13 Journalists Killed in different parts of the world in 2002
CPJ Media Award Winning Journalists Bangladesh: TIPU SULTAN
For Tipu Sultan, an award-winning free-lance reporter from Bangladesh, writing the truth almost cost him his life.
On January 25, 2001, Sultan was abducted and savagely beaten by about 15 thugs wielding baseball bats, hockey sticks, and iron rods after producing an article accusing a local legislator of criminal activity. Joynal Hazari, the politician identified in the wire report, ordered his private army to smash the young journalist's legs and hands so that he would never be able to write again.
The gang did as they were told and especially targeted Sultan's right hand—his writing hand. Although his assailants left him for dead on the side of the road, Sultan, now age 30, miraculously survived.
The assault was apparently prompted by a story Sultan had filed on January 17 for the independent wire service United News of Bangladesh that implicated Hazari in an arson attack on a school in the southern district of Feni. The politician was known as "the Godfather of Feni" for his brutal rule of the area. Sultan had written other articles about Hazari, but this was the first that named him directly.
Although Hazari has denied involvement in the attack, evidence of his complicity has been well documented in the local media. Authorities have made no effort to prosecute Sultan's assailants. Journalists in Bangladesh continue to be frequent targets of violence because such crimes go unpunished. Each year, dozens of journalists are physically assaulted for their work.
Local journalists, outraged by the viciousness of the attack, have aggressively pursued Sultan's story, naming those responsible and holding the government accountable for its failure to prosecute his assailants. They also organized a campaign to help raise money for Sultan's medical expenses. Those funds, along with a grant secured by CPJ from the New York-based Correspondents Fund, which provides emergency relief to journalists, helped pay for a lengthy series of operations and extensive physical therapy in Thailand.
Last year, when he was still confined to a hospital bed, Sultan told CPJ, "I want to go back to my profession. I want to write true things." Today, Tipu Sultan has returned to Bangladesh to continue working as a reporter and contributes regularly to the daily Prothom Alo, one of Bangladesh's leading newspapers.
Kazakhstan: IRINA PETRUSHOVA
Fearless journalism runs in Irina Petrushova's family. A generation ago, her father, Albert Petrushov, a reporter for Pravda, wrote exposés that brought down the corrupt Communist Party boss of Kazakhstan, then a republic in the Soviet Union. Now Irina, 36, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the weekly Respublika, routinely challenges post-Soviet Kazakhstan's autocratic president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Founded two years ago to cover business and economic issues, Petrushova's paper has hammered Nazarbayev's regime for cronyism and corruption. Respublika's exposés have ranged from financial scandals—favoritism in the awarding of highly lucrative oil rights—to petty nepotism—the official commandeering of a jet loaded with tourists so that Nazarbayev's daughter could fly alone.
Then there were the persistent rumors about secret government accounts in Swiss banks, a story pursued by Respublika and others until April, when it was publicly revealed that Nazarbayev had quietly stashed US$1 billion of state oil revenues in a Swiss account. As that story grew into a national scandal, Petrushova suddenly found herself the target of an intense, sometimes grisly, campaign of intimidation. This last spring, a funeral wreath was anonymously delivered to Petrushova; a decapitated dog's corpse was found hanging from a window grate at Respublika (A screwdriver plunged into the torso held the message, "There will be no next time."); the dog's severed head was left near her house with another threat; and Respublika's printer announced he was quitting after finding a human skull on his doorstep.
"It's just like it was in the time of the Soviet Union," laments Petrushova.
Three days after the dog incident, Respublika's office was firebombed and burned to the ground. Petrushova and her staff moved and kept publishing. She hired a bodyguard for her two young sons. But harassment continued; several journalists have been beaten in Kazakhstan this year, papers have been forced out of business, and Petrushova faced relentless bureaucratic pressures from the government, including a suspended jail sentence handed down in July for her conviction on alleged business violations. In September, Petrushova reluctantly relocated to Moscow but continues to edit her Almaty-based newspaper long-distance.
In 1992, Petrushova's father was severely injured in a car accident, and a manuscript of his investigative work was stolen while he was unconscious. Neither her father's fate nor the current intimidations aimed at her have deterred Petrushova. "If we don't publish, who will?" she says. "We are the only ones left now. The people have no other source of [independent] information."
Colombia: IGNACIO GÓMEZ
Colombia is a country of terrible secrets, none of which are safe from Ignacio Gómez. In almost two decades as an investigative reporter, Gómez has exposed alliances between drug lords and politicians, foreign mercenaries operating in Colombia, corrupt soccer teams, and the role of the Colombian military and paramilitary forces in many notorious massacres.
The 40-year-old Gómez, known to his friends as Nacho, got his start in journalism in 1986 as a reporter for the venerable Bogotá daily El Espectador. He remembers how honored he felt to meet the newspaper's editor, Guillermo Cano. A few weeks later, Cano, who had crusaded against drug trafficking in Colombia, was killed on the orders of drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The Cano murder deeply affected Gómez and inspired the twin passions of his career: Uncovering the truth regardless of the consequences and working to defend the rights of Colombian journalists confronting threats and danger. According to CPJ's records, 29 Colombian journalists have been killed during the last decade, making Colombia one of the world's most dangerous countries to practice journalism. In 1996, Gómez helped establish a Colombian press freedom organization, La Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP), and served as its executive director until 2001.
Gómez himself has been forced into exile twice—once in 1989 and again in 2000 after he published a report linking paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño to a 1997 massacre in the village of Mapiripán. A few months after that story was published, Gómez was nearly abducted while he was entering a taxi in Bogotá. The next day, Gómez's colleague Jineth Bedoya was kidnapped and brutalized by men who told her they planned to cut Gómez into tiny pieces.
Gómez spent a year in exile as a Neiman fellow at Harvard University and returned to Colombia last year to take on a new assignment as director of investigations for a public affairs television show called "Noticias Uno." He quickly found himself in hot water after reporting on links between then-presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe Vélez and the Medellín drug cartel. After the report aired, Gómez, news director Daniel Coronell, and Coronell's 3-year-old daughter received numerous death threats. An angry Uribe railed that "a free press is one thing, and a press at the service of ... shady deals is something else."
In a country that has become increasingly inured to death, Gómez says he has fought hard not to succumb to cynicism. In 1989, after covering 36 separate massacres and viewing countless cadavers, Gómez was so distraught that the newspaper asked him to take some time off. "I had to learn to recover my sense of outrage," he recalls. "It's something I can never afford to lose."
