On Friday, March 21, Alonzo was outside his home in the western city of Quetzaltenango when two unidentified individuals dressed in black shot him and fled toward a nearby wooded area, according to news reports. Alonzo had worked for about  three years as a community reporter with Despertar Occidental, a local Facebook news outlet, before stepping away from the platform in December. He continued his communication work independently and remained active as a member of the Association of Journalists and Communicators of the Southwest (APCSO).

“Guatemalan authorities must investigate whether Ismael Alonzo González was killed in connection to his journalism,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “Attacks against community journalists are an attack on press freedom and local democracy. Authorities must send a clear message that such crimes will not go unpunished.”

According to Prensa Comunitaria, his wife, siblings, and colleagues said they were unaware of any threats against him. A preliminary investigation by Guatemala’s Observatory of Journalists—shared with CPJ— said hat Alonzo covered criminal issues and was investigating criminal groups in the region.CPJ emailed Guatemala’s Public Ministry and received no immediate response.

At least six journalists have been killed in Guatemala since 1992 in direct connection with their work, according to CPJ research.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On November 7, the attackers fired on the journalists’ vehicle between the eastern town of Ansongo and the city of Gao, where the four planned to attend a journalism training about identifying false information, their colleagues Radio Coton reporter Ibrahima Ag Ablil and Radio Naata director Ousmane Abdoulaye Touré told CPJ.

Abdoul Aziz Djibrilla, a presenter with Radio Naata, a community station in Labbezanga on the Mali-Niger border, was killed; Harouna Attino, a news presenter on the Ansongo-based community radio Alafiya, was wounded; and Assaleh Ag Joudou, director of Ansongo-based Radio Coton, and Moustapha Koné, a host at Radio Coton, were kidnapped, they said.

Later that day, the gunmen phoned Issoufa Touré, director of Ansongo-based radio station Aadar Koukia and a friend of the kidnapped Ag Joudou, demanding a ransom payment of 6 million West African CFA francs (US$9,975) in exchange for the two journalists, who they said had not been injured, according to news reports and the journalists’ Radio Coton colleague Ag Ablil.

Touré and Ag Ablil told CPJ that they did not believe the journalists had been targeted for their work, as similar attacks have taken place in recent months on the Ansongo-Gao road.

Mali has been battling Islamist militants for over a decade. Violence has worsened since the West African nation’s military government ordered United Nations peacekeepers to leave in June.

“Journalists in Mali and across the Sahel too often grapple with the prospect of being killed or kidnapped in what is widely seen as one of the most dangerous regions in the world,” Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, said on Tuesday from Durban, South Africa. “Whenever journalists are killed or kidnapped, it sends a chilling message of insecurity to all the other members of the press working in the area and compromises the public’s right to information because of self-censorship.”

Previously, unidentified gunmen kidnapped journalists Hamadoun Nialibouly, program director of private radio station Dandé Douentza, and Moussa M’Bana Dicko, head of programs with the private radio station Dande Haïré, in September 2020 and in April 2021, respectively, in the Mopti region of central Mali, according to news reports. CPJ has been unable to confirm the reasons for their kidnappings.

Calls and messages to the office of Mali’s Minister of Communication Alhamdou AG Ilyène went unanswered, and the office of government spokesman Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga declined CPJ’s request for comment.

Militants abducted French journalist Olivier Dubois in Gao in 2021 and held him for nearly two years before releasing him in March.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The Nigerien authorities must urgently identify the men who arrested journalist Samira Sabou on September 30 and ensure her immediate release and safety,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, from Durban, South Africa. “This arrest deepens CPJ’s concerns about the working environment of Nigerien journalists and their ability to inform the Nigerien public without fear of reprisal.”

On Saturday, four men in plainclothes arrested Sabou, who regularly posts news and commentary on her Facebook page, at her home in Niamey, the capital, according to news reports and Abdoul Kader Nouhou, Sabou’s husband, who spoke to CPJ over the phone. Nouhou, who was present during the arrest, said one of the men showed him a card, but refused to show his name.

The men took Sabou to an unmarked vehicle and placed a hood over her head, then returned to the house and took her phone before driving away, Nouhou told CPJ. He said he did not know where Sabou was taken, and the Niamey judicial police had denied arresting her.

On July 26, soldiers overthrew Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s democratically elected president, and installed a military government called the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP). On August 25, CPJ joined at least 79 organizations and journalists in calling on Niger’s military authorities to protect the rights and safety of journalists. The joint letter noted an intimidating call Sabou received on August 4 from a member of Niger’s military over her coverage of Bazoum.

