Boko Haram

Gerardo Ortega's news and talk show on DWAR in Puerto Princesa, Philippines, went off as usual on the morning of January 24, 2011. Ortega, like many radio journalists in the Philippines, was outspoken about government corruption, particularly as it concerned local mining issues. His show over, Ortega left the studios and headed to a local clothing store to do some shopping. There, he was shot in the back of the head. His murder underlines the characteristics and security challenges common to many of the killings documented as part of CPJ's new Impunity Index: A well-known local journalist whose daily routines were easily tracked, Ortega had been followed and killed by a hired gunman. He had been threatened many times before in response to his tough political commentary, a pattern that shows up time and again on CPJ's Impunity Index.

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Abuja, Nigeria, December 26, 2012--Nigerian authorities must immediately release two journalists who have been detained since Monday and allow a third journalist who has fled into hiding to return to his home and work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

In pre-dawn raids on Monday, about 40 armed security agents arrested Aliyu Saleh, a reporter with Al-Mizan, a weekly Hausa-language newspaper, and Musa Muhammad Awwal, the paper's editor, at their homes in Rigasa in the northern state of Kaduna, according to news reports. The agents also confiscated the journalists' phones and money and briefly detained the journalists' wives, news reports said.

A radical militant Islamist group released an 18-minute video on May 1, 2012, that threatened attacks on at least 14 local and international news outlets, according to news reports. In the video, Boko Haram, a group seeking the imposition of Sharia law in northern Nigeria, accused the outlets of biased reporting and crimes against Islam and also claimed responsibility for prior attacks on newspapers, news reports said.

New York, April 26, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns bombings today targeting two of the offices of ThisDay newspaper in Nigeria. At least nine people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in the attacks, for which the Islamist militant sect Boko Haram claimed responsibility, according to news reports.

New York, March 19, 2012--A Nigerian journalist who has extensively covered the conflict between the government and Islamist sect Boko Haram says his life is under threat.

Ahmad Salkida, an independent journalist, told CPJ that he noticed a white 4X4 Hilux with a Lagos state registration number following him on Thursday for several hours, including to his house in Abuja, the Nigerian capital. He said he has also received phone threats from anonymous callers in the past few days that he believes are coming from government security agents in connection to his contacts with Boko Haram. "They said I am a Boko Haram member, that me and them are not supposed to exist. That they know where I live and they will visit me," Salkida told CPJ.

New York, January 20, 2012--A television reporter covering the aftermath of coordinated terrorist attacks in northern Nigeria was gunned down this afternoon, according to local journalists and news reports.

New York, October 24, 2011--Authorities in northeastern Nigeria must urgently take steps to ensure the safety of media workers, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today following Saturday's assassination of a journalist in a shooting claimed by Islamist militants.