Committee to Protect Journalists – Defending Journalists Worldwide.

2^nd journalist in 2 weeks killed in Pakistan

Police officers stand guard at the site of a suicide attack in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2024. Two masked motorcyclists shot and killed Ashfaq Ahmed Sial, a reporter for the Daily Khabrain newspaper, in Muzaffargarh, Pakistan, on May 15, 2024. (Photo: AP/Fareed Khan)

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.

Zamora remains in prison despite ruling ordering house arrest

Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, founder of El Periodico newspaper, arrives in court for his hearing in Guatemala City on May 15, 2024. (Photo: AP/Moises Castillo)

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.”

Journalists Attacked

Myat Thu Tan

MURDERED

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local news website Western News and correspondent for several independent Myanmar news outlets, was shot and killed on January 31, 2024, while in military custody in Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State.

He was arrested on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under a broad provision of the penal code that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news for critical posts he made on his Facebook page. Myat Thu Tan had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death.

The journalist’s body was found buried in a bomb shelter, with the bodies of six other political detainees, and showed signs of torture.

Myanmar’s military junta has cracked down on journalists and media outlets since seizing power in a February 2021 coup.

Learn more about Myat Thu Tan