In January 2022, the Niamey High Court sentenced Sabou to a one-month suspended prison sentence and a fine for “defamation by an electronic means of communication” related to coverage of drug trafficking issues in Niger. She was also jailed in 2020 on cybercrime charges over a post on her Facebook page about an audit of Niger’s military.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The hearing may lift the stigma of reporting sightings of UFOs/UAPs, among personnel in the armed forces (of all nations), and is a major step in revealing the level of official deceit surrounding the topic.

While it may seem irrelevant to our daily lives, acknowledging the existence of UFOs/people from other planets is crucial to understanding ourselves and our place in the solar system. It would potentially change everything, including the way we live, the values we hold the systems we build.

David Grusch, a former US intelligence officer turned whistleblower, has courageously declared what many have been saying for decades, that the US (and others) Government has been covering up evidence of UFOs for many years. Anna Paulina Luna, a member of the committee from Florida (who encountered a UFO in 2018), said “it is unacceptable to continue to gaslight Americans [and others] into thinking this is not happening.”

In addition to David Grusch, the committee heard from retired US navy commander David Fravor and a former US navy pilot, Ryan Graves.

Fravor described that in 2004 he and another pilot had seen “a smooth, seamless oval-shaped object hovering over the water before it rapidly climbed about 12,000 feet in the air. It then accelerated and disappeared. It was detected roughly 60 miles away less than a minute later…..What we experienced was well beyond the material science…. that we have currently or that we’re going to have in the next 10 to 20 years”

Graves recounted that in 2014 his squadron began seeing UFOs, which he described as “dark grey or black cubes … inside of a clear sphere, where the apex or tips of the cubes were touching the inside of that sphere.” He said there was no acknowledgement or ways or reporting such incidents, which he stated were “not rare or isolated but routine…..if everyone could see the sensor and video data I witnessed, our national conversation would change.”

Evidence

The evidence supporting the existence of UFOs is overwhelming and, to any open-minded person, indisputable. Space-craft of varying sizes and shapes, are routinely seen throughout the world, individually or in groups, sometimes dozens of craft together, and filmed or photographed by all manner of people, some in uniform, many not.

They are able to move at terrific speed, stop suddenly or glide gracefully, manoeuvre in seemingly impossible ways. They are clearly not “of this world”, are without question “real” and have been present on Earth for eons.

In addition to direct sightings, various other signs testify to their presence. The crop circles which appear every spring, mainly in fields in southern England. Complex, inexplicable designs, which become more intricate and expansive every year; spirals of light seen in the sky and light patterns recorded on buildings all over the world since 1997.

Undeniable evidence it seems, and yet so successful has the duplicitous message of denial been, that statements about UFOs are still regarded as controversial.

For decades lies have been promulgated relentlessly by governments, not only to hide the facts, but to create a totally false, reductive image of UFOs and their occupants. A cynical narrative adopted and obediently voiced by science fiction writers/film-makers and the media. It states that humanity is alone in the Universe, that sightings of UFOs are always explainable and can therefore be dismissed or ignored, and that extraterrestrial life, if it exists, is just like humanity – violent, selfish and exploitative, and is therefore a threat to us.

All nonsense; deceit, lies and more lies. Constructed by politicians and religious leaders, who know the truth, in order to perpetuate injustice, maintain control and create fear of the unknown; paranoia and hate of “the other” multiplied tenfold.

Groundbreaking

A pivotal voice in revealing the reality and nature of UFO phenomena was George Adamski (1891-1965). He wrote two groundbreaking books: Flying Saucers have Landed, co-written with Desmond Leslie, who explained that spaceships – mostly from “Mars and Venus” – had been visiting Earth for millennia, and listed sightings going back to the 16C. Then came Inside The Spaceships, another remarkable book, in which Adamski records, visiting a huge “cigar shaped Mothership”.

On board he met extraordinary people and had a number of illuminating discussions with a highly evolved being who sought to share His wisdom with humanity. The “Master”, as Adamski calls him, makes clear that among all the planets of the solar system, only Earth humanity has not learned to live peacefully; “we do not kill our fellow man, even in self defence… Since we have learned that life is all-inclusive and that we are that life, we know that we can do nothing without hurting ourselves.”

He repeatedly explained that all life is interconnected: “A great fallacy which has grown on the people of Earth… is the custom of dividing into many parts that which should never be divided. We of other worlds have no such divisions but realise the relationship and the interdependence of all things.” He stressed that the space people are deeply concerned about the threat humanity poses, to itself, the planet and the stability of the solar system.

