Ghraib

Al-Hamdani, a producer for the privately owned Nahrain satellite channel, was killed in a shooting that involved U.S. military forces, according to a station source and a relative. Al-Hamdani was driving at high speed from his home in Abu Ghraib to work in Baghdad when troops opened fire, the relative told CPJ. The source said al-Hamdani had often driven at high speed to minimize danger; the military patrol was apparently alarmed by the rate of speed. The road, a main access to Baghdad, was so notoriously dangerous that it was called the Highway of Death.

The relative told CPJ that his account was based on conversations with U.S. military personnel and eyewitnesses. A U.S. military spokesman said the military had no record of the shooting.

Al-Hamadani, 36, prepared documentary and cultural programs for the channel. He was survived by a wife and children.

Dmitry Chebotayev, freelance
May 6, 2007, Diyala

Chebotayev was the first Russian journalist to be killed in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. A freelance photographer embedded with U.S. forces, Chebotayev was killed along with six American soldiers when a roadside bomb struck a U.S. military vehicle in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.

Chebotayev was on assignment for the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine, reporting on the efforts of U.S. forces to control roads in Diyala province, Leonid Parfyonov, the edition editor, told CPJ. Chebotayev, 29, had freelanced for several news agencies, including the German-based European Pressphoto Agency and the independent Moscow daily Kommersant. He had been in Iraq for more than two months.

Raad Mutashar, Al-Raad
May 9, 2007, outside Kirkuk

Gunmen riding in an Opel without a license plate intercepted a vehicle carrying Mutashar, 43, owner and director of a media company, on a road southwest of Kirkuk at around 2 p.m., a company source told CPJ. The source said the gunmen shot Mutashar, driver Imad Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid, and passengers Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Aqil Abdul-Qadir. The Associated Press first reported the attack.

Mutashar’s company, Al-Raad, published a weekly newspaper, Al-Iraq Ghadan, and a related institute operated a news agency and a media education center. A CPJ source said Mutashar was a prominent writer, poet, and journalist who started the company four years earlier.

The CPJ source said Mutashar’s son was kidnapped more than a year previous but was released after a ransom was paid. The kidnappers told Mutashar that his journalistic work had prompted the abduction, the source said.

Imad Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid were Mutashar’s brothers-in-law.

Alaa Uldeen Aziz, ABC News
Saif Laith Yousuf, ABC News
May 17, 2007, Baghdad

Gunmen in two cars ambushed and killed cameraman Aziz, 33, and soundman Yousuf, 26, on their way home from the network’s Baghdad bureau, ABC News reported. ABC said Aziz was survived by a wife and two daughters, while Yousuf was set to marry his fiancée.

Nazar Abdulwahid al-Radhi, Aswat al-Iraq and Radio Free Iraq
May 30, 2007, Al-Amarah

Al-Radhi, 38, a correspondent for the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq and Radio Free Iraq, was gunned down in the southern city of Al-Amarah in Maysan province. Three men wearing white uniforms and riding in a pickup truck killed al-Radhi outside the Al-Arusa Hotel in the city’s center, Saad Hassan, an eyewitness and reporter for the daily newspaper Al-Sabah, told Aswat al-Iraq.

Al-Radhi had finished covering a journalism workshop for Radio Free Iraq, according to a statement by its parent, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Hassan told Aswat al-Iraq that al-Radhi was talking to a workshop leader when the gunmen began firing. RFE/RL said al-Radhi was shot four times and died at the scene; several other journalists were injured. Eyewitnesses said nearby Iraqi police did not intervene during the attack, Aswat al-Iraq reported.

RFE/RL reported that al-Radhi had received prior threats because of his work for a “foreign agency.” Radio Free Iraq is the Arabic-language service of RFE/RL in Iraq, broadcasting from the network’s headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic.

Mohammad Hilal Karji, Baghdad TV
June 6, 2007, Yusufiya

Karji, a correspondent for the Jordan-based satellite channel Baghdad TV, and his cousin were traveling to Baghdad for work when they were stopped at an Iraqi Army checkpoint in the town of Yusufiya, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, according to a source at the station who requested anonymity. The two were handed over to armed men who claimed to be security officers and who were in a car stationed by the checkpoint, the source said.

Karji and his cousin tried to escape, but only the cousin was able to flee, the source said.

The gunmen were suspected members of the Mahdi Army, a militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, according to the source at the station. The source said that Karji was shot in the head and that the body showed signs of torture.

Karji was believed to be killed because of his affiliation with Baghdad TV, where he worked for two years, the source told CPJ. The channel, owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni political group, had lost at least seven other employees since June 2005. The channel had been attacked by a truck laden with explosives in one incident and shelled by insurgents in another. The attacks forced the channel to relocate its main headquarters to Jordan.

Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari, National Iraqi News Agency and Aswat al-Iraq
June 7, 2007, Mosul

Al-Haydari, 44, was shopping in Mosul’s Al-Hadbaa neighborhood when four unidentified gunmen got out of their vehicle, gunned her down, and fled the scene, taking her cell phone with them, local journalists told CPJ.

Earlier, she had been reporting news of a suicide attack on a police station in the nearby town of Al-Rabiya, according to the National Iraqi News Agency. When a police captain called to give her more information, the killers answered her phone, telling him, “She went to hell,” according to a local journalist who spoke with the captain.

Al-Haydari had previously told CPJ that she had received many death threats. In early 2006, she was twice targeted for abduction; one attempt failed, and she was rescued the other time. In March 2006, al-Haydari told CPJ she had been shot, requiring surgery. In August 2006, gunmen killed her daughter’s fiancé.

In her final e-mail to CPJ, on March 22, al-Haydari said her name was on a death list composed of journalists and police officers. It had been circulated throughout Mosul and posted on her house door. According to the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq, the list was issued by the “Emir of the Islamic State in Mosul,” the local leader of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State in Iraq.

Al-Haydari was a correspondent for the National Iraqi News Agency and Aswat al-Iraq, and a contributor to a number of other Iraqi media outlets. She also was a journalist trainee and correspondent for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an organization that trains local journalists in war coverage. She visited CPJ’s offices in New York in late 2005, and CPJ helped relocate her husband and four children to Damascus, Syria, after she received death threats.

Aref Ali Filaih, Aswat al-Iraq
June 11, 2007, Al-Khalis

Filaih, correspondent for the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq, was killed by a roadside bomb while driving to an assignment south of Al-Khalis in Diyala province, Aswat al-Iraq reported. Filaih, 32, had worked as Aswat al-Iraq’s correspondent in the violence-plagued province since December 2006, the news agency said.

Filaih Wuday Mijthab, Al-Sabah
June 17, 2007, Baghdad

Mijthab’s body was found in Baghdad’s main morgue four days after he was abducted by armed men. Mijthab, who worked with the government-run daily Al-Sabah, suffered bullet wounds to the head, the independent news agency Voices of Iraq reported. There was no claim of responsibility. 

Insurgent and other armed groups have frequently targeted Al-Sabah and other state-run media because of their ties to the U.S.-supported Iraqi government. The New York Times reported that Mijthab could have been targeted by Shiite groups because of his past work for state-run media under the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Mijthab, like many of the newspaper’s employees, had received numerous telephone threats while working at Al-Sabah, the paper reported.

Gunmen in three vehicles intercepted Mijthab, 53, as he was traveling to work in Baghdad’s eastern Shiite neighborhood of Al-Habibiya. Mijthab, who was with his eldest son and a driver, was ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization. Mijthab was taken to an unknown location; his son and the driver were not seized.

Hamid Abed Sarhan, freelance
June 26, 2007, Baghdad

A car carrying several gunmen intercepted Sarhan, a freelance journalist and a public relations director at Baghdad’s municipal secretariat, while he was driving home from work in Baghdad’s Al-Saydiya neighborhood, a local journalist familiar with the case told CPJ. The gunmen shot the journalist and sped away.

Iraqi police were about 1,000 feet (300 meters) from the shooting and responded quickly to the scene, the source said. Police called Sarhan’s sons, who identified the body.

Several CPJ sources familiar with the case said that Sarhan’s work was the only plausible motive for his killing. Sarhan was a well-known journalist who worked as a managing editor at the Iraqi News Agency until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to CPJ sources. Since then, he worked as managing editor for the independent daily Al-Mashriq and the now-defunct weekly Al-Wihda al-Wataniya. He was the editor-in-chief of the now-defunct weekly Iraqiyoun. In 2005, Sarhan became the managing editor of Baghdad’s municipal secretariat weekly Sawt Baghdad. He later became a public relations director for the secretariat.

Sarhan freelanced for several national and international Arabic-language newspapers, including the Iraqi dailies Azzaman and Al-Mashriq, according to the CPJ source. He also appeared as an analyst on several programs for Iraqi satellite channels such as Al-Baghdadia and Al-Sharqiya. He regularly wrote articles and reports for Sawt Baghdad as part of his job for the secretariat, the source said.
Al-Saydiya, located in the Al-Rasheed district controlled by al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a hotbed of violence at the time.

Sarmad Hamdi Shaker, Baghdad TV
June 27, 2007, Baghdad

Shaker, 43, a correspondent for the satellite channel Baghdad TV, left his home in Baghdad’s Al-Jamia neighborhood for work on the morning of June 27. He was waiting on the street for a friend to pick him up, a source at the station told CPJ, when a car carrying several gunmen came alongside and two armed occupants asked him to get in for questioning, the source said. His body was found on the street in the same neighborhood that afternoon, according to the source.

Shaker’s wife and three children fled the neighborhood and moved north of Baghdad.

The source said the gunmen were suspected members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and that Shaker was killed because he worked for Baghdad TV, a moderate Sunni channel that has been repeatedly targeted by both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups, according to staff.

Shaker worked at Baghdad TV for two years, the source told CPJ. The channel, owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni political group, had lost at least seven other employees since June 2005.

Namir Noor-Eldeen, Reuters
July 12, 2007, Baghdad

Photographer Noor-Eldeen, 22, was killed in eastern Baghdad during what witnesses described as a U.S. helicopter attack. The strike claimed the lives of 10 other Iraqis in the Al-Amin al-Thaniyah neighborhood, Reuters reported, citing a preliminary Iraqi police report. The victims included Noor-Eldeen’s driver and camera assistant, Saeed Chmagh.

Witnesses told Reuters that Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh arrived in the neighborhood about the time a U.S. helicopter fired on a minivan. Video footage showed that the minivan was destroyed, Reuters reported. Initial reports suggested that the air strike took place during clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents, but witnesses later said there were no clashes, according to Reuters.

The Multi-National Force-Iraq press desk in Baghdad did not respond to CPJ’s telephone and e-mail inquiries seeking comment. Four other Reuters employees had been killed on assignment in Iraq, among the largest losses suffered by an international news organization in the conflict, CPJ research shows.

Khalid W. Hassan, The New York Times
July 13, 2007, Baghdad

Khalid W.  Hassan, 23, a reporter and interpreter, was shot while driving to work in the south central Seiydia district, the newspaper reported. He had called the bureau to say that he was taking an alternative route because his usual way was blocked by a security checkpoint, the newspaper said. The Times reported that the journalist called his mother a half hour later to say, “I’ve been shot.” The family notified the newspaper that Hassan later died.

An Iraqi of Palestinian descent, Hassan had worked for the Times’ Baghdad bureau since fall 2003, the newspaper said. He was survived by his mother and four sisters. He was the second New York Times employee killed on assignment in Iraq, CPJ research shows. Times reporter Fakher Haider, 38, was killed in Basra in September 2005.

“Khalid was part of a large, sometimes unsung, community of Iraqi news-gatherers, translators, and support staff, who take enormous risks every day to help us comprehend their country’s struggle and torment,” Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, said in a statement.

Mustafa Gaimayani, Kirkuk al-Yawm and Hawal
Majeed Mohammed, Kirkuk al-Yawm and Hawal
July 16, 2007, Kirkuk

A triple bomb attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed at least 85 people, including editor Gaimayani and reporter Mohammed, and wounded more than 180 others.

A suicide attacker driving a truck packed with explosives detonated the vehicle near one of the offices of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, in central Kirkuk, according to international news reports.

The blast damaged several adjacent buildings, including the offices of the Kirkuk Cultural and Social Association, killing Gaimayani, an editor for Kirkuk al-Yawm, and Mohammed, a sports reporter for the paper, Hashwan Dawoudi, deputy head of the association, told CPJ.

The association, which is funded by the Kurdistan Regional Government, publishes the weekly newspaper Kirkuk al-Yawm and the quarterly Kirkuk magazine, Dawoudi said.

At the time of the blast Mohammed and Gaimayani were preparing the weekly for publication, Dawoudi said. Seven other editors, including the editors-in-chief of both Kirkuk al-Yawm and Kirkuk were wounded in the explosion, he added.

Mohammed was also a correspondent and Gaimayani a writer for the Kurdish-language weekly Hawal, Dawoudi told CPJ. Seven years ago, Dawoudi established the Hawal Media Foundation, which published four newspapers, including Hawal and the Arabic-language weekly Al-Naba.

Gaimayani, who was also known as Mustafa Darwish, was in his mid-40s. He was a dual national with Swedish citizenship who moved with his family to Sweden in 1981 and returned to northern Iraq about four months earlier to work for the Hawal Media Foundation, Dawoudi told CPJ. Mohammed was in his mid-30s.

Adnan al-Safi, Al-Anwar
July 27, 2007, Baghdad

An unidentified gunman shot al-Safi, a correspondent for the Kuwait-based Al-Anwar satellite channel, outside the channel’s offices in Baghdad’s north-central neighborhood of Al-Etifiyah, according to Bassem al-Safi, a member of the reporter’s extended family and a fellow journalist.

Adnan Al-Safi had just finished work and was waiting for a public van to take him home when the shooting occurred at 3 p.m. on July 25, the relative said. Al-Safi, shot in the head, was taken to a Baghdad hospital, where he died 48 hours later.

Bassem al-Safi told CPJ that the journalist appeared to be targeted; bystanders were uninjured. He told the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization, that an armed group had been seen in the station’s neighborhood. Al-Anwar is a moderate Shiite satellite channel focusing on Islamic culture and issues.

Adnan al-Safi founded and headed the Islamic Press Union in 2005, which held workshops and lectures on television, radio, and print journalism, said the relative, a fellow member of the union. The victim, who was in his late 30s, also worked for radio station Sawt al-Iraq and served as an adviser in the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory. He was survived by a wife and three children.

Amer Malallah al-Rashidi, Al-Mosuliya
September 3, 2007, Mosul

Al-Rashidi, 42, a camera operator for the private satellite channel Al-Mosuliya, left a relative’s house in Mosul’s eastern Al-Jazair neighborhood in the evening to catch a taxi when gunmen in a car opened fire, a source at the station told CPJ. The source said that after al-Rashidi fell to the ground, one of the gunmen got out of the car and shot him at close range.

The source, who asked not to be identified, believed that al-Rashidi was targeted because he was a journalist. Al-Rashidi was a well-known camera operator in Mosul, a place where armed groups have frequently targeted journalists. Al-Rashidi did not report receiving death threats prior to the shooting, the source told CPJ.

Before joining Al-Mosuliya, al-Rashidi worked for the state-run Al-Iraqiya channel, according to the source at the station. Al-Mosuliya was established about a year earlier to cover news in Nineveh province.

Muhannad Ghanem Ahmad al-Obaidi, Dar al-Salam
September 20, 2007, Mosul

Gunmen believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq killed al-Obaidi, 25, a presenter and producer for the Iraqi Islamic Party-owned radio Dar al-Salam, according to a source at the station. Al-Obaidi was heading home when a car intercepted him and a gunman emerged, the source said.

Police Brig. Abdul Karim al-Jubouri told the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq that “the gunmen opened fire on the journalist, near Thiyab al-Iraqi Mosque in al-Moharibeen area.” The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, a local press freedom organization, reported that al-Obaidi resisted the gunmen when they attempted to abduct him, which led to his killing.

Al-Obaidi worked on social programs for Dar al-Salam, al-Jubouri said, adding that he was also a preacher at Mosul’s Bazwayah Mosque, Aswat al-Iraq reported.

The source told CPJ that Dar al-Salam had received prior threats. Dar al-Salam and Baghdad TV, both owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni political group, have been regularly targeted by insurgents. In April, a suicide attacker driving a garbage truck packed with explosives blew up the front of the building that houses Baghdad TV and Dar al-Salam in Baghdad. 

Salih Saif Aldin, The Washington Post
October 14, 2007, Baghdad

Saif Aldin, 32, was killed at close range by a single gunshot to the head while photographing fire-damaged houses on a street in Baghdad’s southern neighborhood of Al-Saydiya, the Post reported. Saif Aldin was on assignment interviewing residents about sectarian violence raging between Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in the neighborhood, long a center of violence, the newspaper said. The Post reported that a man used Saif Aldin’s cell phone to inform an employee at the paper that the journalist was killed.

Post Baghdad Bureau Chief Sudarsan Raghavan told CPJ that it was murky as to who shot Saif Aldin and why. Some residents suspected that the Iraqi Army, some of whose members were loyal to the Mahdi Army, a militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was responsible for the slaying, the Post reported. Iraqi police said they suspected Sunni gunmen from the Awakening Council, a group consisting of Sunni tribes working alongside U.S. forces, the Post said. 