Fearless journalism runs in Irina Petrushova's family. A generation ago, her father, Albert Petrushov, a reporter for Pravda, wrote exposés that brought down the corrupt Communist Party boss of Kazakhstan, then a republic in the Soviet Union. Now Irina, 36, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the weekly Respublika, routinely challenges post-Soviet Kazakhstan's autocratic president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Founded two years ago to cover business and economic issues, Petrushova's paper has hammered Nazarbayev's regime for cronyism and corruption. Respublika's exposés have ranged from financial scandals—favoritism in the awarding of highly lucrative oil rights—to petty nepotism—the official commandeering of a jet loaded with tourists so that Nazarbayev's daughter could fly alone.
Then there were the persistent rumors about secret government accounts in Swiss banks, a story pursued by Respublika and others until April, when it was publicly revealed that Nazarbayev had quietly stashed US$1 billion of state oil revenues in a Swiss account. As that story grew into a national scandal, Petrushova suddenly found herself the target of an intense, sometimes grisly, campaign of intimidation. This last spring, a funeral wreath was anonymously delivered to Petrushova; a decapitated dog's corpse was found hanging from a window grate at Respublika (A screwdriver plunged into the torso held the message, "There will be no next time."); the dog's severed head was left near her house with another threat; and Respublika's printer announced he was quitting after finding a human skull on his doorstep.
"It's just like it was in the time of the Soviet Union," laments Petrushova.
Three days after the dog incident, Respublika's office was firebombed and burned to the ground. Petrushova and her staff moved and kept publishing. She hired a bodyguard for her two young sons. But harassment continued; several journalists have been beaten in Kazakhstan this year, papers have been forced out of business, and Petrushova faced relentless bureaucratic pressures from the government, including a suspended jail sentence handed down in July for her conviction on alleged business violations. In September, Petrushova reluctantly relocated to Moscow but continues to edit her Almaty-based newspaper long-distance.
In 1992, Petrushova's father was severely injured in a car accident, and a manuscript of his investigative work was stolen while he was unconscious. Neither her father's fate nor the current intimidations aimed at her have deterred Petrushova.
"If we don't publish, who will?" she says. "We are the only ones left now. The people have no other source of [independent] information."
Eritrea: FESSHAYE YOHANNES
Languishing in prison since the fall of 2001, prominent Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes staged a hunger strike in May with nine other colleagues in hopes of spurring their release. Instead, government officials transferred the journalists to an undisclosed location—and no one has heard from them since.
Fesshaye (who is also known as Joshua) is a popular writer, reporter, playwright, and founding editor of the Eritrean weekly newspaper Setit. The 47-year-old was imprisoned without charges in September 2001, along with the majority of Eritrea's independent press corps, during President Isaias Afewerki's widespread crackdown on political dissent. According to CPJ research, at least 18 journalists, including Fesshaye, are in prison in Eritrea today.
Prior to the crackdown Setit and other private media had provided a forum for debate on the president's increasingly autocratic rule. An open letter published in Setit on September 9, 2001, told the government that, "People can tolerate hunger and other problems for a long time, but they can't tolerate the absence of good administration and justice."
Nine days later, with world attention distracted by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, authorities in this tiny nation on the Horn of Africa moved swiftly to silence critics, and the government suspended all of Eritrea's independent and privately owned newspapers for allegedly threatening state security and "jeopardizing national unity." With the press out of business, the government canceled general elections.
As a teenager, Fesshaye fought for Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia. His military experience gave him connections to many of those in power today in Eritrea, and in 1994, he used those connections to help establish the beginnings of the country's first independent media.
Fesshaye's paper, Setit, became the largest-circulation newspaper in the country, covering social problems including poverty, prostitution, and Eritrea's lack of facilities to care for handicapped war veterans.
But criticism from the independent press increasingly angered the government. In May 2001, knowing that Eritrea's free press was far from secure, Fesshaye asked CPJ to help him create a journalists' union to improve press freedom conditions.
After the independent press was banned last September, Fesshaye's initial instinct was to go into hiding. But, refusing to abandon his colleagues, he eventually surrendered to authorities.
CPJ TO PRESENT 12TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS FREEDOM AWARDS
Committee to posthumously honor Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
New York, October 22, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will present its 2002 International Press Freedom Awards to four journalists—from Colombia, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, and Eritrea—who have reported fearlessly on government malfeasance. They have survived brutal physical attack, endured death threats, defied criminal charges, and suffered imprisonment, all in reprisal for their work.
The 12th Annual International Press Freedom Awards will be presented at a dinner ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City on Tuesday, November 26. Thomas H. Glocer, chief executive of Reuters Group PLC, will chair the black-tie dinner, which NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw will host. Other speakers at the awards ceremony include Mike Wallace of CBS News' "60 Minutes," Paul Steiger of The Wall Street Journal, Paula Zahn of CNN, and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Josh Friedman.
2002 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardees:
Ignacio Gómez is one of Colombia's leading investigative journalists and press freedom activists. He has untangled a complex web of violent conspiracies despite routinely receiving death threats and narrowly escaping a kidnapping attempt. [For more information about Ignacio Gómez, click here.]
Tipu Sultan is an award-winning free-lance reporter from Bangladesh. He was savagely beaten with iron bars and hockey sticks and left for dead after writing an article last year about a corrupt politician. Sultan miraculously survived the attack and, after extensive rehabilitation, is working again as a reporter. [For more information about Tipu Sultan, click here.]
Irina Petrushova is founder and editor-in-chief of the business weekly Respublika in Kazakhstan. Petrushova's paper exposes government corruption, while she has endured grisly death threats, criminal charges, and Molotov cocktails that burned Respublika's office to the ground. [For more information about Irina Petrushova, click here.]
Fesshaye Yohannes is a writer and co-founder of Setit, a popular Eritrean newspaper. He was imprisoned last September with nine other journalists after authorities banned all of Eritrea's independent newspapers for "jeopardizing national unity." He is being held incommunicado without charges.
Burton Benjamin Memorial Award:
CPJ will also honor Daniel Pearl (1963-2002), South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, with the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award. The Burton Benjamin Memorial Award, given for a lifetime of distinguished achievement for the cause of press freedom, honors the late CBS News senior producer and former CPJ chairman, who died in 1988. By giving this award to Pearl, CPJ is recognizing his courage, talent, and intelligence as a reporter.