Someone who worked with Adamski was British writer/artist Benjamin Creme. He explained that the mission of the UFOs is wholly benevolent. “They come to aid”, in particular to clean up some of the pollution, specifically nuclear pollution (that we cannot even measure), that humanity discharges daily into the atmosphere.

Consistent with the view of Dr. Meade Layne, an American academic and early ufology researcher, Creme explains that the physical body of the space people and their spacecraft is composed of etheric matter, not dense physical like us. Science currently recognizes and can measure three states of physical matter – dense, liquid and gasous, but above these (according to esoteric science) exist four more levels, finer, subtler, but still physical. These are the etheric planes of matter, and all physical forms (including ours) have an etheric counterpart.

Without etheric vision the UFOs and the space people remain invisible – unless they choose to be seen. Then they simply alter the vibrational rate of their bodies and/or their spaceships, to the point where they come within  our range of vision.

Unity, unity, unity

Reports of other unexplained happenings, in addition to increased UFO sightings, have reached unprecedented levels in recent years. From the list of UFO accounts, one specific type appears of particular interest. Seen throughout the world hundreds of times, it looks like a star, but behaves like a spacecraft. It changes shape and color, pulsates and moves in the heavens, appears and disappears.

It is, according to Benjamin Creme, a sign arranged to stimulate a debate, a herald, that the Teacher for this time, Maitreya, is here in the world. Consistent with the ‘master’ Adamski met, Maitreya teaches that humanity is one, that unity is the natural order of things, and that sharing is key to solving our problems.

All is connected, not just within our planet, but the solar system and indeed the Universe; and the creation of unity is, as a wise One once said, “The underlying purpose of life.” The myth of separation needs to be shattered. Separation between people and nations feeds distrust, inflames hate, and triggers wars. We are one group/family called humanity; there is no division between us, the land upon which we live and That which is beyond thought and time.

When we grasp this essential fact then everything will change. New, just socio-economic systems will be designed based on this reality, true democratic forms of governance will be able to emerge, and fundamental change, so desperately needed if we are to save the planet can begin.

The sightings of UFOs and the unexplained happenings are signs of the times, transitional times of great importance, conflict and opportunity. The purpose of such signs is multi-faceted: to clean up some of our pollution; to prompt a re-evaluation of the destructive way we are living; to alert man to the presence of Maitreya in our midst, and among other things, to say loudly and clearly, separation is an illusion.

Their message, and the message of The Wise throughout the ages is one of love, of unity and brotherhood, tolerance and compassion. If we are to eradicate war, poverty and injustice we must reject anything and everything that feeds division.  This is the first and fundamental step; cast out completely those politicians/corporate voices who poison global life with their divisive hateful rhetoric; learn to share and live peacefully as brothers and sisters – or face the unimaginable.

Governments know well the truth, but in an attempt to maintain control of the populous, to perpetuate fear and social injustice and to promote ideologies of division and greed, have kept it hidden.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Graham Peebles.

Committee members were thunderstruck: had the combined armed forces and intelligence agencies hidden this astounding discovery from the American citizenry?  And why?  Clearly a widespread conspiracy, impervious to media investigation, had long been operative.

The U.S. House of Representatives, confronting their oversight responsibility in the event of sudden threats to national security, established this special Subcommittee precisely for this purpose.  Many pilots, civilian and military, have in recent months been spotting unknown aerial objects with erratic flight “behavior.”

To my mind, this conspiracy may well have begun in the aftermath of the now-declassified file on the “Roswell incident.”  It is self-evident that “alien” beings, commonly referred to as “extra-terrestrials,” must have arrived quite a long time ago to our unexceptional Solar system, one among thousands of such systems astronomically detectable just a few “light-years” away.  Moreover, who can doubt that, given the extraordinary technological advances of Homo sapiens inhabiting what astronomer Carl Sagan called our “tiny blue dot” (that is, from the perspective of a NASA probe in our outer planets), that these highly intelligent beings wisely chose to investigate our possibly threatening activities.

And it is only logical that their crafts have an as yet unknown propulsive force, allowing them to travel at the optimal speed of 186,000 miles per second (yes, “the speed-of-light!”).  Moreover, extrapolating further, one can justifiably conclude that such astounding spacecraft are most likely to have originated from a planet within the Star System closest to ours, Proxima Centauri.  Therefore, these remarkable beings, having chosen our planet (out of countless thousands of others) as an urgent destination, were quite willing, given their incredible achievement of the maximal velocity possible in the universe, to devote some 3.2 earth-years of their time to arrive at our designated planet.