Saif Aldin, who wrote under the pseudonym Salih Dehema for security purposes, began his journalism career as a reporter for the weekly Al-Iraq al-Yawm in Tikrit, and joined the Post in January 2004 as a stringer, the newspaper said. Saif Aldin had been arrested, beaten, and threatened while carrying out his assignments. 

Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of the Post, called Saif Aldin a “brave and valuable reporter who contributed much to our coverage of Iraq.” Saif Aldin was known for his tenacity and his willingness to take assignments that put him in harm’s way, the Post reported.

Shehab Mohammad al-Hiti, Baghdad al-Youm
October 28, 2007, Baghdad

Al-Hiti, 27, an editor for the fledgling weekly Baghdad al-Youm, was last seen leaving his home in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Jamia to go to the paper’s offices around midday, a source at the paper told CPJ. Iraqi security forces found the journalist’s body later that afternoon in Baghdad’s northeastern Ur neighborhood and transported it to Baghdad’s Al-Tib al-Adli Hospital morgue, the source said.

A local journalist told CPJ that Ur neighborhood is adjacent to Baghdad’s Sadr City, controlled by the Mahdi Army, led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The CPJ source said that he was not aware of any prior death threats against the journalist. Baghdad al-Youm had been publishing for only three weeks.


KYRGYZSTAN: 1

Alisher Saipov, Siyosat
October 24, 2007, Osh

Saipov, editor of the independent Uzbek-language weekly Siyosat (Politics) and contributor to several regional news outlets, was shot three times at close range at around 7 p.m. in downtown Osh, a city bordering Uzbekistan, by an unknown gunman using a silencer, according to news reports and CPJ sources. He died at the scene.

Saipov, 26, covered Uzbekistan’s political and social landscape for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and the Central Asia news Web site Ferghana. He had interviewed members of the banned Islamic groups Hizb-ut Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to local CPJ sources. Exiled opposition activist Shakhida Yakub, who was close to Saipov, told The Associated Press that the journalist had recently become politically involved with Uzbek opposition groups.

An ethnic Uzbek, Saipov lived in and reported from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, just across the border from the Uzbek city of Andijan. Saipov covered the aftermath of mass killings in Andijan in May 2005, when government troops shot at crowds of civilians protesting President Islam Karimov’s regime. He reported on Uzbek refugees who fled and resettled in Kyrgyzstan. The Uzbek government put the Andijan death toll at 187; human rights groups say more than 700 were killed.

Prior to his murder, Saipov had received anonymous threats warning him to stop his press and political activities, a local source close to the journalist told CPJ. A state television channel in the Uzbek city of Namangan had recently aired a program smearing Saipov as a provocateur who tried to destabilize Uzbekistan with his reporting. Several state publications ran similar articles, the same source told CPJ.

Following the Andijan killings, Uzbekistan moved aggressively to expel, drive into exile, imprison, and harass independent journalists, human rights defenders, opposition activists, representatives of international nongovernmental groups, and witnesses. Many found refuge in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, but Uzbek security services infiltrated the area and continued harassing them there, according to human rights groups. Local press reports said that Uzbek security agents had been spotted in the heavily ethnic-Uzbek city of Osh.

Saipov had helped scores of Uzbek refugees in southern Kyryzstan, assisting them with lodging and linking them with resettlement agencies, AP said. He had also reported on the fate of Uzbek refugees in Iran for Ferghana, the news site said.

NEPAL: 1

Birendra Shah, Nepal FM, Dristi Weekly, and Avenues TV
October 4, 2007, Bara district

Shah was kidnapped on October 4 by members of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in central Nepal’s Bara district. Maoist leaders issued a statement on November 5, saying that Shah had been murdered by members of their party on the day of the kidnapping, according to Guna Raj Luitel, news editor of Kantipur Daily.

Maoist leaders sought to distance themselves from the slaying, which they called an anarchic act by a district committee member, Lal Bahadur Chaudhary, and two associates.

Shah, local correspondent for Nepal FM, Dristi Weekly, and Avenues TV, had been critical of local Maoists in his reports.

His body was recovered by police in a forested area 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Kathmandu on November 8, according to The Associated Press. A funeral held the next day attracted more than 3,000 mourners. Some of the crowd attempted to set fire to the house of one of the accused killers, the Voice of America reported. 


OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY: 1

Suleiman Abdul-Rahim al-Ashi, Palestine
May 13, 2007, Gaza City

Gunmen wearing Presidential Guard uniforms stopped a taxi carrying al-Ashi, 25, an economics editor for the Hamas-affiliated daily Palestine, and Mohammad Matar Abdo, 25, a manager responsible for distribution and civic relations, Editor-in-Chief Mustafa al-Sawaf told CPJ. The taxi was stopped at 2:30 p.m. in a high-security area southwest of Gaza City that was controlled by Fatah, al-Sawaf and other journalists told CPJ.

Al-Sawaf said the two men were beaten before being shot on a public street. Al-Ashi died at the scene, while Abdo was taken to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where he died at 3 a.m. on May 14, al-Sawaf and CPJ sources said. The description was based on interviews with eyewitnesses and an account that Abdo provided his brother before he died, al-Sawaf said.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and the Palestinian Journalists Block both denounced the killings. Mohamed Edwan, a spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said Fatah had nothing to do with the killings and that presidential guards were instructed to shoot only in self-defense. He said Fatah condemned the killings and urged that the perpetrators be punished.

Al-Ashi and Abdo were scheduled to meet with economic and tourism organizations in Gaza that afternoon, al-Sawaf told CPJ. The fledgling Palestine newspaper was launched in May. The murders came amid clashes in the coastal strip between the Fatah and Hamas factions.


PAKISTAN: 5

Mehboob Khan, freelance
April 28, 2007, Charsadda

Photographer Khan was killed in a suicide bomb attack aimed at Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao. The minister escaped with minor injuries, but 28 people died in the attack at a political rally in the small town of Charsadda in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province.

Three other journalists were injured: ATV cameraman Arif Yousafzai; Siddiqullah, a reporter for the Urdu-language paper Subah; and reporter Ayaz Muhammad of the Associated Press of Pakistan.

Khan, a 22-year-old who had recently begun his journalism career, had contributed photos to local and national publications. He was believed to be working at the time.

Follow-up reports said the bomber was believed to have been a teenage male, and that security at the event may have been lax. The federal and provincial governments were investigating the attack, the Daily Times Web site reported.

Noor Hakim Khan, Daily Pakistan
June 2, 2007, Bajaur

Khan, a correspondent for the Daily Pakistan and a vice president of the Tribal Union of Journalists, was one of five people killed by a roadside bomb in the Bajaur region of the North-West Frontier Province, near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Behroz Khan, the Peshawar-based reporter for The News, confirmed news reports that the victim was returning from covering a jirga, a traditional court. He had been invited to witness the demolition of a house belonging to the perpetrator of a February car bombing that had killed a local physician. The demolition was part of the disposition of the court case. Khan was traveling with a local official and a tribal chief who had taken a role in the case, according to news reports. Their car was third in a convoy returning from the area, reports said, and it might have been specifically targeted.

Javed Khan, Markaz and DM Digital TV
July 3, 2007, Islamabad

Khan, a photographer for the Islamabad-based daily Markaz and a cameraman for U.K.-based DM Digital TV, was shot in the chest and neck while caught in crossfire between government forces and the students of Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, according to media reports. Four other journalists were wounded in the clashes.

News reports said gunfire came from both sides in the standoff. The source of the fatal shots was not immediately clear. Pakistani security forces had surrounded the mosque in an effort to end a months-long standoff. The mosque, generally seen as pro-Taliban, had been the center of efforts to remove what leaders saw as undesirable activity such as massage parlors and music shops.

Muhammad Arif, ARY One World TV
October 19, 2007, Karachi

Arif was among more than 130 people killed in an October 19 bombing in Karachi, which took place during a political rally held to celebrate former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming. The cameraman, who was on assignment, was survived by his wife and six children.

Zubair Ahmed Mujahid, Jang
November 23, 2007, Mirpur Khas

Mujahid, correspondent for the national Urdu-language daily Jang, was shot dead while traveling on a motorcycle with another journalist in the city of Mirpur Khas in the southern province of Sindh, according to local news reports. He was targeted by unidentified gunmen, also traveling by motorcycle.

Local journalists believed their colleague was slain because of his investigative reporting, according to Owais Aslam Ali, secretary-general of the local media group Pakistan Press Foundation. Mujahid was known for his critical writing on a variety of issues—including alleged mistreatment of the poor by local landlords and police—in his Jang weekly column, “Crime and Punishment.” His coverage of alleged police brutality had led to arrests and suspensions of police officers, Ali told CPJ. 