Pearl had been South Asia bureau chief for almost two years when he was kidnapped and murdered while working on a story in Karachi, Pakistan, early this year. Pearl was 38 years old.
Throughout his career, Pearl was known as an enterprising and tenacious reporter with an eye for detail and a quick wit. A graduate of Stanford University, he worked for several small regional newspapers before joining the Wall Street Journal in 1990, where he made his reputation by writing the quirky feature stories that appear on the newspaper's front page. He reported as a foreign correspondent from London, Paris, and Bombay.
Pearl's wife, Mariane Pearl, will accept the award in his honor.
"Now more than ever, journalists around the world face personal danger as they try to report the truth," said David Laventhol, chairman of CPJ's board of directors. "CPJ is pleased to recognize these journalist heroes. They set an example for all of us."
Ann Cooper, CPJ executive director, said of the awardees, "Through their reporting, all of these journalists have exposed corrupt and lawless officials. By holding those in power accountable, these journalists often pay a high personal price for their work."
13 Journalists Killed in different parts of the world in 2002
CPJ's research indicates that the following individuals were killed in 2002 because of their work as journalists. They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with a news organization. See also our list of pending investigations into suspicious deaths, called Killed: Motive Unconfirmed.
CONFIRMED BANGLADESH: 1
Harunur Rashid, Dainik Purbanchal, March 2, 2002, Khulna
Rashid, a reporter for the Bengali-language newspaper Dainik Purbanchal, was ambushed by gunmen while he was riding his motorcycle to work in the southwestern city of Khulna, according to Bangladeshi and international news reports. Dainik Purbanchal, which is published in Khulna, is a well-regarded regional daily.
Three unidentified young men brought Rashid to a hospital, told doctors he had been injured in a car accident, and then disappeared. A doctor at the hospital told the Dhaka-based newspaper The Independent that Rashid suffered a fatal bullet wound to his chest.
Rashid, who is also known as Rashid Khukon, was a crime reporter who had written several stories on official corruption and links between criminal syndicates and outlawed Maoist guerrilla groups, including the Purbo Bangla Communist Party (PBCP). Rashid's relatives told reporters that he was on a PBCP hit list. Though the PBCP issued a statement denying responsibility for Rashid's murder, some colleagues said a splinter faction of this group may be behind the killing.
The reporter had received anonymous death threats throughout his career and, for the last year, had been provided police protection. However, he did not always travel with security guards.
Local journalists believe Rashid was killed for his reporting. Amiya Kanti Pal, a former colleague, told Reuters that, "Rashid was a brave reporter. We suspect that the criminals he wrote about might be behind his murder." The Criminal Investigation Department, a federal law enforcement body, is investigating the case.
BRAZIL: 1
Tim Lopes, TV Globo, Vila Cruzeiro, June 3, 2002
Lopes, an award-winning investigative reporter with TV Globo, was brutally murdered by drug traffickers. He had disappeared several days earlier while working on assignment in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro in a favela, an impoverished community that sits on the outskirts of the city.
On June 2, the 50-year-old Lopes traveled to Vila Cruzeiro. His driver met him at the favela around 8 p.m., but the journalist told the driver that he needed more time to finish his work. They agreed to meet again at 10 p.m., but Lopes never arrived. This was Lopes' fourth visit to Vila Cruzeiro, and this time, he was carrying a hidden camera.
According to TV Globo, Lopes was working on a report about parties hosted by drug traffickers in Vila Cruzeiro that allegedly involved drugs and the sexual exploitations of minors. The inhabitants of the favela had told Lopes that they were powerless against drug traffickers and had complained about the lack of police action.
On June 3, TV Globo reported Lopes' disappearance to the police.
According to the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police, two suspects, both members of a gang headed by local drug trafficker Elias Pereira da Silva, a leading suspect in Lopes' disappearance, were arrested on the morning of June 9. Both men claimed that they heard how Lopes was murdered but denied any involvement in his killing.
According to the suspects' depositions, details of which the police released and the Brazilian press published, drug traffickers close to Pereira da Silva kidnapped Lopes in Favela Vila Cruzeiro at around midnight on June 2. After Lopes told them he was a TV Globo reporter, the traffickers called Pereira da Silva, who was in a nearby favela.
They tied Lopes' hands, forced him into a car, and took him to the favela where Pereira da Silva was staying. There, they beat the reporters and shot him in the feet to keep him from escaping. Then they held a mock trial and sentenced Lopes to death.
Pereira da Silva killed Lopes with a sword, and his body was burned and buried in a clandestine cemetery, said the suspects.
On June 12, police found badly decomposed human remains, along with Lopes' camera and watch, in an clandestine cemetery in Favela da Grota. After DNA tests, the police confirmed on July 5 that the remains belonged to Lopes. Two days later, they were officially buried.
Lopes received Brazil's most important journalism award in December 2001 for a TV Globo report on drug trafficking. The report, titled "Drug Fair" and broadcast in August 2001, was filmed with a hidden camera and showed how traffickers sold drugs in a makeshift open drug market in a favela outside Rio de Janeiro. Reporter Cristina Guimarães, who co-produced the report with Lopes and two other colleagues, received death threats in September 2001 and had to leave Rio de Janeiro State, according to the daily O Estado de S. Paulo. The daily Jornal do Brasil reported that Lopes had also received threats for the report.
On June 10, CPJ sent a letter to Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso urging him to do everything in his power to ensure that those who planned and carried out the murder are brought to justice.
COLOMBIA: 2
Efraín Varela Noriega, Radio Meridiano-70, Arauca, June 28, 2002
Varela, the owner of Radio Meridiano-70, was shot and killed in northeastern department of Arauca. Varela, who had recently alerted the public to the presence of paramilitary fighters in the region, was driving home from a university graduation in Arauca Department on the afternoon of June 28 when gunmen yanked him from his car and shot him in the face and chest, said Col. Jorge Caro, acting commander of Arauca's police.
Varela hosted two polemical news and opinion programs for the station in the town of Arauca and criticized all sides fighting in Colombia's 38-year civil conflict.
"He criticized everyone," said José Gutiérrez, who co-hosted an afternoon program called "Let's Talk Politics" with Varela. "No one was spared."