All I can say is: we must be mighty important in this infinite Universe of ours!  The scientifically qualified experts who have patriotically testified to the Subcommittee this week are no doubt dedicated to resisting any threat, no matter how mysterious, to our national security.  And they clearly are already hard at work, using our most advanced technological-analytical systems, to identify the exact nature–and intent–of these alien visitors.  Our intelligence agencies, both military and CIA/NSA/DSA, are to be commended for their “top-secret” policy, thereby avoiding the massive panic of the entire citizenry that would naturally occur if the real facts finally were revealed.

The scientific teams, continuing to work in secrecy since as early as 1948, have still to solve certain unsettling puzzles (beyond merely the purpose of these “ETs”).  Why, clearly exhibiting the fastest velocity and navigation scientifically possible in the universe (according to Einstein), do these incredible vehicles, once attaining the lower strata of our tiny’s planet atmosphere, commonly crash?  Moreover, conducting their top-secret analyses of the perplexingly flimsy construction evident in the slipshod debris found at the crash-sites, NASA-affiliated scientists specializing in aerodynamics and spacecraft construction have, according to a “reliable source,” adhered to their original, 50-year old explanation: metal fatigue.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by William Manson.

On Thursday, June 29, unidentified gunmen shot Abiad while he was driving with his family in Quezon City, Metro Manila, multiple news reports said. Two assailants fled the scene after the shooting.

Abiad, a photojournalist who covers the police for the local outlet Remate Online, was receiving hospital treatment for two gunshot wounds and was in stable condition as of Friday. At least three of Abiad’s family members were injured in the attack and were receiving treatment at a hospital in Manila; one bystander was also shot.

At least two journalists have been killed in relation to their work since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president of the Philippines in mid-2022; CPJ is investigating the motive of a third killing. Journalists, editors, and activists have told CPJ that, while Marcos Jr. has demurred from the overt antagonism toward the media seen under his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, those rhetorical changes have not been accompanied by substantive actions to improve conditions for the press.

“How many journalists need to be shot before the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration takes its country’s impunity problem seriously?” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Philippine authorities must stop at nothing to track down and hold to account those responsible for shooting journalist Joshua Abiad and his family members, as well the culprits behind all other journalist shootings in recent years.”

Police spokesperson Redrico Maranan Jr. said Friday that police had created a special investigation task group to pursue the case.

Authorities have reviewed surveillance footage of the incident, which showed a man wearing a black jacket firing several shots into Abiad’s car while a separate motorcycle rider acted as a lookout.

The Presidential Task Force on Media Security, a state agency composed of Philippine police and tasked with solving media murders, said in a statement that Abiad also served as a witness in drug cases for the Philippine National Police and Drug Enforcement Agency.

The task force did not immediately reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment, including on whether it considered the attack likely related to Abiad’s journalism. Remate Online did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on the attack.  

The Philippines ranked seventh on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, which spotlights countries worldwide where journalists are slain and the killers go free.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

The Hong Kong Journalists' Association said it had received reports from several news organizations and journalists in the past week that reporters were being "followed or monitored" by unidentified men.

The Hong Kong Free Press online newspaper said its court reporter "was followed from her home to her workplace for over an hour by two men with earpieces" on March 22, adding that the pair had refused to answer questions or reveal their identities when confronted by a staff member at a subway station.

The journalists' union said it had received similar reporters from a number of different media covering the trial of the now-shuttered independent outlet Stand News, and that court reporters appeared to be the main target for the surveillance.

"Journalists reported the incident to the Journalists’ Association, saying that based on the clothing and behavior of the men in the incident, they suspected that they were plainclothes law enforcement officers," the union said in a statement on its website dated March 27.

"The Association is very concerned about journalists being followed," it said. "Threats to the personal safety of journalists, especially court reporters, will make the general public ... worry that some people are trying to use coercion to damage reporters' exercise of their reporting rights."

"The Association ... will not tolerate any intimidation or harassment of journalists and the media," it said, adding that women journalists are more likely to be targeted for this sort of intimidation.

"No journalist should be harassed because of their gender," the statement said, and called on the Hong Kong police to investigate the matter, and confirm whether they had carried out any operations targeting journalists in recent days.

"The Journalists' Association urges the police to take the matter seriously, follow up and investigate, and bring the suspects to justice as soon as possible," it said.

Plunging rank

Cedric Alviani, East Asia bureau director for the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, said journalists in Hong Kong should be able to work freely and without fear of harassment.

"We are concerned by the fact a Hong Kong Free Press reporter was ostentatiously followed in broad daylight by an unidentified individual," Alviani was quoted by the Hong Kong Free Press as saying.