Mujahid was survived by a wife and four sons. No arrests were immediately reported.

PARAGUAY: 1

Tito Alberto Palma, Radio Mayor Otaño and Radio Chaco Boreal
August 22, 2007, Mayor Otaño

Palma, a reporter for the local radio station Radio Mayor Otaño and correspondent for the Asunción-based Radio Chaco Boreal, was having dinner at his girlfriend’s home when two armed individuals in camouflage broke in at 10:40 p.m., according to press reports and CPJ interviews. Without saying a word, the two assailants began to fire their weapons, the owner of the house, Aparicio Martínez, told local reporters. Palma was shot in the head, neck, arms, and legs, Vicente Paéz, secretary-general of the Paraguayan Journalists Union, told CPJ. Palma’s companion, Wilma Martínez, was wounded in the leg, according to local press reports.

Palma, 48, a Chilean national, often denounced organized crime, illegal smuggling of gas, and local government corruption in the southeastern province of Itapúa, a colleague at Radio Chaco Boreal, Erico González, told CPJ. Palma had also reported recently on the existence of illegal radio stations in Mayor Otaño, a small city on Paraguay’s border with Argentina, 285 miles (460 kilometers) from Asunción.

The reporter had received death threats for years, González told CPJ, with the anonymous calls intensifying in the month before the slaying. According to a September report from the Inter American Press Association, one of the last text messages Palma received on his cell phone said: “I’ve been hired to kill you, to make you travel, we’ll see each other soon.”

A week prior to his death, Palma announced on the air that he was returning to Chile because of the threats, Paéz told CPJ. Palma had lived in Paraguay since 1991. The reporter also declared he was planning to take information on the mafia that operates in Mayor Otaño to the national television station Telefuturo before he left the country, the Asunción-based daily ABC Color reported.

Colleagues told CPJ they believed Palma was killed in retaliation for his work. Nelson Ramos, the local prosecutor in charge of the case, said he believed it was a revenge killing based on his reporting.


PERU: 1

Miguel Pérez Julca, Radio Éxitos
March 17, 2007, Jaén

Two hooded gunmen shot and killed the popular Peruvian radio commentator in front of his wife and children, according to news reports. Eyewitnesses quoted by the Lima daily La República said the attackers opened fire as the journalist and his family were nearing the front door of their home in northwestern Peru, then sped away on a motorcycle. Pérez’s wife, Nelly Guevara, was wounded in the attack.

Pérez was host of the radio program “El Informativo del Pueblo” (“Bulletin of the People”) on the Jaén-based station Radio Éxitos. Pérez, 38, had covered local crime and allegations of government corruption.

Guevara told local reporters that her husband had received death threats on his cell phone in the weeks prior to his death. She said that an unknown vehicle had followed Pérez on the afternoon of March 16.

In the days following the murder, Guevara said she received telephone calls at home from unidentified people who threatened to kill her and her three children, according to Peruvian news reports. Correspondents Juan Vásquez of América Televisión and Walter Altamirano of Radio Acajú told local reporters that they had also been threatened after covering news of the murder.

Four people were detained in connection with Pérez’s murder, although three were released without charge, according to the press freedom group Instituto Prensa y Sociedad. One suspect, José Hurtado Vásquez, remained in custody. Jaén police accused Hurtado of hiring two local gunmen to kill the journalist. Investigators say Hurtado was angered by on-air criticism of his girlfriend, the director of a local nonprofit organization, according to Peruvian press reports. Hurtado denied the accusation, the Lima-based daily El Comercio reported.

Local colleagues and Lima-based journalists who spoke to CPJ said they were skeptical of the police investigation. According to La República, Pérez promised during his last show that he would reveal the names of  “Jaén police officers who are in cahoots with drug traffickers and protect gangs of criminals.” A few hours before the murder, several witnesses saw Pérez and Police Commander Jorge Velezmoro Ruiz at a local restaurant, La República reported. Velezmoro denied having seen Pérez that day, the newspaper said.

The slaying was the first involving a Peruvian journalist since the 2004 murders of two radio commentators, Alberto Rivera in Pucallpa and Antonio de la Torre Echeandía in Yungay.


RUSSIA: 1

Ivan Safronov, Kommersant
March 2, 2007, Moscow

Safronov, 51, a former Russian Space Force colonel and a respected military correspondent who covered defense, army, and space issues for the independent business daily Kommersant, fell more than four stories from a staircase window in his apartment building. The following narrative is drawn from CPJ interviews with Safronov’s Kommersant colleagues and military experts, and from press reports.

On the day he died, Safronov talked to colleagues and family by phone and made plans with them for later in the day and for the following week. He visited a Moscow doctor for treatment of an ulcer, symptoms of which had recently abated. Safronov then went grocery shopping and took a trolley back home. Around 4 p.m., two university students living in a nearby apartment building heard a thud and saw Safronov on the ground and an open window in the building above. Safronov’s groceries were on the landing between the fourth and the fifth floor of his apartment building. He died before help arrived.

The Taganka prosecutor’s office in Moscow initially said the death was a suicide. Several days later, prosecutors opened an investigation into what they called “incitement to suicide,” a provision of the Russian penal code that is defined as someone provoking a suicide through threats or abusive treatment. In September, prosecutors returned to their initial theory and declared the killing a suicide.

CPJ research shows Safronov had worked on a number of sensitive issues:

• In late February, Safronov had returned from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where he had covered the annual International Defense Exhibition and Conference, a gathering of defense manufacturers. Colleagues said Safronov had called the newsroom from Abu Dhabi with information about a purported Russian sale of fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles to Syria and Iran. The sale was said to be channeled through Belarus to conceal the origin. Safronov had planned to finish the story when he returned.

• Three days before his death, Safronov privately told colleagues at a news conference that he had information about an alleged Russian sale to Syria of the surface-to-air missile system Pantsir-S1, the fighter aircraft MiG-29, and the tactical missile Iskandar-E. He said he had been cautioned not to publish the information because of its international implications, but he did not say who had issued the warning.

• Safronov had been interrogated many times by state security agents for allegedly disclosing state secrets in his articles. He was never formally charged because he was able to demonstrate that he had relied solely on public sources. In December 2006, Safronov angered authorities when he wrote about the third consecutive launch failure of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile.

Relatives, friends, and colleagues said Safronov had no reason to commit suicide. He had no personal enemies, no debts, and no life-threatening disease. He had been married for many years, had two adult children, and was expecting his first grandchild. He did not leave a suicide note.


SOMALIA: 7

Mohammed Abdullahi Khalif, Voice of Peace
May 5, 2007, Galkayo

Khalif, a contributor to the private radio station Voice of Peace in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, was killed by crossfire while covering an army raid on an illegal gun market.

Khalif died from a bullet to the chest as soldiers were raiding the dealership to recover an assault rifle allegedly stolen from the army, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists and local journalists. One other person died and several others were wounded in the raid.

Khalif, believed to be about 25, had contributed news reports to the station on a voluntary basis since 2006, Director Mohamed Ali Ahmad told CPJ. He had worked as a station technician for several months before that, Ahmad said.

Abshir Ali Gabre, Radio Jowhar
Ahmed Hassan Mahad, Radio Jowhar
May 16, 2007, Jowhar

News editor Gabre and reporter Mahad of Radio Jowhar, a private station in Jowhar, 55 miles (90 kilometers) north of the capital, Mogadishu, were gunned down when a provincial governor’s motorcade was ambushed by gunmen from a rival sub-clan.

Gabre and Mahad were riding in the first vehicle of the official convoy, a white pickup truck carrying officials and armed security guards, according to Station Director Saeed Ali Afrah. Gabre sustained gunshot wounds to his neck and left hand, while Mahad was shot in the head and chest, he said. The official was unharmed, but at least six people were killed and several injured in the ensuing gun battle, according to the independent station Radio Shabelle.

Gabre, 35 and the father of one, was also the head of the Middle Shabelle branch of the National Union of Somali Journalists and a stringer for the private Somali Broadcasting Corp., according to Afrah.

Mahad, 24, had been reporting for Radio Jowhar since its inception in October 2002. He was survived by a wife and three children.

Mahad Ahmed Elmi, Capital Voice
Ali Sharmarke, HornAfrik
August 11, 2007, Mogadishu

Prominent journalists Sharmarke and Elmi were killed in Mogadishu in two separate attacks on the same day. Unknown gunmen shot Elmi, director of Capital Voice radio, a private station run by HornAfrik Media, four times in the head at close range as he neared the door of his office early that morning, according to news reports and local journalists. He bled to death after being rushed to the hospital.