Gutiérrez said that less than a week before the killing, Varela told listeners during his morning news show that fighters from the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, had arrived in Arauca and were patrolling the streets in the town, which is on the border with Venezuela.
Tension has been building in the oil-rich province since early June when the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, began threatening to kill civil servants in the region who refused to resign.
The rebels are battling the paramilitary army for control over lucrative territory not only in Arauca but throughout the country.
Three years ago, Varela's name appeared on a list of people that the paramilitary army had declared military targets, said Caro, the acting police commander, adding that authorities were investigating rumors that the AUC was responsible for the killing. A frequent listener of the station, Caro said Varela seemed to reserve his sharpest criticism for the paramilitaries.
Officials from Arauca's Prosecutor's Office investigating the case could not be reached for comment on July 1, which was a holiday in Colombia.
Varela, who was in his early 50s, was also the secretary of a provincial peace commission as well as its former president, said Evelyn Varela, his 28-year-old daughter, and the manager of the station.
In recent months, Varela had begun warning his only child that his life could be in danger. "He had us prepared for the worst," his daughter said.
CPJ published an alert about the murder on July 1.Héctor Sandoval, RCN Televisión, outside of Cali, April 11, 2002
Sandoval, a cameraman with RCN Televisión, was shot while covering fighting between the Colombian army and leftist rebels and died early the next day.
Wálter López, who was driving Sandoval and his crew, was shot and killed during the firefight, said Rocío Arias, executive producer of RCN Televisión news.
The journalists came under fire on April 11 around 1:45 p.m. in a mountainous region outside the southwestern city of Cali where the army was pursuing fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The rebels had just kidnapped 13 provincial lawmakers and four aides and were apparently seeking refuge when the army launched an operation to free the captives.
The crew had decided to turn back when an army helicopter hovering above opened fire on their vehicle, said Juan Bautista Díaz, a free-lance photographer working for Semana newsmagazine. The letters "RCN" were marked in large, bright colors on the roof and both sides of the vehicle, according to both Arias and Bautista.
A bullet pierced the roof and tore through López's arm and into his body. According to Bautista, he appeared to have died instantly, but they were trying to apply a tourniquet when the army helicopter resumed fire. They were forced to flee for cover in a nearby ravine, said Bautista.
The journalists then tried to signal the helicopter for help by waving white T-shirts in the air. Fifteen minutes after López was shot, a bullet from the helicopter ripped through Sandoval's left leg, said Bautista.
Continued fighting forced Bautista, Sandoval, and RCN correspondent Luz Estela Arroyave to hide in the ravine for about two hours. Journalists from a local newspaper who had also come to cover the combat later took them to a local hospital.
The army has opened an investigation into the killings, said an army spokesman in Bogotá, the capital, who asked to remain anonymous.
The FARC later freed one of the lawmakers and four aides. Two soldiers have been killed during the ongoing rescue operation. The fighting came amid Colombia's 38-year civil conflict, which sets two main guerrilla armies against a right-wing paramilitary group and the government.
NEPAL: 1
Nava Raj Sharma, Kadam, June 1, 2002, Kalikot
Sharma, editor of the Nepali-language weekly Kadam, was kidnapped by Maoist rebels on June 1 and later killed, according to a team of journalists and human rights activists organized by the government's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The NHRC visited Kalikot District, where Sharma lived, as part of an August mission to Nepal's remote Midwestern region. The group learned of his murder from local residents and police.
Nepal's Maoist rebels, who have been fighting a guerrilla war since 1996 to overthrow the country's constitutional monarchy, control portions of the country, including much of Kalikot and neighboring districts.
Maoist fighters kidnapped Sharma from the village of Syuna, in Kalikot, according to members of the NHRC team. The national English-language newspaper The Kathmandu Post reported that police recovered Sharma's badly mutilated body from the area in mid-August. Rebels had gouged out his eyes, cut his hands and legs, and shot him in the chest, police told the NHRC team.
Sharma, who lived in the village of Sipkhana, which is adjacent to Syuna, was known as an independent journalist. He had been working at Kadam since 1998 and was formerly the editor of the local newspaper Karnali Sandesh, according to the Kathmandu-based Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES). A representative from CEHURDES was part of the NHRC team that visited the area.
Sharma was also a local schoolteacher, but local press sources said it appeared that he was targeted for his journalism. One journalist said Sharma had refused pressure from the rebels to turn Kadam into a Maoist propaganda organ.
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY TERRITORIES: 2
Imad Abu Zahra, free-lancer, Jenin, July 11, 2002
Zahra, a Palestinian free-lance photographer, was killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) gunfire in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
According to sources in the West Bank town of Jenin, residents had gone into the city center on July 11 after Israeli forces lifted a curfew that had been in effect since June 21. Zahra's colleague Said Dahla, a photographer for the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, told CPJ that at around 2 p.m., the sound of tanks coming toward the area led residents to flee or take cover inside nearby businesses or residences.Dahla and Zahra went into the middle of Faisal Street to photograph an Israeli armored personnel carrier (APC) that had slammed into an electricity pole there. Dahla said that he and Zahra were alone in the street at this point, facing two Israeli tanks (near the APC) that he estimated to be about 40 meters (44 yards) in front of them.
Both men were holding cameras, and Dahla wore a flak jacket clearly marked "Press."
According to Dahla, moments after the two began taking photographs, a hail of gunfire erupted from the tanks. Dahla, who was hit in the leg with shrapnel, said that he looked over and saw that Zahra had been injured in his thigh and was bleeding profusely.
Dahla said that as they tried to take shelter in a nearby building, the tanks continued to fire on them. Dahla told CPJ that the two journalists remained in the building entrance, unable to get to a hospital. He estimates that more than 25 minutes passed before Zahra was helped into a taxi and taken to Jenin Hospital, where he died on July 12.
According to an Israeli army spokesperson, after the APC hit the electricity pole on the afternoon of July 11, a mob attacked the personnel carrier with Molotov cocktails and rocks, and people in the crowd fired on the tanks. The spokesperson said the soldiers in the tanks responded by firing back at the source of the gunfire.
However, sources in Jenin who were at the city center at the time told CPJ that residents did not attack the tanks until after the two journalists were shot. The sources also said that residents pelted the tanks only with pieces of fruit, and not with rocks and Molotov cocktails.
In addition, photos of the stranded APC taken by Dahla before the shooting show no signs of clashes or hostile action near the carrier. Moreover, there were no other reports of people injured by gunfire in Jenin that day.