Alviani pointed out that Hong Kong, once considered a bastion of press freedom, has plummeted from 80th place in 2021 to 148th place in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index, the index’s sharpest drop of the year.

According to the group's website, at least 28 journalists and press freedom defenders have been prosecuted in Hong Kong over the past three years under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party from July 1, 2020.

Thirteen of those are currently behind bars, while at least seven independent media outlets have shut down "because of the repressive climate," including Jimmy Lai's Apple Daily and Stand News, it said.

The group also pointed to new rules from the Hong Kong government forcing five local broadcasters to air 30 minutes' worth of "national security education" propaganda programming per week.

Under the rules, TVB, ViuTV and HOY TV, Commercial Radio and Metro Broadcast, must now air “no less than 30 minutes” of propaganda per week, including content relating to “national education, national identity and National Security Law,” if they want their licenses to be reviewed in a few years' time, it said.

"In Hong Kong like anywhere else, the purpose of the media is to impart independent information for the benefit of the public, and forcing them to broadcast state propaganda in the name of national security is just unacceptable," Alviani said. "We call on the Hong Kong government to withdraw this measure, and more generally to restore full press freedom as enshrined in the Basic Law."

The Hong Kong police later wrote to the Journalists' Association, criticizing it for "rumor-mongering" and for publishing "unverified and inaccurate reports and comments" that misled the public.

Harassed and shoved

Independent journalist Lam Yin-bong said a reporter with the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper had been shoved and verbally abused by police as he filmed the prosecutor in the Stand News case at the Wanchai District Court, and said the incident could be connected to the recent monitoring of court reporters.

"The incident involving the reporter being followed and monitored happened about four days after that scuffle between the [Ming Pao] reporter and police," Lam said. "All of the reporters who said they were followed and surveilled had all been reporting on the Stand News case at Wanchai District Court."

He said he didn't believe the Hong Kong Journalists' Association was dealing in rumors, but rather raising reasonable concerns with the police.

"Those people had earpieces on, and didn't respond when asked who they were," Lam said. "Some journalists also saw them presenting their documents to the court, which made people suspect that they were some kind of police or law enforcement."

"If the police have discovered that these people aren't police officers, they should come out and say so," he said.

Lam said there are now few freedoms left for Hong Kong journalists, who had focused on national security trials and protest-related cases as a relatively safe way to cover the ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition.

"There is huge psychological pressure on journalists right now, with many suspecting that they're being followed," he said. "The hardest thing to deal with is that you never know who these people are."

Hong Kong Free Press founder and editor-in-chief Tom Grundy vowed to pursue those following its journalists through every legal channel open to it.

"If you try this nonsense, HKFP will use every bureaucratic & legal avenue possible to follow-up, relentlessly," he said via his Twitter account.

"We'll film it, make police complaints, publish stories, enlist NGOs & our lawyers, & reserve the right not to blur faces. Every single time," Grundy wrote.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gao Feng for RFA Mandarin and RFA Cantonese.

Shortly after midnight on Monday, March 28, unidentified people fired 20 to 25 bullets from a vehicle as they passed Top Channel’s office in the capital city of Tirana, according to media reports, a report by the outlet, and Top Channel editor-in-chief Altin Krekas, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

The attack killed Pal Kola, a security guard stationed outside the office. Police opened an investigation and later that day found an abandoned Range Rover that had been set on fire about 25 miles from the scene of the attack, according to those reports.

“Albanian authorities must conduct a swift and thorough investigation into the recent attack on Top Channel and ensure that those responsible for killing a security guard at the outlet’s headquarters are brought to justice,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Authorities must treat this incident as high priority and transparently investigate whether the attack was connected to the broadcaster’s reporting.”

In a statement, Top Channel called the incident an “unprecedented terrorist act” that was “carried out to damage and attack the mission of free media and the power of free speech.”

“We constantly report on different issues and for the moment we are not able to make any connection with a specific reporting,” Krekas told CPJ, adding that the outlet had “not received any specific threats before the attack.”

In February, three men threatened and attacked a three-person crew for Top Channel‘s investigative TV show Fiks Fare as they were documenting illegal mining.

CPJ emailed the Albanian national police for comment but did not immediately receive any response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

On the evening of March 17, in the capital city of Dhaka, four unidentified men beat Mahinur Khan with iron rods and kicked him while accusing his brother of writing “about the PM [prime minister]” and “against the government,” according to Al-Jazeera and Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who spoke to CPJ by phone. The men took a video of the attack before leaving the scene, Zulkarnain Saer Khan said.

Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who lives in exile in the United Kingdom where he works as a researcher with Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera’s investigative unit, recently published investigative reports on alleged corruption by government officials with the ruling Awami League party, and the country’s expanding surveillance apparatus.

“The attack on the brother of Bangladeshi journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan is the latest case of the family of journalists in exile being targeted back home,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Bangladesh has built a reputation in this heinous form of transnational vengeance. Authorities must ensure the perpetrators of this attack are held accountable and that the Khan family can live safely.”

Mahinur Khan was hospitalized and sustained a torn ligament in his leg, broken kneecaps, and significant swelling and bruising throughout his body, according to his brother and that Al-Jazeera report.

Locals informed the Khan family that the attackers were supporters of Humayoun Rashid Jony, a Dhaka official and member of the Awami League, Zulkarnain Saer Khan said.

Mahinur Khan’s wife filed a complaint at the Dhaka Mirpur Model Police Station on March 17. The investigating officer in the case, Sub-Inspector Shahin Alam, visited the family’s home to inquire about the attack and said that police were unable to identify any suspects, Zulkarnain Saer Khan told CPJ, adding that no suspects have been apprehended as of March 24.

CPJ contacted Alam via messaging app for comment but did not receive any response. CPJ also emailed Jony and contacted him via messaging app, but he did not reply.

Zulkarnain Saer Khan has contributed to Al-Jazeera, the investigative news website Netra News, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, according to CPJ’s review of his work.

Bangladesh law enforcement have submitted multiple requests to Twitter to remove tweets from Khan’s account, where he frequently posts political news and commentary, including one in November 2022 that alleged Bangladesh government officials had submitted malicious reports to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, resulting in multiple temporary restrictions on the journalist’s Facebook page.

CPJ called and messaged Dhaka police spokesperson Roy Niyati and emailed Prime Minister Hasina’s office and the Awami League for comment, but did not receive any replies.

CPJ has previously documented retaliation against the family members of foreign-based Bangladeshi journalists, including the September 2022 arrests of the brothers of U.K.-based Shamsul Alam Liton and Abdur Rab Bhuttow and the October 2021 arrest of the sister of U.S.-based Kanak Sarwar. Those journalists’ siblings have been released on bail, the journalists told CPJ via messaging app.

[Editors’ note: This article has been changed in its third paragraph to correctly characterize Khan’s employment.]

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

“The recent abduction of Cameroonian journalist Martinez Zogo is deeply concerning, and authorities must do everything in their power to find him at once,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities must take this case very seriously given Zogo’s recent investigative reporting, and ensure that those responsible for his disappearance are brought to justice.”

At about 8 p.m. on Tuesday, January 17, unidentified men abducted Zogo, editor-in-chief of the privately owned radio broadcaster Amplitude FM, near his home in the capital city of Yaoundé, according to those reports and Aristide Ekambi, the secretary-general of the National Union of Cameroonian Journalists, who spoke to CPJ by phone. Zogo’s car was found ransacked and abandoned, according to those sources.

Neighbors had seen unidentified men outside Zogo’s home several nights before his abduction, and the brakes on the journalist’s wife’s vehicle were recently tampered with, according to those reports, which said she was in an accident two days before her husband’s disappearance.

Zogo hosts a popular daily show on Amplitude FM, where he recently commented on alleged embezzlement in public-sector procurement that benefitted a prominent businessman. He also sent a dossier to several institutions and media outlets about those allegations, according to those sources.

Zogo served a two-month prison sentence for criminal defamation in 2020, as CPJ documented at the time.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

A source in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon told RFA Burmese that around 40 men in seven trucks pulled up to the home of former National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw on Bo Aung Kyaw Street in Kyauktada township at around 12:30 p.m. and began hurling projectiles at the building.

“They were throwing stones and tomatoes and attacking with slingshots, at the same time cursing and swearing,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, but identified themselves as a neighbor of the lawmaker whose party was deposed by the military in a coup last year.

“They seemed to be mostly supporters of the military. They were very mean – even threatening the lives of the elderly.”

Witnesses said that the men drove away when security forces arrived at the scene, but vowed to return.

Phyo Zeya Thaw’s mother, Khin Win May, confirmed to The Irrawaddy online journal on Wednesday that the family home had been attacked.

A video circulating on a pro-military channel of the social media platform Telegram appeared to show several men standing outside the entrance to the building, throwing rocks and admonishing Khin Win May for expressing how proud she is of her son, which she did in an interview with RFA on Monday after learning of his execution.