Elmi, 30, hosted a popular daily morning talk show in which Mogadishu residents phoned in reports about neighborhood issues such as crime and government security operations.

Sharmarke, founder and co-owner of HornAfrik Media, was killed just hours later after attending Elmi’s funeral. The black Land Cruiser in which he was riding was struck by a remotely detonated landmine, according to the local news reports. None of the more than 20 other vehicles in the funeral procession was hit.

Sharmarke, 50, who had dual Canadian and Somali citizenship, was survived by two wives and two children, Horn-Afrik co-manager Mohamed Mohamud Elmi told CPJ. Elmi was survived by a wife and two children, according to news reports.

Abdulkadir Mahad Moallim Kaskey, Radio Banadir
August 24, 2007, Bardera

Kaskey, a correspondent for private Radio Banadir, was shot in the southwestern city of Bardera while returning from a journalism training workshop in Mogadishu, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists and local journalist Mohamed Gaarane.

Kaskey died of a single bullet to the chest when local clan gunmen opened fired on a Toyota truck carrying 15 people, Gaarane said. At least two passengers were wounded in the incident, which occurred just after midnight.

Gaarane reported that officials of the local Geledle sub-clan, to which the gunmen allegedly belonged, announced they would hand over the perpetrators to provincial authorities.

Kaskey, 20, was an active reporter respected by his colleagues, according to Radio Banadir producer Ali Moalim. A day before his death, he had visited the offices of the press union in Mogadishu to discuss the working conditions of journalists in southwestern Somalia. He was also a correspondent for Radio Maandeeq in Gedo and Radio Daljir in the northeastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland, according to local media reports.

Bashiir Noor Gedi, Radio Shabelle
October 19, 2007, Mogadishu

Gedi, acting manager of the independent station Radio Shabelle, was assassinated outside his home in Mogadishu by unknown gunmen, according to station employees and local journalists. Gedi was attempting to return to his home in the Hamar Jadid neighborhood after he and other Radio Shabelle employees had been holed up in the station for roughly a week because of a series of threats, according to journalists who spoke with his family.

Radio Shabelle, considered one of the leading stations in Somalia, had been harassed, threatened, and attacked by both government security forces and insurgents because of its critical reporting of the ongoing violence in Mogadishu. The station was forced to close for 15 days before resuming broadcasts on October 3.

Radio Shabelle halted its normal programming after the slaying, which occurred around 7 p.m., and started airing verses from the Quran, the National Union of Somali Journalists reported.


SRI LANKA: 5

Subash Chandraboas, Nilam
April 16, 2007, near Vavuniya

Chandraboas, 32, editor of a small Tamil-language monthly magazine, Nilam (The Ground), was shot to death at around 7:30 p.m. near his home in the government-controlled town of Thoanikkal, near Vavuniya in ethnically Tamil Sri Lanka. His 8-year-old daughter told CPJ that the assassins spoke in Tamil and Sinhalese.

“His only work was journalism,” said Sunanda Deshapriya of the Sri Lankan media rights group Free Media Movement. “There was no other reason to kill him.”

A strong individualist who owned his own printing press, Chandraboas produced Nilam almost single-handedly and was recognized for his passion for literature as well as journalism. He had also contributed to the London-based magazine Tamil World and the Colombo-based magazine Aravali on a freelance basis.

Selvarajah Rajeewarnam, Uthayan
April 29, 2007, Jaffna

Rajeewarnam, a reporter for the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, was aboard a bicycle on assignment in Jaffna when he was shot by unidentified motorcycle-riding gunmen about 600 feet (180 meters) from a military checkpoint, according to Uthayan staffers.

Rajeewarnam, a Tamil, had worked for another Tamil paper, Namadu Eelanadu, which closed soon after its managing editor, Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, was killed outside his home in Jaffna in August 2006. Rajeewarnam had worked at Uthayan for about four months.

Uthayan has often been under attack. In September 2006, CPJ called on Sri Lankan authorities to fulfill their duty to protect Uthayan’s staff after receiving a telephone plea from E. Saravanapavan, the paper’s managing director, to publicize the numerous threats against his staff.

Isaivizhi Chempiyan, Voice of Tigers
Suresh Linbiyo, Voice of Tigers
T. Tharmalingam, Voice of Tigers
November 27, 2007, Kilinochchi

Three journalists for the Voice of Tigers radio station in Kilinochchi—announcer Chempiyan and technicians Linbiyo and Tharmalingam—were killed in a Sri Lankan Air Force air strike.

Fighter jets dropped a dozen bombs on the station shortly before Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was due to broadcast a statement. At least five other people were killed in the strike against the LTTE-run station, according to local media reports.


TURKEY: 1

Hrant Dink, Agos
January 19, 2007, Istanbul

Dink, 52, managing editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, was shot outside his newspaper’s offices in Istanbul. Dink had received numerous death threats from nationalist Turks who viewed his iconoclastic journalism, particularly on the mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century, as an act of treachery. In a January 10 article in Agos, Dink said he had passed along a particularly threatening letter to Istanbul’s Sisli district prosecutor, but no action had been taken.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Dink’s murder as an attack against Turkey’s unity and promised to catch those responsible, according to international news reports. A day later, police arrested the alleged triggerman, 17-year-old Ogün Samast, who reportedly confessed to the crime. Erhan Tuncel and Yasin Hayal, described as ultranationalist Turks opposed to Dink’s political views, were accused of conspiring with Samast to carry out the murder. In all, 19 people went on trial beginning in July.

In the last 15 years, 18 other Turkish journalists have been killed for their work, many of them murdered, making it the eighth-deadliest country in the world for journalists, CPJ research shows. The last killing was in 1999. More recently, journalists, academics, and others have been subjected to pervasive legal harassment for statements that allegedly insult the Turkish identity, CPJ research shows.

Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, had been prosecuted several times in recent years—for writing about the mass killings of Armenians by Turks at the beginning of the 20th century, for criticizing lines in the Turkish national anthem that he considered discriminatory, and even for commenting publicly on the court cases against him. His office had also been the target of protests.

In July 2006, Turkey’s High Court of Appeals upheld a six-month suspended prison sentence against Dink for violating Article 301 of the penal code in a case sparked by complaints from nationalist activists. His prosecution stemmed from a series of articles in early 2004 dealing with the collective memory of the Armenian massacres of 1915-17 under the Ottoman Empire. Armenians call the killings the first genocide of the 20th century, a term that Turkey rejects.

Ironically, the pieces for which Dink was convicted had urged diaspora Armenians to let go of their anger against the Turks. The prosecution was sharply criticized by the European Union, which Turkey has sought to join. Dink said he would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to clear his name.

Dink edited Agos for all of the newspaper’s 11-year existence. Agos, the only Armenian newspaper in Turkey, had a circulation of just 6,000, but its political influence was vast. Dink regularly appeared on television to express his views.

In a February 2006 interview with CPJ, Dink said that he hoped his critical reporting would pave the way for peace between the two peoples. “I want to write and ask how we can change this historical conflict into peace,” he said.

In the interview, Dink said he did not think the tide had yet turned in favor of critical writers—“the situation in Turkey is tense”—but he believed that it ultimately would. “I believe in democracy and press freedom. I am determined to pursue the struggle.”


UNITED STATES: 1

Chauncey Bailey, Oakland Post
August 2, 2007, Oakland

A masked gunman dressed in black clothes approached Bailey, editor-in-chief of the Oakland Post and four other weeklies, on a street in downtown Oakland, Calif., as the journalist was on his way to work about 7:30 a.m. The assailant shot Bailey multiple times at close range before fleeing on foot, Oakland police spokesman Roland Holmgren told CPJ. Bailey was pronounced dead at the scene.

Devaughndre Broussard, a handyman and occasional cook at Your Black Muslim Bakery, reportedly confessed to local authorities the next day. According to local press reports, Broussard said he was angered by Bailey’s coverage of the bakery and its staff; his attorney later maintained the purported confession was made under duress.

Your Black Muslim Bakery was a one-time hub of Oakland community activism whose surviving owners and staff had been tied to various criminal activities—including charges filed after the murder that involved the alleged kidnapping and torture of two women in May 2007.

Bailey, 58, a veteran television and print journalist in California’s Bay Area, covered a variety of issues including city politics, crime, and African-American issues. He had been named editor-in-chief in June.


ZIMBABWE: 1

Edward Chikomba, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (former)
March 31, 2007, Darwendale

Chikomba, a veteran cameraman formerly with the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), was abducted on March 29 near his home in the capital, Harare, by a group of armed men in a four-wheel drive vehicle, according to the Media Institute of South Africa, local journalists, and news reports. He was found dead two days later near the industrial farming area of Darwendale, 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Harare, according to the same sources. Chikomba was beaten to death, sources close to his family told CPJ.