On July 25, CPJ sent a letter to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to protest the murder and the subsequent failure to investigate the incident and safeguard journalists who cover the West Bank and Gaza.Raffaele Ciriello, free-lancer, March 13, 2002, Ramallah
Ciriello, an Italian free-lance photographer who was on assignment for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, was killed by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to press reports and eyewitness testimony. Ciriello was the first foreign journalist killed while covering the current Palestinian uprising, which began in September 2000. The photographer died after being hit by a burst of machine gun fire from the direction of an Israeli tank in Ramallah during Israel's military offensive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Amedeo Ricucci of the Italian television station Rai Uno told CPJ that he and his cameraman were accompanying Ciriello at the time of the incident. They were trailing a group of Palestinian gunmen who were some 200 yards in front of the journalists. Ricucci said the area was quiet and was located roughly 500 yards to a half-mile from a nearby refugee camp where fighting between Israelis and Palestinians was taking place.
The three journalists were standing inside a building off an alleyway, Ricucci said. Shortly afterward, a tank emerged at one end of the street some 150 to 200 yards away, he said. Ciriello left the building and pointed his camera at the tank. He then came under fire without warning. Ciriello was shot six times and died of his wounds soon afterward. There was at least one Palestinian gunman in Ciriello's vicinity at the time of the shooting, according to press reports. The Italian government has demanded a full investigation into the attack, according to the AP.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman was unable to provide details about the circumstances of the shooting and claimed to have no information about the presence of journalists in Ramallah, which the IDF said was a closed military area.The IDF added that journalists who entered the area were "endangering" themselves and claimed that it was not clear whether Ciriello's death was caused by Israeli or Palestinian gunfire.
Palestinian doctors said Israeli forces fired the rounds, according to press reports. Ricucci told CPJ that Ciriello's camera was in the hands of Italian authorities. The images it contained could help determine the source of the firing and the circumstances of the incident.
PAKISTAN: 1
Daniel Pearl, The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2002, Pakistan
U.S. government officials confirmed on February 21 that Pearl, kidnapped South Asia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, had been killed by his captors. The exact date of his murder was not known, but officials announced his death after receiving a graphic, three-and-a-half-minute digital videotape that contains many horrifying images, including a scene in which one of the killers slits Pearl's throat and another in which someone holds his severed head. The faces of the assailants are not visible on the video, according to news reports.
Pearl, 38, went missing on January 23 in the port city of Karachi and was last seen on his way to an interview at the Village Restaurant. Four days later, a group calling itself "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty" sent an e-mail to several U.S.- and Pakistan-based news organizations claiming responsibility for kidnapping Pearl. The e-mail also contained four photos of the journalist, including one in which he is held at gunpoint and another in which he is holding a copy of the January 24 issue of Pakistan's Dawn newspaper.
The e-mail also protested the conditions of detainees being kept by the U.S. Army in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The sender(s), who used a Hotmail e-mail account under the name "Kidnapperguy," said Pearl was "at present being kept in very inhuman circumstances quite similar infact [sic] to the way that Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the American Army."
Among a series of demands, the e-mail said the U.S. must send all Pakistani detainees in Cuba back to Pakistan and release Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former ambassador to Pakistan from Afghanistan's Taliban militia. An Urdu-language attachment to the e-mail also included an additional demand calling for the U.S. to hand over F-16 fighter jets purchased by Pakistan but never delivered due to sanctions related to Islamabad's nuclear weapons program.
Another e-mail was sent on January 30, also including photographs of Pearl held captive. While the earlier e-mail had accused Pearl of being an American spy, this one branded him as an agent of the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, and said he would be killed within 24 hours unless the group's demands were met.
After scrutinizing the videotape received weeks later, authorities believe that Pearl may have been murdered even before the second e-mail was sent.
In the videotaped footage, Pearl is apparently forced to identify himself as Jewish and to deliver scripted lines reiterating some of the demands made in the e-mails, according to an FBI analysis of the tape that was provided to the Journal.
Though investigations continue and Pearl's body has not been recovered, Pakistani police have arrested several suspects—including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born Islamic militant who police say organized Pearl's kidnapping.
On March 14, a U.S. grand jury indicted Saeed, charging him with hostage taking and conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in the murder of Daniel Pearl. Saeed "methodically set a death trap for Daniel Pearl, lured him into it with lies, and savagely ended his life," said U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft while announcing the indictment, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Trenton, New Jersey, near the headquarters of The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. prosecutors also unsealed a secret indictment filed against Saeed in November 2001 accusing him of participating in the 1994 kidnapping of U.S. tourist Bela J. Nuss in India.
PHILIPPINES: 1
Edgar Damalerio, Zamboanga Scribe and DXKP Radio, Pagadian City, May 13, 2002
Damalerio, managing editor of the weekly newspaper Zamboanga Scribe and a commentator on DXKP radio station in Pagadian City on the island of Mindanao, was shot and killed at about 8:00 p.m.
A gunman shot Damalerio in his jeep as he was driving home from a press conference in Pagadian City. He was killed by a single bullet wound to his left torso.
Two witnesses riding in Damalerio's jeep said the gunman, who was on a motorcycle driven by an unidentified male, was waiting alongside the road as Damalerio approached. The assailants fled the scene.
CPJ believes that Damalerio, known for his critiques of corruption among local politicians and the police, was killed for his journalistic work.
On May 16, police arrested Ronie Quilme as a suspect in the shooting. However, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) publicly cast doubt on the arrest, saying the police witness who identified Quilme was too far from the scene of the crime to be able to accurately spot the murderer, according to local press reports.
After conducting a separate investigation, on May 17 the NBI detained Pagadian City police officer Guillermo Wapili, who had been identified in a police lineup by another witness. Damalerio had frequently criticized Wapili's superior officer in his reports, according to the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.
On the day of Damalerio's shooting, his wife sent him a text message alerting him that she had noticed two men "casing the house," according to a report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer by Hernan dela Cruz, publisher of the Zamboanga Scribe.
A few hours before Damalerio was shot, an employee of the Zamboanga Scribe also reported receiving a number of mysterious anonymous calls. On May 14, the day after the journalist's death, an unidentified male made threatening phone calls to the newspaper offices implying that the staff was in danger, according to dela Cruz's report.
