Media Tracker lists the challenges and achievements of the journalists and media organisations worldwide. Here’s a list of journalism at risk stories in the recent month. We would like to thank international media protection organisation and news outlets for their content.
- On June 25, men in civilian clothes took Zafar Achakzai, a senior reporter at the Urdu-language newspaper Daily Qudrat, from his home in Quetta and aren’t revealing his whereabouts. His father and the editor of Qudrat, Naimat Achakzai, deemed it could be die to Zafar’s social media postings. Zafar had allegedly criticised the security agencies handling of the lawmaker who had run over a traffic policeman in broad daylight. (CPJ)
- French journalist Stephan Villeneuve of the #5bis Productions and Iraqi Kurdish journalist Bakhtiar Haddad with the “House of Journalists” were killed by an explosive device while covering Iraqi counter-terrorist operations in the district of Mosul, in northern Iraq. (RSF)
- Vietnamese, Pham Minh Hoang was arrested, 23 June and, deported the next day to France. Earlier the police had arrested and charged Hoang in 2010 with attempting to overthrow the government, citing 33 articles he had written under his pen name, Phan Kien Quoc, criticizing one-party rule and Chinese influence. He was initially sentenced to three years in prison in 2012 but was released to serve three years under house arrest Media reports allege the blogger kept publishing. Hoang, a university math teacher and blogger associated with the California-based Viet Tan opposition group, holds French citizenship. (CPJ)
- Media outlets, journalists, NGOs and prominent figures on every continent are calling UN secretary-general for the appointment of a “journalists’ protector” for the safety of journalists, in accordance with a proposal by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The coalition is urging the United Nations and its Member States to back this position the political weight for the safety of journalists. The goal is to establish a concrete mechanism enforcing international law and reducing the number of journalists killed every year during the course of their work. (RSF)