Several news reports said Chikomba’s killing might be linked to his alleged leaking to foreign media of footage of badly beaten opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after the politician’s release from police custody in February. Footage of Tsvangirai leaving a Harare courthouse with a suspected fractured skull, and then lying in a hospital bed, sparked international condemnation of President Robert Mugabe’s regime. The footage aired on many foreign television stations, but not on ZBC, the country’s sole television network, local journalists told CPJ.

Police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena did not respond to CPJ’s messages seeking comment. Chikomba was one of several senior ZBC journalists forced to step down in 2002 during a harsh media crackdown led by then-Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, according to local journalists.

BRAZIL: 1

Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho, Jornal do Porto, JC Regional, and Rádio Porto FM
May 5, 2007, Porto Ferreira

Barbon, 37, was shot to death by unidentified individuals while sitting on a bar terrace in the southern city of Porto Ferreira, 140 miles (230 kilometers) from São Paulo. He was known for investigative reporting that exposed political corruption.

At 9 p.m., two hooded individuals on a motorcycle approached Barbon, a columnist for the local dailies Jornal do Porto and JC Regional, and contributor to the local station Rádio Porto FM, according to Brazilian press reports. Witnesses quoted in the local media said that one of the masked assailants stepped off the motorcycle and shot Barbon twice at close range, with one shot hitting the journalist in the upper abdomen and the other in his right leg. According to press reports, Barbon was taken to a local hospital, where he died at 11 p.m.

Police Chief Eduardo Henrique Campos told reporters that investigators were looking into Barbon’s journalism as a motive. Campos added that Barbon was generally critical of local politicians in his commentary, making it difficult to pinpoint a specific story or area of coverage. Media reports said that at the time of his death, Barbon was investigating the embezzlement of government funds during the purchase of a garbage truck.

Barbon had worked as a journalist for 10 years, according to local press reports. In 2003, he drew wide attention with a report on a local child prostitution ring, published in the daily Realidade, which he owned. The report resulted in the convictions of four businessmen, five local politicians, and one other person, a waiter, the national newspaper O Globo reported. Only the waiter was still in jail, and one of the councilmen was later re-elected, according to local press reports. Due to financial difficulties, Barbon shut down Realidade in 2004. He ran unsuccessfully for city council the same year.

In his last radio interview, on April 19, Barbon accused 19 people connected with the local government of corruption. He warned that they should be held accountable if anything were to happen to him, the Brazilian news Web site Comunique reported.

After Barbon’s death, local politicians quoted in the Brazilian press accused the journalist of extortion. They said he would threaten to publicly ridicule politicians if they did not pay him. No formal complaints supporting the allegations were immediately identified, however. A close friend was quoted as saying that Barbon was a man of principle who would never accept bribes.

Cátia Rosa Camargo, the journalist’s wife, said that her husband had received a constant stream of threatening letters and telephone calls, according to international and Brazilian press reports. Local media reported that police advised Camargo and her two children to leave their home after receiving additional threats.


CHINA: 1

Lan Chengzhang, Zhongguo Maoyi Bao
January 10, 2007, Huiyuan

Unidentified men at an illegal coal mine in Huiyuan County, Shanxi province, severely beat reporter Lan on January 9, leading to his death the following day, according to news reports. Lan had been working for the Shanxi bureau of the Beijing-based newspaper Zhongguo Maoyi Bao (China Trade News) for less than a month, his colleagues told international and domestic reporters.

The death was first reported by an anonymous poster to an online forum, Tianya. Domestic and international news organizations picked up the report, quoting Zhongguo Maoyi Bao journalists for additional details. Zhongguo Maoyi Bao did not immediately report on the case itself.  “He was beaten to death by a group of mining thugs,” Wang Jianfeng, head of the paper’s news department, told Agence France-Presse, adding that a newspaper team was sent to Shanxi to investigate and file complaints with local authorities.

Lan and a colleague had arrived at the coal mine when they were surrounded and attacked by unidentified men, according to an online account cited by the Guangzhou newspaper Nanfang Ribao. Lan was beaten severely while the unnamed colleague was restrained and assaulted, according to that account. The two men drove to a hospital in nearby Datong, where Lan died at 9 a.m. the next day.

Local officials claimed Lan did not have official certification so he was not a legitimate journalist, according to Nanfang Ribao. Police also accused Lan, a former miner, of seeking money from the mine’s proprietors in exchange for keeping news of the illegal operation out of the newspaper. CPJ has documented a number of instances of blackmail journalism in China, undertaken by both accredited journalists and people purporting to be journalists. Lan’s journalistic status and his intentions were widely debated by Chinese journalists.


COLOMBIA: 1

Javier Darío Arroyave, Ondas del Valle
September 5, 2007, Cartago

Arroyave, 41, news director for the Cartago-based radio station Ondas del Valle and host of the news program “¿Cómo les parece?,” was stabbed early in the morning inside his home in Cartago, Col. Armando Burbano, a spokesman for Cartago police, told CPJ. Although the journalist’s laptop computer was missing, there were no signs of forced entry, Col. Ricardo Restrepo, head of the Valle del Cauca police, told local reporters.

Colleagues at Ondas del Valle, which is affiliated with the national Caracol Radio, said Arroyave presented general political and social news that was not particularly critical of the government. The journalist also worked for the state environmental organization Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca, according to colleagues. He had worked as a Cartago correspondent for the national daily El Tiempo until 2005, and was recently a freelance contributor for the paper, a source at El Tiempo said.

In May 2005, Arroyave canceled his news program temporarily after continuous pressure from Luis Alberto Castro, then the Cartago mayor, whom the journalist accused of corruption, said Carlos Cortés, executive director of the local press freedom group Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa. Arroyave had not mentioned receiving threats in recent months, colleagues told CPJ.

Burbano told CPJ that investigators believe the murder was a crime of passion, but colleagues said they have not discounted Arroyave’s journalism as a possible motive.


DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: 1

Patrick Kikuku Wilungula, freelance
August 9, 2007, Goma

Wilungula, 39, was gunned down near his home in Goma, North Kivu province, while returning home from a local conference on environmental protection, local journalists told CPJ. Wilungula was covering the conference as a freelance photojournalist. Eyewitnesses said the gunmen were wearing military uniforms and fled the scene with the journalist’s digital camera, leaving behind 13,000 Congolese francs (US$30) and a mobile phone.

Local press freedom groups Journaliste en Danger, the Congolese Press Union, and Goma’s association of photographers said they were investigating possible motives.

Wilungula had distinguished himself from other, mostly commercial, photographers in Goma, with his focus on photojournalism, contributing to several local publications, said César Balume, the president of Goma’s association of photographers. He had been the official photographer of former North Kivu governor Eugene Serufuli.


EL SALVADOR: 1

Salvador Sánchez Roque, freelance
September 20, 2007, Florencia

Sánchez, a freelance radio reporter, was shot while on his way to buy milk at a nearby shop, according to press reports and CPJ interviews.

Sánchez, 38, covered social movements and protests in Florencia, a town four miles (seven kilometers) from the capital, San Salvador, said David Rivas, director of local Radio Mi Gente, for which Sánchez often reported. Protesters had told Sánchez to be careful about his coverage, Rivas told CPJ.

Weeks prior to his death, Sánchez told Rivas that he had received repeated death threats from the local arm of the Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha. Sánchez did not cover gang-related news, colleagues told CPJ. Rivas said the callers did not specify why they were threatening Sánchez.

Salvadoran police arrested José Alfredo Hernández, a member of Mara Salvatrucha, on October 11. During a press conference that day, Héctor Mendoza, deputy director of police investigations, said Hernández had confessed to killing the journalist, whom he believed to be a police informant. Police were looking for two other suspects, the Salvadoran press reported.


GUATEMALA: 1

Mario Rolando López Sánchez, Radio Sonora
May 3, 2007, Guatemala City

Veteran radio producer López was gunned down outside his home in Guatemala City. López, producer of the political debate program “Cosas y Casos de la Vida Nacional” and various social programs on national privately owned Radio Sonora, was shot at 7 p.m. as he was walking from his car to his home in a northern neighborhood in Guatemala City, according to local press reports and CPJ interviews.

Arnulfo Agustín Guzmán, director of Radio Sonora, told CPJ that López was shot in the head, back, and chest. According to his wife, Blanca Castellano, nothing was stolen from his car or wallet. López was taken to Roosevelt Hospital where he died moments after arrival, according to Guatemalan press reports.

López was one of the founders of Radio Sonora and worked there as a producer for 14 years, Agustín said. His program, “Cosas y Casos de la Vida Nacional,” was critical of Guatemalan politics, Agustín added.