Damalerio's murder was only the latest in a string of killings that have been committed since democracy was restored in the Philippines in 1986. Thirty-eight journalists have been killed during the last 16 years, and none of the perpetrators has ever been convicted.
Journalists are especially vulnerable on the strife-torn island of Mindanao, where separatist Muslim guerrilla groups are battling the Philippine army.
On May 15, CPJ wrote a letter to President Gloria Arroyo urging her to ensure that Damalerio's killers are brought to justice in a timely manner, and that her administration makes public any findings from the investigation.
RUSSIA: 1
Valery Ivanov, Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye, Togliatti, April 29, 2002
Ivanov, editor of the newspaper Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye in the southern Russian city of Togliatti, was shot dead outside his home at approximately 11 p.m. Ivanov, 32, was shot eight times in the head at point-blank range while entering his car, a colleague at the newspaper told CPJ.
Eyewitnesses saw a 25- to 30-year-old man walk up to Ivanov's car and shoot him, according to local press reports and CPJ sources. The killer then fled the scene on foot. Local police have opened a criminal investigation and are considering several possible motives, though the possibility that he was murdered in retaliation for his writing remains the prime theory.
Ivanov's colleagues believe the killing was connected to his work. Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye is well known for its reports on local organized crime, drug trafficking, and official corruption. Ivanov also served as a deputy in the local Legislative Assembly.
Roddy Scott, Frontline, September 26, 2002, Galashki Region, Ingushetia
Roddy Scott, 31, a British free-lance cameraman working for Britain's Frontline television news agency, was killed in the Russian republic of Ingushetia. Russian soldiers found his body in Ingushetia's Galashki Region, near the border with Chechnya, following clashes between Russian forces and a group of Chechen fighters. Scott had accompanied the Chechens as they crossed from Georgia into Russia, United Press International reported.
UGANDA: 1
Jimmy Higenyi, United Media Consultants and Trainers, January 12, 2002, Kampala
Higenyi, a student at the United Media Consultants and Trainers, was covering a rally in Kampala organized by the Uganda Peoples Congress, an opposition party. He had been assigned the story as part of his journalism course work.
The government had banned the gathering under article 269 of the constitution, which outlaws all political activity in the country. A few moments after a large group of people gathered at the rally's venue, the police fired into the crowd, hitting Higenyi. He died instantly. The Inspector General of Police, Maj. Gen. Katumba Wamala, apologized for Higenyi's death and said that the police took full responsibility.
VENEZUELA: 1
Jorge Tortoza, 2001, Caracas, April 11, 2002
Tortoza, 48, a photographer for the Caracas daily 2001, was shot on the afternoon of April 11 while covering violent clashes between opposition demonstrators and government supporters in the capital, Caracas. He died later that same evening. The journalist, who was carrying his camera and wearing a vest identifying him as a member of the press, was standing on a corner near Caracas City Hall when he was shot in the head around 4 p.m. He was then taken to José María Vargas Hospital and died around 6 p.m.
The clashes came on the third day of a nationwide strike leading to a short-lived coup that ousted President Hugo Chávez Frías on April 11. He returned to power on April 14.
Several videos made public the following week did not show conclusively where the shots that killed the journalist came from, or who fired them, according to local press reports. One video released by the Caracas Metropolitan Police revealed that five gunmen were on the roof of the City Hall. None of the gunmen were in uniform, although two of them had on bulletproof vests. Other videos taken by amateur cameramen show more unidentified gunmen in adjacent buildings. Eyewitness accounts and videos implicate both the Venezuelan National Guard and the Caracas Metropolitan Police in the shooting.
Eurídice Ledezma, a Venezuelan journalist and political analyst, told CPJ that Tortoza was shot by a gunman she saw firing from the roof of City Hall. Tortoza, a veteran photographer, had worked for 2001 since 1991. On April 25, about 300 reporters, photographers, and cameramen from both the private and state media held a march to pay homage to Tortoza. The journalists, who held posters with his picture, demanded that those responsible for his death be punished, and that journalists be allowed to do their job without fear of reprisal.
During the events of April 11, at least 15 people were killed and dozens were wounded, including four journalists.
MOTIVE UNCONFIRMED
BANGLADESH: 1Harunur Rashid, Dainik Purbanchal, March 2, 2002, Khulna
Rashid, a reporter for the daily newspaper Dainik Purbanchal, was ambushed by gunmen while he was riding his motorcycle to work in the southwestern city of Khulna, according to Bangladeshi and international news reports. Three unidentified young men brought Rashid to a hospital, told doctors he had been injured in a car accident, and then disappeared. A doctor at the hospital told The Independent (a Dhaka-based newspaper) that Rashid suffered a fatal bullet wound to his chest.
Rashid, who is also known as Rashid Khukon, was an investigative reporter who had written several stories on official corruption and links between criminal syndicates and outlawed Maoist guerrilla groups, including the Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP), according to the Dhaka-based Daily Star. Rashid's relatives told reporters that he was on a PBCP hit list. He had also received anonymous death threats throughout his career.
Local journalists believe Rashid was killed for his reporting. Amiya Kanti Pal, a former colleague, told Reuters that, "Rashid was a brave reporter. We suspect that the criminals he wrote about might be behind his murder."
On March 3, police announced that they had arrested three suspects in the case, including Nuruzzaman Sohel, an activist with the PBCP, according to the Daily Star.
COLOMBIA: 4
Marco Antonio Ayala Cárdenas, El Caleño, January 23, 2002, Cali
Ayala, a photographer for El Caleño newspaper, was shot and killed by two assassins on a motorcycle as he was leaving a photo developing shop near the newspaper, authorities said. Ayala, 43, died instantly after being shot six times in the head. He had worked at the newspaper in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, for four years.
Even though Cali police captain Mónica Quiroz said there was no known motive for the attack, an El Caleño editor said Ayala might have been killed because of a photo published last December. The editor, Luis Fernando García, reported that Ayala had taken a photo at the annual Cali Fair that inadvertently showed a locally known criminal figure with his mistress. Details on the man were not immediately available.
Following the publication of the photograph on December 23, the man's wife allegedly called Ayala requesting a copy. Ayala was leaving the developing shop with the photograph when he was gunned down, according to García.
A spokesman for the Judicial Police in Cali said the killing was under investigation. Ayala was married with two children.