A description posted along with the video read, “people who do not want terrorism gathered to protest in front of the house of Phyo Zeya Thaw’s parents, who said they are proud of their son – a terrorist leader involved in the violent killing of many people.”

State media announced the execution of Phyo Zeya Thaw, former student leader Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, and activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, on Monday without reporting the date and method of killings. It is believed the men, who were convicted of “terrorism” against the military regime and the people of Myanmar, were hanged on Saturday in Yangon’s Insein Prison.

The act drew widespread condemnation from Western governments, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), international rights groups and Myanmar-based democracy activists, as well as the Southeast Asian nation’s shadow National Unity Government and the People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that are fighting the junta on the NUG’s behalf.

Ko Jimmy’s home targeted

A group of unidentified men also attacked the home of Ko Jimmy’s parents in Yangon’s Insein township on Wednesday, according to a witness, who declined to be named citing security concerns.

The witness said that more than two dozen men armed with sticks and swords arrived at the house at around 1 p.m. in two vans and five pickup trucks and began pelting it with stones.

“Those who attacked Ko Jimmy's house came with swords hidden in their umbrellas, about thirty people,” they said.

“When residents came out [to investigate], they left the neighborhood.”

Another video posted to the same pro-military channel on Telegram appeared to show a group of men standing outside of Ko Jimmy’s parents’ home, cursing the former student leader as a “traitor” and threatening the lives of his family members.

RFA was unable to independently confirm which organizations the two groups of attackers are associated with or how they were able to obtain the home addresses of the late democracy activists and their family members.

Despite the blowback over the weekend’s executions, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a press conference held in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday that the consequences of the punishments had “already been considered,” but the decision was taken to “mete out justice for those who died at their hands.”

“The crimes they committed deserved several more death sentences than the ones committed by those on the death row,” he said at the time, adding that authorities decided to proceed with the punishment “for the sake of innocent people and their relatives.”

According to Thai NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, authorities have killed at least 2,131 civilians and arrested nearly 14,900 since the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

On the morning of April 29, Danilovich failed to return home from her work at a medical center in the village of Vladyslavivka, in Russian-occupied Crimea, according to her father, Bronislav Danilovich, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview, and a report by the Ukrainian human rights organization Zmina.

At about 10 a.m., six men arrived at the home Danilovich shares with her parents in Vladyslavivka, searched it and confiscated the family’s laptops and phones, and told her parents that she had been placed under detention for 10 days for allegedly sending information to a foreign country, according to those sources.

Bronislav Danilovich said the men did not identify themselves, drove unmarked cars, and refused his request to show any court documents authorizing the search or his daughter’s detention. He told CPJ on May 2 that he had received no updates on her daughter’s status, and had no idea where she was.

“Iryna Danilovich’s alarming disappearance prompts fears of yet another clampdown on independent reporting in Russian-occupied Crimea, which is already an extremely restrictive environment for the press,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities in Crimea must immediately come forward with any information regarding Danilovich’s whereabouts, and let the media work freely.”

Danilovich’s family filed a report to the Crimean prosecutor’s office about her disappearance, Zmina head Tetiana Pechonchyk told CPJ via email. Bronislav Danilovich said the police came to their home on May 2 to investigate his daughter’s disappearance, and did not provide any new information.

Danilovich works at the medical center in Vladyslavivka and also contributes to the local news websites InZhir Media and Crimean Process, according to Pechonchyk.

She contributed articles covering local news to InZhir Media under the pseudonym “Pavel Buranov,” according to Andrii Zubariev, director of the human rights organization Human Rights House Crimea, who is familiar with her work and communicated with CPJ via messaging app.

CPJ was unable to find any articles attributed to “Pavel Buranov” published on InZhir Media after February 1, 2022, and was unable to find any articles attributed to Danilovich at Crimean Process.

Bronislav Danilovich told CPJ that his daughter’s detention may be linked to her posting information on social media about Russian troop movements in Crimea. CPJ was unable to find examples of such posts on Danilovich’s accounts.

In her most recent post on her personal Facebook account, on March 5, Danilovich reposted information about Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta’s decision to suspend its publication. Previously, on February 25, she reposted information from the Ukrainian armed forces about Russian losses during the invasion. CPJ reviewed screenshots of those Facebook posts; her account has since been set to private.

Danilovich also ran a Facebook discussion group for medical workers in Crimea, according to Pechonchyk.

Bronislav Danilovich told CPJ that he does not know much about her daughter’s journalistic activities, adding, “but I know that she is a journalist.”

“At home, we discuss the fact that she is regularly engaged in journalistic activities,” he said.