According to the journalist’s colleagues and family, he had not received threats. However, Agustín told CPJ that the radio station had been repeatedly threatened over the phone. Local authorities were investigating but did not disclose a possible motive.


HAITI: 1

Alix Joseph, Radio-Télé Provinciale
May 16, 2007, Gonaïves

Joseph, station manager and host of a cultural show on local Radio-Télé Provinciale, was gunned down outside his wife’s house in Gonaïves, 105 miles (170 kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, according to press reports and CPJ interviews.

At 9:30 p.m., two unidentified men approached Joseph as he was sitting in a car in front of his wife’s house, the radio station’s director, Frantz Justin Altidor, told CPJ. Joseph’s wife ran for help when she saw the two men draw their weapons, Altidor said. Moments later, neighbors found the journalist’s body outside his car, shot at least 11 times, according to Haitian and international press reports. Local authorities were investigating, Altidor told CPJ.

Joseph hosted a popular Sunday morning program that featured music and news about cultural activities in Gonaïves, local journalists told CPJ. According to Altidor, Joseph managed the daily work of the radio station and often filled in as host of the station’s daily news program. Also a high school philosophy teacher, Joseph was active in local cultural organizations, Altidor said.

In March, Altidor said, he received an anonymous call from a man who warned him that he did not like Radio-Télé Provinciale’s stand on the disarmament of local gangs. Joseph informed Altidor that he had received similar phone calls at the radio station but did not pay attention to them. According to Altidor, Joseph had been recently threatened by an individual with whom he had a financial dispute unrelated to journalism.


IRAQ: 7

Hussein al-Jabouri, As-Saffir
March 16, 2007, Baghdad

Al-Jabouri, editor-in-chief of As-Saffir, was shot when he failed to stop his car at an Iraqi security checkpoint in Baghdad’s Al-Dora neighborhood on March 7, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, a local press freedom group. The group, citing his family, said al-Jabouri was driving home when Iraqi security officers opened fire.

A CPJ source said that the security officers transferred al-Jabouri to a hospital immediately afterward. His treatment continued in Amman, Jordan, but he died later that month, the source said.  
 
Ali Khalil, Azzaman
May 20, 2007, Baghdad

Gunmen abducted and killed Khalil, 22, an editor for the Iraqi daily Azzaman, in Baghdad’s southern Shurta Raba neighborhood, according to the paper and CPJ sources.

Around midday, Khalil left his in-laws’ home with his wife, their newborn baby, and her father when gunmen in two vehicles stopped the journalist’s car, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization. The gunmen ordered the passengers out, seized the car, and kidnapped Khalil. Iraqi police discovered his body three hours after the abduction in the same neighborhood, according to Azzaman and CPJ sources.

Khalil was shot multiple times in the head and back, and he appeared to have been beaten, the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory said. CPJ was unable to determine if he was killed because of his journalism.

Khalil’s last news item focused on a call by some parliamentarians for the government-sanctioned assassination of militants, the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory reported. Azzaman is operated by the Azzaman Group, which is owned by Iraqi media tycoon Saad al-Bazzaz, head of radio and television under Saddam Hussein until 1992. The paper was critical of the Iraqi government.

Abdul Rahman al-Issawi, National Iraqi News Agency
May 28, 2007, Amiriyat al-Fallujah

Gunmen raided the home of al-Issawi, a reporter for the online National Iraqi News Agency, in Amiriyat al-Fallujah, near the Iraqi city of Fallujah in Anbar province, a CPJ source said. The assailants took the journalist, his brother, and his father to a nearby location and killed them. An editor at the news agency told CPJ that members of al-Issawi’s family heard the shooting and engaged the gunmen. Five other members of the family were killed in the clash, he said.

The source told CPJ that al-Issawi worked for the National Iraqi News Agency for more than a year and had freelanced for several Iraqi publications.

Mahmoud Hassib al-Qassab, Al-Hawadith
May 28, 2007, Kirkuk

Al-Qassab, editor-in-chief of the defunct bilingual weekly Al-Hawadith, was gunned down near his home in the center of Kirkuk, local journalists told CPJ. Al-Qassab, who also headed the Turkmen Salvation Movement, was returning from his political party’s office when he was shot.

CPJ sources said they believed his murder was related to his political work rather than his journalism.

Saif Fakhry, Associated Press Television News
May 31, 2007, Baghdad

Associated Press Television News cameraman Fakhry, 26, was shot as he was heading to a mosque near his home in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Aamariyah, The Associated Press reported. He had taken the day off to spend time with his pregnant wife, the news agency said.

Al-Aamariyah had been the site of intense fighting between al-Qaeda gunmen and Sunni extremist militants. It was unclear whether Fakhry was killed in crossfire or if he was targeted, according to the AP.

Jawad al-Daami, Al-Baghdadia
September 23, 2007, Baghdad

Several gunmen in a car shot al-Daami, 40, a producer for the independent Cairo-based satellite channel Al-Baghdadia, in Baghdad’s southwestern neighborhood of Al-Qadissiya at around 4 p.m., a source at the channel told CPJ. The source said that al-Daami was heading home southwest of Baghdad. He added that al-Daami, a well-known poet, had gone to Baghdad to attend a cultural conference on his day off from work.

The motive for the killing was unclear, but the crime scene was in a neighborhood occupied by several militia groups known to target journalists, according to local reporters.

The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization, quoted Al-Baghdadia sources as saying that al-Daami met with several colleagues earlier that day in Baghdad’s Al-Mansour neighborhood to plan a young people’s cultural forum. Al-Daami worked on cultural and social programs for Al-Baghdadia, writing and researching in his role as a line producer.

Ali Shafeya al-Moussawi, Alive in Baghdad
December 15, 2007, Baghdad

Al-Moussawi, a correspondent for the video-based news Web site Alive in Baghdad, was found shot to death in his home in the Al-Habibiya neighborhood of Baghdad, the Web site reported. Al-Moussawi was shot 31 times, the Web site said, citing a coroner’s report.

Alive in Baghdad reported that al-Moussawi’s body was found hours after Iraqi National Guard forces had raided the street where the reporter resides. The Web site said witnesses heard gunfire and that a relative was unable to reach al-Moussawi by phone during the raid.

Brian Conley, Alive in Baghdad’s founder and director, said the circumstances and motive for al-Moussawi’s murder were unclear. He said Alive in Baghdad was looking into a threat al-Moussawi received the previous week. The reporter had been working on a report about an Iraqi militia group.


MEXICO: 3

Amado Ramírez Dillanes, Televisa and Radiorama
April 6, 2007, Acapulco

Ramírez, 50, Acapulco-based correspondent for the broadcast station Televisa and host of the daily news program “Al Tanto” on local Radiorama, was shot to death near the city’s main square.

After concluding his daily news show, Ramírez left Radiorama’s offices at 7:30 p.m. and walked to his car, which was parked close by, said a colleague who asked not to be identified. Ramírez had just stepped into his car when an unidentified assailant shot him twice from outside the driver’s window, the colleague said. Wounded in his left leg and chest, the journalist ran into the lobby of a nearby hotel. The attacker followed Ramírez and shot him in the back, the local press reported.

Ramírez reported general news for Televisa and “Al Tanto,” the colleague said. In March, however, he aired a special investigation into the murders of local police officers. The Televisa report linked the crimes to local drug traffickers.

According to Misael Habana de los Santos, Ramírez’ co-host at Radiorama, the journalist had received several death threats on his cell phone prior to the murder. Habana wrote in the national daily La Jornada that Ramírez had not paid attention to the threats, and that he refused to inform local police. State investigators did not speculate on the possible motive.

Saúl Noé Martínez Ortega, Interdiario
April 23, 2007, Nuevo Casas Grandes

Martínez, a crime reporter for Interdiario, a family-owned newspaper in Agua Prieta that comes out three times a week, was found dead in the northern state of Chihuahua on April 23, a week after he was abducted by armed individuals in neighboring Sonora state.

Martínez, 36, was seized on the night of April 16 outside a municipal police station in Agua Prieta, a city in the state of Sonora, on the Arizona border. Press reports said that after a high-speed chase, Martínez stopped his SUV at the entrance to the station and called for help. But heavily armed gunmen forced the reporter into their vehicle and drove away from the city center.

On the morning of April 23, a passerby discovered a body wrapped in a blanket on a road outside the town of Nuevo Casas Grandes, near the border between Chihuahua and Sonora, according to press reports and CPJ interviews.

The body was identified as that of Martínez, said the journalist’s brother, Erick Martínez Ortega.

The reporter had been dead for approximately six days, said José Larrinaga Talamantes, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office in Hermosillo. He had been beaten and apparently died of a blow to the head, Erick Martínez told CPJ.