Juan Carlos Gómez, La Voz de Aguachica (The Voice of Aguachica), northern Colombia, April 1, 2002
The body of Juan Carlos Gómez, an intern at a radio station in northern Colombia, was found floating in the Magdalena River on April 3. Authorities said he had been beaten to death. Gómez, 23, began working as an intern at La Voz de Aguachica (The Voice of Aguachica) six weeks before he was killed. He helped operate equipment on an evening music program called "Romantic Nights," said station director Freddy Alfonso Carvajalino.
Two unidentified men abducted Gómez and a friend, Óscar Guerrero, from Guerrero's home on the night of April 1. They were then forced into a car, said Aguachica police captain Freddy Piñeros. The following day, Gómez's father, Luis Alejandro Gómez, received an anonymous call saying that his son had been killed and thrown into a nearby river. Luis Alejandro Gómez, who helped secure the internship for his son, has worked as a journalist and announcer at the station for about 25 years.
Juan Carlos Gómez's body was found the following day less than 30 minutes from Aguachica, about 248 miles (400 kilometers) north of the capital, Bogotá. He had been stripped and his hands were tied. Guerrero's body, which had also been badly beaten, was found in the river nearby on April 5, said Piñeros.
On April 6, Colombia's leading newspaper, El Tiempo, reported that Juan Carlos Gómez might have been killed for reading a message on the air from Liberal Party presidential candidate and former interior minister Horacio Serpa.According to the article, a right-wing paramilitary group in Cesar Department has threatened to kill anyone who campaigns for candidates other than independent front-runner Álvaro Uribe Vélez. (The first round of voting for presidential elections is scheduled for May 26, 2002.)
However, both Carvajalino and Luis Alejandro Gómez rejected the El Tiempo article and denied that Juan Carlos Gómez—who rarely if ever spoke on air—read a note from Serpa. "He was neither a journalist nor an announcer," said Carvajalino. "His death had nothing to do with journalism." Luis Alejandro Gómez said he was not sure why his son was killed, but he blamed the paramilitaries, who are said to control much of the region.
Authorities are still investigating the murder, according to Piñeros, who said that four other young men have been killed in Aguachica in the previous three months, apparently by the paramilitaries.
The outlawed paramilitary armies, known collectively as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), are currently waging a vicious war against leftist rebels and those suspected of sympathizing with them.
Esaú Jaramillo Montaña, Caracol Radio, January 19, 2002, Bogotá
Jaramillo, a sports broadcaster for Caracol Radio in the capital, Bogotá, was found stabbed to death in his apartment, authorities said. There is no known motive for the slaying, said Carolina Sánchez, press chief for the Attorney General's Office.
Jaramillo was stabbed once in the abdomen and twice in the head. Neighbors told authorities that two men, both drunk, visited the journalist in his apartment the night before his body was found.
Jaramillo, 55, had been a sports broadcaster since 1964 and founded a magazine about basketball called Bajo la cesta (Beneath the Basket).
Orlando Sierra Hernández, La Patria, February 1, 2002, Manizales
Sierra, a deputy editor and columnist for La Patria newspaper in Manizales, a town in Colombia's coffee-growing region, was shot in the head while walking to work on January 30. At least one of the bullets struck him in the head. He died on February 1.
Sierra, 42, wrote a Sunday column for the 80-year-old daily newspaper in which he frequently highlighted government corruption and human rights abuses committed by leftist guerrillas, a rival right-wing paramilitary army, and state security forces, according to sources at the paper.
Authorities arrested two men in connection with the shooting, but no motives have been disclosed, said Carolina Sánchez, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office.
The men were moved from Manizales to the capital, Bogotá. Their identities were not known, and it was not clear if they belonged to any of the country's guerrilla or paramilitary groups.
There had been no known threats against Sierra, who began working at the newspaper as a reporter 16 years ago. Violence committed by armed groups in the region has been escalating in recent years, according to local sources.
Dozens of students, journalists, and local residents marched through the streets of Manizales to protest the shooting of the popular columnist hours before he died.
INDIA: 1
Paritosh Pandey, Jansetta Express, Lucknow, April 14, 2002
Pandey, a crime reporter for the Hindi-language daily Jansatta Express, was shot dead at point-blank range at around 10:30 p.m. in his home in the residential neighborhood of Gomtinagar, in Lucknow, according to police. At least six shots were fired at Pandey's head and chest, and he apparently died instantly.Ghanshyam Pankaj, editor of the Jansatta Express, told CPJ that because Pandey was reporting regularly on the activities of criminal gangs, it is likely that he was targeted because of his professional work. However, he was uncertain about which articles might have prompted the assassination.
Local journalists complained that Gomtinagar police were slow to respond to news of Pandey's murder. Dozens of journalists staged an angry demonstration in the early morning hours of April 15, carrying Pandey's body to Raj Bhawan, Governor Shastri's official residence. During this demonstration, a security official hit Manish Srivastava, a reporter with the newspaper Dainik Jagran, with a rifle butt, causing serious injuries.
On April 25, CPJ sent a letter of inquiry to Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri asking to be kept informed of any progress in the investigation into Pandey's murder. CPJ also requested the findings of an official inquiry launched to determine whether Gomtinagar police responded adequately to the murder, and also to investigate abuses committed by security officers during the journalists' demonstration at Raj Bhawan.
MEXICO: 2
Julio Samuel Morales Ferrón, El Sol de México, February 1, 2002, Mexico City
Morales, 79, a columnist with the Mexico City daily El Sol de México, was stabbed to death at around 4 p.m., according to local investigators.
The journalist, best known by his pen name "Severo Mirón" (Tough Onlooker), was gagged had stabbed several times in the chest and neck. Morales' assistant found his body in his Mexico City office at around 5 p.m. Evidence at the scene indicated that a struggle had occurred, but the police are unsure whether one or several attackers were involved.
Morales' relatives told El Sol de México that they did not know of any threat against him, and that he appeared to have no enemies.
Bernardo Bátiz, head of Mexico City's Prosecutor's Office, told the daily Reforma that robbery was not a likely motive because nothing was taken from the journalist's office. Though Bátiz ruled out a political motivation for the murder, he declined to speculate about other possible motives, claiming that the police did not yet have enough information. A preliminary inquiry has been opened.
According to El Sol de México, Morales had been a columnist for the paper's noon edition since 1977. He also worked as a radio host. In the 1980s, he hosted a television program called "Cuéntame un libro" (Tell me a book), on which he reviewed books. In addition, he had been a journalism professor and a songwriter. His columns mostly chronicled the culture, traditions, history, and life of Mexico City's people, particularly its poorest inhabitants.