CPJ called the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Crimea for comment, but the call did not connect.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

At about 9 a.m. on March 2, a man approached Woja, an editor and news anchor with the independent broadcaster Eye Radio, near the outlet’s office in Juba, the capital, greeted him by name, and then pulled out a pistol and ordered him to get into a waiting Toyota Harrier, according to a report by Eye Radio and Woja, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Woja complied and entered the vehicle, which held three other men, including one more with a pistol. The group blindfolded him, held him all day, interrogated him about his work, and accused him of supporting a rebel group operating in the southern Equatoria region and supporting a coalition of activists who have called for the resignation of South Sudan’s president, he said.

That night, the men drove Woja to a forested area in the outskirts of Juba, where he said he believed they planned to kill him, but a gunfight erupted between his captors and unidentified attackers, and he escaped on foot.

“South Sudanese journalist Emmanuel Woja is lucky to have survived a traumatic kidnapping which seems to have been retaliation for his work and critical opinions,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should conduct a credible investigation into this abduction and ensure that all the perpetrators are held to account. South Sudan’s government needs to deliver justice for Woja and send a strong message that authorities prioritize the safety of journalists.”

Woja told CPJ that he could not identify any of his captors. He said they first drove him around for about 40 minutes, and then switched him to another vehicle that drove while playing a siren. Woja’s captors moved him to two different buildings, and in the latter interrogated him without the blindfold. 

During that interrogation, a man told Woja that he had collected extensive information about him, including on his personal life and work. That man accused Woja of working at an anti-government media outlet, saying that Woja was one of three “stubborn” journalists at the station.

The man also accused Woja of supporting the National Salvation Front, an armed group fighting the South Sudanese government in the Equatoria region, supporting the Peoples’ Coalition for Civil Action, a group of activists that has called for the resignation of President Salva Kiir, and writing opinions that were against the government on social media, without citing specific posts.

Woja told CPJ he denied supporting any rebels and said that he had a right to express his opinions on social media. Partway through the interrogation, the man forced Woja to drink an unidentified substance that Woja said smelled of alcohol. Woja said he then became disoriented, and that the interrogator continued to level the same accusations against him. Woja said he was not sure how he responded after ingesting the liquid.

He told CPJ that the men held him in that room until the evening, when they drove him to the forested area on the Juba outskirts.

“That walk into the bush—I think these people wanted to kill me,” he said. “I really thought they would kill me.”

The men made him walk for several minutes while wearing the blindfold, and then he heard gunshots and heard his abductors return fire at someone. He told CPJ that he believed his captors ran for cover and, in the confusion, he was left by himself and was able to run away.

After fleeing, Woja realized he was in was Rajaf West, about nine miles outside of Juba; he walked back into the city and filed a complaint at a police station in Juba’s Lologo area, he said.

He told CPJ that he stayed at a local hospital overnight, where doctors told him that they could not immediately identify the substance he had ingested. In a Facebook post on March 10, Woja said that further tests indicated that he had suffered damage to his stomach and esophagus due to ingestion of methanol, a toxic alcohol.

Eye Radio is an independent media outlet that has previously attracted the ire of authorities; in 2016, authorities forced the station to cease broadcasting, as CPJ reported at the time. Last month, an Eye Radio reporter was among a group of eight journalists briefly detained by intelligence officers in Juba.

CPJ’s review of Woja’s social media pages showed that most of his recent posts were personal, not journalistic. On Facebook, where he has about 1,300 followers, he published his personal opinions on the state’s alleged failure to stem crime, corruption, and violence in parts of the country, and the government’s handling of a 2018 peace agreement.

On Twitter, where he has 523 followers, Woja published posts that called for the disbandment of South Sudan’s statutory media regulator, the Media Authority,  and criticized its response to the recent arrests of journalists. In January, the journalist’s tweets included criticism of governance in South Sudan, calling it the “most corrupt country in the world.”

When CPJ contacted South Sudan police spokesperson Daniel Justine for comment via messaging app on March 9, he said he was traveling and referred CPJ to his deputy, James Dak. CPJ called Dak on March 9 and 10 for comment, but the calls either did not connect or rung without an answer. CPJ missed a call from Dak on March 10, and he did not answer subsequent calls on March 11 or respond to a text message requesting comment.

In a phone call with CPJ, Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth said he was not aware of Woja’s case, and referred CPJ to the Media Authority for comment. CPJ called Media Authority Managing Director Elijah Alier, but he declined to comment, saying he was not familiar with CPJ and he could not speak to “strangers.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.