Martínez covered crime during night shifts for Interdiario, the journalist’s father, Lorenzo, told CPJ. Investigators were looking into several possible motives, including alleged links between the reporter and local drug traffickers, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office said.

Gerardo Israel García Pimentel, La Opinion de Michoacán
December 8, 2007, Uruapan

Unidentified individuals followed reporter García through the streets of Uruapan, according to local press reports. As García entered the Hotel Ruán, where he lived, two gunmen shot him at least 20 times at close range, police told local reporters.

Police said some 50 shell casings, nearly all from AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, were found at the scene. Michoacán state police did not immediately announce possible motives for the murder. García, 28, covered agriculture full-time and crime part-time for La Opinion de Michoacán, colleagues told CPJ. Reporters at other newspapers told CPJ that García was considered a low-key reporter.

Michoacán’s violent death toll for the year was at 339 at the time of García’s murder, according to a tally compiled by the national daily La Jornada.

Michoacán is a key state for Mexico’s powerful Gulf and Sinaloa drug cartels, which routinely battle over drug shipment routes from South America to the United States.


NEPAL: 1

Shankar Panthi, Naya Satta
September 15, 2007, Sunwal

Panthi, a correspondent for the pro-Maoist newspaper Naya Satta, was found fatally injured at around 1:30 a.m. alongside the Mahendra Highway in Sunwal village, in the southern district of Nawalparasi, according to local news reports.

Local residents said his bruised body was found in front of a petrol pump and that he appeared to have suffered head injuries, according to the Kantipur Online news site. Police said that Panthi’s bicycle was hit by another vehicle in a road accident and that the journalist died while being taken to the hospital, according to reports.

Local residents staged demonstrations blocking a stretch of the busy highway for two days, demanding action against those responsible for Panthi’s death and compensation for his family members.

Panthi was reporting on the destruction of a Young Communist League office on the night he was killed, according to Keshav Parajuli, president of the Nawalparasi chapter of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists. Panthi was also an “active Maoist cadre,” according to Kantipur Online.


PHILIPPINES: 2

Hernani Pastolero, Lightning Courier Weekly
February 20, 2007, Sultan Kudarat

Pastolero, 64, editor-in-chief of the community newspaper Lightning Courier Weekly, was shot in front of his home in Sultan Kudarat township, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

Pastolero was shot twice in the head by an unidentified assassin who escaped on foot, according to local media reports. Police Superintendent Joel Goltiao told local reporters that investigators had compiled a list of suspects. He declined to speculate about a possible motive. GMANews said the National Bureau of Investigation was looking into Pastolero’s connection to a conflict between residential lot owners and a large private landholder.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the Philippine National Police to investigate, and presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunyes condemned the killing.

Ferdinand Lintuan, DXGO and Sun Star
December 24, 2007, Davao City

Lintuan, 51, the father of four children, was shot by two motorcycle-riding assailants as he was driving in downtown Davao City, according to local media reports and the Center for Media Freedom  and Responsibility, a press freedom advocacy group. Lintuan had just left DXGO, an AM station owned by the Manila Broadcasting Company, with two colleagues who were uninjured in the attack. The colleagues said the attackers wore helmets with visors that hid their faces.

 No one claimed responsibility for the attack. Lintuan was well known for his criticism of local politicians in Davao, a major city on the southern island of Mindanao. Lintuan, a veteran journalist, had been on the air at DXGO for about three months, leasing airtime under a practice known as “block timing.”

 Lintuan was also a columnist for the regional English-language daily Sun Star. He had recently alleged corruption in a local development project and had criticized illegal logging activities, the Sun Star and other papers reported.

The National Bureau of Investigation sent a team to Davao to assist local police. The government and opposition politicians offered more than 1 million pesos (US$24,000) for information leading to an arrest. The Sun Star said that Lintuan had survived an August 1987 attack inside DXRA radio in Davao. Three others died in the attack.


RUSSIA: 1

Vyacheslav Ifanov, Novoye Televideniye Aleiska
April 5, 2007, Aleisk

Ifanov, a 29-year-old cameraman for the independent television station Novoye Televideniye Aleiska (NTA) in the Siberian city of Aleisk, was found dead in his garage with his car running. On August 4, the Aleisk prosecutor’s office ruled that there was no evidence of foul play. An autopsy found that he died from self-induced carbon monoxide poisoning.

The night before he died, Ifanov was featured on the syndicated television news program “Nashi Novosti.” He described a January attack against him by unidentified members of a local military reconnaissance unit. In the April 4 broadcast, Ifanov said he hoped to identify his attackers soon with the help of police, the Moscow-based daily Izvestiya reported.

Local press reports quoted Ifanov describing the January 21 attack. Ifanov said he was filming what he thought was a suspicious gathering of men in camouflage gear in the center of Aleisk. The men, seeing Ifanov filming them, assaulted the journalist and broke his camera, he said. During the attack, Ifanov said, the men told him, “We warned you that military reconnaissance works here, but you didn’t listen.” The journalist sustained a concussion in the attack and spent several days in the hospital, according to local press reports.

Ifanov was found dead on April 5 by a neighbor, who heard the journalist’s car running with the garage doors shut. Neighbor Viktor Langolf said Ifanov’s body was slumped between his car and one of the garage walls, the Moscow-based news agency Regnum reported. Langolf said the garage doors were locked from the inside, according to local press reports. Police said there were no signs of violence, press reports said.

Sergei Plotnikov, a journalist who investigated the case for the Moscow-based press freedom group Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said he examined photos of the scene, and they did not reflect signs of a struggle.

Relatives, friends, and colleagues were skeptical Ifanov took his own life, according to local press reports. The autopsy report contained omissions and conflicting information, Izvestiya reported. For example, Izvestiya said, the report placed the body in two different locations in the garage.

On April 4, Ifanov worked until 7 p.m. and then spent the rest of the evening with a friend, Aleksandr Udin, who said the journalist had been in a good mood, according to local press reports. Udin said that the journalist mentioned there was some progress in the January attack but did not elaborate, Izvestiya reported. Ifanov left Udin’s house at around 2 a.m. The autopsy said the journalist died about two hours later, Regnum reported.

Local press reports said that Ifanov had received threats prior to his death and was told to withdraw his criminal complaint in the January attack. NTA Director Yevgeny Filippov told CPJ he was unaware of threats against Ifanov.


SOMALIA: 1

Ali Mohammed Omar, Radio Warsan
February 16, 2007, Baidoa

Omar, a 25-year-old radio journalist and technician, was gunned down by three unknown assailants as he walked home in the southern town of Baidoa, local journalists and the National Union of Somali Journalists reported.

The assailants told Omar to stop, but he refused and attempted to run away, according to witnesses who spoke with local journalists. Witnesses said the gunmen shot Omar in the head and took his mobile phone, according to local journalists. The slaying was reported at around 8:30 p.m.

Omar worked for independent Radio Warsan and was a member of the southern chapter of the National Union of Somali Journalists. Radio Warsan, which had been closed by the government in January, had resumed broadcasting just days before the killing.


SRI LANKA: 1

Sahadevan Nilakshan, Chaalaram
August 1, 2007, Jaffna

Nilakshan, a 22-year-old journalism student and editor of the student-run Chaalaram magazine, was shot by unidentified gunmen at his home on the outskirts of Jaffna. The 4 a.m. shooting occurred during curfew hours in an area heavily guarded by the Sri Lankan military, according to the Colombo-based Free Media Movement. The gunmen arrived at Nilakshan’s home in Kokuvil village by motorcycle.

The journalist died within hours of being taken to the Jaffna General Hospital for treatment of his injuries.

AFGHANISTAN: 1

Sayed Agha, freelance
March 15, 2007, Helmand province

Agha, a driver, was kidnapped on March 5 by Taliban in Helmand province. He was seized along with La Republicca reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo and freelance journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi.

According to Mastrogiacomo, Agha was beheaded several days after the group was grabbed. The Taliban accused him of being a spy. Mastrogiacomo was released on March 19; Naqshbandi was beheaded by his captors on April 8.


INDIA: 3

G. Gopinath, Dinakaran
M. Vinod Kumar, Dinakaran
K. Muthuranalingam, Dinakaran
May 9, 2007, Tamil Nadu

Three employees of the Tamil-language daily Dinakaran were killed in an attack on the newspaper’s offices in the eastern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The victims were identified as computer engineers Kumar and Gopinath and security guard Muthuranalingam, according to the news Web site New Kerala.

The employees died of asphyxiation after demonstrators threw firebombs into offices housing Dinakaran, Sun TV, and other media outlets, according to The Associated Press. The protesters were a