El Sol de México's director, Sergio Venegas Alarcón, told CPJ that other than a January 4 column where Morales talked about violence and crime in Mexico City, his articles did not touch on controversial issues and did not refer to any person or group directly. Félix Alonso Fernández García, Nueva Opción, January 18, 2002, Miguel Alemán
Fernández, director of the small weekly magazine Nueva Opción, was shot and killed by unidentified assailants in the border town of Miguel Alemán, in the northern state of Tamaulipas. The journalist, escorted by two bodyguards, was hit with at least two bullets fired with a machine gun from a moving car at around 10:50 p.m. as he was leaving a local restaurant.
The bodyguards, who were taken into police custody, told authorities that Fernández had hired them after receiving death threats for his articles, according to the Monterrey daily El Norte.
Fernández was a former editor of the Miguel Alemán daily El Heraldo, owned by the city's former mayor Raúl Antonio Rodríguez Barrera, whose term ended on December 31, 2001. The journalist had only been working for Nueva Opción, which is owned by his father, since January 1, according to the Tijuana weekly Zeta.
On January 21, the Reynosa-based human rights organization Centro de Estudios Fronterizos y de Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (Cefprodhac) issued a communiqué blaming widespread violence, police corruption, and impunity for Fernández's death. According to Cefprodhac, the latest issues of Nueva Opción had reported on former mayor Rodríguez's alleged links to drug traffickers based in the border city of Matamoros.
The organization also said that Fernández had reported on alleged ties between Jorge Luis Martínez Cantú, a National Action Party politician, and local criminal organizations.
In addition, Cefprodhac stated that in April 2001, the journalist had testified as a witness for the Federal Organized Crime Unit (UEDO) in connection with a UEDO raid on the house of major drug trafficker Gilberto García Mena, where pictures and documents showing close ties between former mayor Rodríguez and García were allegedly found.
Although no formal charges have been brought against Rodríguez, Tamaulipas authorities are investigating him, according to El Norte.
The former mayor maintains that he had a cordial relationship with Fernández and that they did not have any personal disagreements.
Francisco Cayuela Villarreal, the head of the State Prosecutor's Office, told the Mexico City daily Reforma that his agency is following several leads but insisted that he could not elaborate on them for security reasons. Cayuela, however, has suggested that the journalist, who had 1.2 ounces of cocaine on him at the time of his death, was killed in a drug deal gone bad.Because drug trafficking is a federal crime in Mexico, the case was transferred to the Federal Prosecutor's Office on January 25. No suspect has been detained.
MOROCCO: 1
José Luis Percebal, Cadena Cope, February 12, 2002, Rabat
Percebal was found dead in his home in the Moroccan capital, Rabat. Percebal, a veteran Morocco correspondent for the independent Spanish radio station Cadena Cope, had been stabbed in the back, apparently the day before.
Sources at Cadena Cope told CPJ there was no sign of forced entry at Percebal's home, but that his cell phone was missing from the crime scene. Officials have not yet established a motive for the murder. The 47-year-old Percebal had been a correspondent in Morocco since the early 1990s.
PHILIPPINES: 1
Sonny Alcantara, "Quo Vadis San Pablo" and Kokus, San Pablo, August 22, 2002
Alcantara, a newspaper publisher and cable TV commentator, was shot dead in the city of San Pablo, south of Manila.
A lone gunman shot the journalist in the forehead as he was riding a motorcycle near his home, police investigators told CPJ. Investigators said they believe that at least one accomplice informed the gunman by cell phone of Alcantara's departure from his home at about 10 a.m.
Investigators told CPJ that they know the identity of the suspected assailant and have circulated a sketch of him. He is believed to be a hired killer.
Police said they believe it is likely that Alcantara, 51, was killed because of his work as a journalist. "He was a very vocal commentator," San Pablo police chief Ernesto Cuizon told CPJ. "We can't discount that he was killed because of his journalism."
Cuizon refused to speculate on who might have ordered the killing.
San Pablo journalists told CPJ that Alcantara had recently broken a story on his cable TV program, "Quo Vadis San Pablo," implicating a local politician in a land swindle. Alcantara was also the publisher of Kokus, a weekly newspaper that covered politics and community affairs.
RUSSIA: 4
Sergei Kalinovsky, Moskovsky Komsomolets—Smolensk, Date unknown, Smolensk
The body of 26-year-old Kalinovsky, editor-in-chief of the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets—Smolensk, was found on April 1 by a lake outside the city of Smolensk in central Russia. Kalinovsky, who reported on local politics and crime for the Smolensk edition of the Moscow daily Moskovsky Komsomolets and the local SCS television station, disappeared on the evening of December 14, 2001.
Local police have opened a criminal investigation and are considering several possible motives for the murder, but the journalist's colleagues told CPJ that they believe Kalinovsky was killed for his reporting. In March 2001, Kalinovsky's apartment was damaged by a fire that he suspected was set in retaliation for his work, according to online news service NTVRU.COM. Local investigators, however, ruled out arson as a cause.
Natalya Skryl, Nashe Vremya, March 6, 2002, Taganrog
Skryl, a business reporter working for the Nashe Vremya newspaper in the city of Rostov-on-Don in southwestern Russia, died on March 9 from head injuries sustained during an attack the night before, according to local press reports.
Late on the evening of March 8, Skryl was returning to her home in the town of Taganrog, just outside Rostov-on-Don, when she was attacked from behind and struck in the head some dozen times with a heavy, blunt object.
Neighbors called an ambulance and the police after hearing her scream. Skryl was found unconscious just outside her home and taken to the Taganrog hospital, where she died the following day.
Skryl, 29, reported on local business issues for a newspaper owned by Rostov regional authorities.Just before her death, the journalist was investigating an ongoing struggle for the control of Tagmet, a local metallurgical plant. Nashe Vremya editor-in-chief Vera Yuzhanskaya believes that Skryl's death was related to her professional activities, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
The Taganrog Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into the case and is currently interviewing Skryl's colleagues and reviewing her notebooks, audio recordings, and computer diskettes. Because Skryl was carrying jewelry and a large sum of cash that were not taken, investigators have ruled out robbery as a motive.-- Committee to Protect Journalists
