Two masked motorcyclists shot and killed Ashfaq Ahmed Sial, a reporter for the Daily Khabrain newspaper, while he was on his way to work in central Punjab province on May 15, before fleeing the scene, according to local nonprofit Freedom Network and news reports. Sial was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.
The motive behind the killing was unclear, and the Committee to Protect Journalists called for an immediate investigation into the killing. Punjab province’s Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz ordered those responsible be brought to justice, and the Punjab police have filed a First Information Report, which opens an investigation.
Sial’s killing extends this year’s cycle of violence against journalists in Pakistan. On May 3, Muhammad Siddique Mengal, journalist for the local newspaper The Daily Baakhbar Quetta, died after a motorcyclist placed a bomb on the journalist’s vehicle at a busy crossing in Khuzdar city.
Pakistan continues to be a perilous environment for journalists, with increasing risk for those who critically report on powerful entities, the military establishment, corruption among public officials, and crime.
Since 1992, 64 journalists have been killed in connection with their work in Pakistan.
Award-winning Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora remains in prison after a court ordered on May 15 that he be released under house arrest.
Zamora, founder and publisher of the now-shuttered investigative daily newspaper elPeriódico, has spent almost two years in jail in spite of an appeals court ruling last October overturning his conviction on money laundering charges four months earlier. He is still in jail because house arrest has not been ordered in two additional cases pending against him.
“CPJ welcomes the Guatemalan judiciary’s decision to release journalist José Rubén Zamora to house arrest in the first of three cases against him, after an irregular trial process,” said CPJ Latin America Program Coordinator Cristina Zahar. “Zamora is innocent and has been imprisoned in retaliation for his journalism, which included investigating government corruption.”
We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
Jam Saghir Ahmed Lar
Daily Khabrain, Pakistan
Zayd Abu Zayed
Quran Radio, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Myat Thu Tan
Western News, Myanmar
Mardonio Mejía
Sonora Estéreo, Colombia
Hamza Al Dahdouh
Al-Jazeera, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Mustafa Thuraya
Freelance, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory