Gunman angry at Maryland newspaper kills five in targeted attack

Law enforcement officials survey the scene after a gunman fired through a glass door at the Capital Gazette newspaper and sprayed the newsroom with gunfire, killing at least five people and injuring several others, in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Warren Strobel

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (Reuters) – A man who had a long-running feud with an Annapolis newspaper blasted his way through its newsroom with a shotgun on Thursday, killing at least five people in one of the deadliest attacks recorded on a U.S. media outlet, authorities said.

The suspect fired through a glass door, looked for victims and then sprayed the newsroom of the Capital Gazette newspaper group in Annapolis with gunfire, police and a witness said.

Acting police chief of the Anne Arundel County Police Department William Krampf told a news conference that Capital Gazette assistant editor Rob Hiaasen, 59, was among the victims.

Wendi Winters, 65, Rebecca Smith, 34, Gerald Fischman, 61, and John McNamara were also killed, he said. Smith was a sales assistant and the others were journalists.

“This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette,” Krampf said. “This person was prepared to shoot people. His intent was to cause harm.”

The suspect is Jarrod Ramos, 38, of Laurel, the Capital Gazette and Baltimore Sun reported, citing law enforcement.

Anne Arundel County police said on Twitter that due to investigative reasons, they have not released the name of the suspect in custody, adding that as of Thursday evening, the suspect has not been booked.

Jarrod Ramos, suspected of killing five people at the offices of the Capital Gazette newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., June 28, 2018 is seen in this 2013 Anne Arundel Police Department booking photo obtained from social media. Social media via REUTERS

Jarrod Ramos, suspected of killing five people at the offices of the Capital Gazette newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., June 28, 2018 is seen in this 2013 Anne Arundel Police Department booking photo obtained from social media. Social media via REUTERS

In 2012, Ramos brought a defamation lawsuit against Eric Hartley, formerly a staff writer and columnist with publication The Capital, and Thomas Marquardt, then editor and publisher of The Capital, according to a court filing.

In 2015, Maryland’s second-highest court upheld a ruling in favor of the Capital Gazette and a former reporter who were accused by Ramos of defamation.

According to a legal document, the article contended that Ramos had harassed a woman on Facebook and that he had pleaded guilty to criminal harassment. The court agreed that the contents of the article were accurate and based on public records, the document showed.

Ramos said on Twitter that he had set up an account to defend himself, and wrote in his bio that he was suing people in Anne Arundel County and “making corpses of corrupt careers and corporate entities.”

‘A WAR ZONE’

Phil Davis, a Capital Gazette crime reporter, said he was hiding under his desk along with other newspaper employees when the shooter stopped firing, the Capital Gazette reported on its website.

The newsroom looked “like a war zone,” he told the Baltimore Sun, adding, “I don’t know why he stopped.”

“As much as I’m going to try to articulate how traumatizing it is to be hiding under your desk, you don’t know until you’re there and you feel helpless,” Davis said.

Police officers in the Maryland capital of Annapolis responded within a minute to a 911 call about a shooting in progress and apprehended the suspect who was hiding under a desk, authorities said.

Police are treating the shooting as a local incident, with no links to terrorism, a law enforcement source told Reuters. Krampf did not say why the gunman may have targeted the newspaper or its employees.

Special tactical police gather after a gunman opened fire at the Capital Gazette newspaper, killing at least five people and injuring several others in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Special tactical police gather after a gunman opened fire at the Capital Gazette newspaper, killing at least five people and injuring several others in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

When police found the suspect, his weapon was on the ground and “not in his immediate proximity,” Steve Schuh, Anne Arundel county executive, told cable news station CNN.

Police said they recovered what they thought might have been an explosive device but Krampf later said the suspect had smoke grenades. Investigators were in the process of securing his Maryland residence and obtaining search warrants, he said.

The suspect appeared to have damaged his fingertips to try to avoid detection and was refusing to cooperate with law enforcement, Baltimore TV station WJZ and other local media reported. Krampf did not comment on those reports.

Capital Gazette runs multiple newspapers out of its Annapolis office and the group includes one of the oldest newspapers in the United States, The Gazette, which traces its origins back to 1727.

The company, part of the Tronc Inc <TRNC.O> media group, publishes newspapers in and around Annapolis, home of the U.S. Naval Academy. The papers have thrived by focusing on local news in the shadows of two much larger competitors, the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun.

‘WE’RE PUTTING OUT A PAPER’

Law enforcement in Baltimore and New York City deployed extra officers to the offices of the New York Times and other major media outlets as a precaution, authorities said.

The shooting drew the attention of media groups, including Reporters Without Borders, which said it was deeply disturbed by the events in Annapolis.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said that U.S. President Donald Trump had been briefed on the shooting.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene,” Trump said in a tweet.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Twitter, “A violent attack on innocent journalists doing their job is an attack on every American.”

Jimmy DeButts, an editor at the Capital Gazette, tweeted that he was devastated, heartbroken and numb.

“I’m in no position to speak, just know @capgaznews reporters & editors give all they have every day. There are no 40 hour weeks, no big paydays – just a passion for telling stories from our community,” he wrote.

One of the group’s flagship papers, The Capital, plans to publish a Friday edition, several reporters with the group said. “I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow,” reporter Chase Cook wrote on Twitter a few hours after the shooting.

(Reporting by Warren Strobel; additional reporting by Mark Hosenball and Jeff Mason in Washington, Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina, Diana Kruzman, Tea Kvetenadze, Frank McGurty and Peter Szekely in New York, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Richard Chang, Grant McCool, Toni Reinhold)

Foreign media start marathon journey to North Korea nuclear test site

By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – International journalists left on a marathon journey to a North Korean nuclear test site on Wednesday, after Pyongyang belatedly cleared a number of South Korean media to witness what it says will be the dismantling of its only nuclear test facility.

Travel will involve an 11-hour train ride, a four-hour bus journey and then a hike of another hour, a reporter with Russia’s RT said on Twitter.

North Korea has suspended talks with the South and threatened to pull out of an upcoming summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, but the invitation to media was seen as an indication that its unexpected offer to end its nuclear tests still held.

North Korea invited international media to observe the destruction with explosives of the Punggye-ri site, but not experts as initially promised, casting doubt over how verifiable the plan is and whether it will be safe.

It had also declined to take the South Korean reporters after calling off planned inter-Korean talks in protest against U.S.-South Korean “Max Thunder” air combat drills. North Korea has always justified its nuclear program as a deterrent against perceived U.S. hostility.

Reporters from news outlets from the other countries said on Twitter they arrived in the North Korean port city of Wonsan on Tuesday. The eight South Koreans arrived in Wonsan on Wednesday, where they were forced to leave their radiation detectors, satellite phones and Bluetooth mouses before they all set off for the test site, according to South Korean media pool reports.

North Korea had announced it would use explosives to close test tunnels, expected on Thursday or Friday.

Seoul’s unification ministry welcomed Pyongyang’s decision to accept the South Koreans.

“We hope for an early realization of complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula through a North Korea-U.S. summit and dialogue of various levels, starting with the abolition of the nuclear test site,” ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun told a news briefing.

SUMMIT IN DOUBT

North Korea’s last-minute acceptance of South Korean reporters came amid concerns that Kim was starting to back away from his promise to scrap the nuclear program, which it has pursued in defiance of years of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

International journalists left on a marathon journey to a North Korean nuclear test site on Wednesday, after Pyongyang belatedly cleared a number of South Korean media to witness what it says will be the dismantling of its only nuclear test facility.

International journalists left on a marathon journey to a North Korean nuclear test site on Wednesday, after Pyongyang belatedly cleared a number of South Korean media to witness what it says will be the dismantling of its only nuclear test facility.

The North has threatened to pull out of the summit with Trump in Singapore on June 12 if Washington demands it unilaterally abandons its nuclear arsenal. It has also criticized the Max Thunder drills.

Trump said on Tuesday there was a “substantial chance” the summit would not take place.

China said that both the United States and North Korea were still making preparations for the summit and Beijing hoped both sides can “clear away distractions.”

“We really hope that all sides, especially the United States and North Korea, can seize the opportunity, meet each other halfway, and resolve in a balanced way each other’s concerns,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing.

“We still look forward to the meeting between the U.S. and North Korean leaders proceeding smoothly and achieving positive results.”

Lu said China had played a positive role on the Korean peninsula, after Trump reiterated his suggestion that Kim’s recent meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping had influenced Kim to harden his stance ahead of the summit.

Seoul is seeking to mediate between the United States and North Korea, with South Korean President Moon Jae-in visiting Washington on Tuesday to urge Trump to seize the rare opportunity to meet Kim.

High-level intra-Korea talks will likely resume after Friday, once Max Thunder finishes, Moon’s media secretary Yoon Young-chan said.

A senior South Korean official told reporters on condition of anonymity: “Given the North’s thinking and statements alike, we would be able to turn around the mood after the Max Thunder drills from the current standoff and restart dialogue.”

North Korea has rejected unilateral disarmament and given no indication that it is willing to go beyond statements of broad support for the concept of universal denuclearisation.

It has said in previous, failed talks that it could consider giving up its arsenal if the United States provided security guarantees by removing its troops from South Korea and withdrew its so-called nuclear umbrella of deterrence from South Korea and Japan.

The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

(Additional reporting by Joori Roh and Josh Smith in SEOUL, and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Witnessing blast in Kabul: ‘You can still see the smoke in the pictures’

fghan security forces are seen at the site of a second blast in Kabul, Afghanistan April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – The pictures show journalists killed in the second of two explosions that rocked Kabul during the morning rush hour. They were taken by Reuters photographer Omar Sobhani, 10 or 15 seconds after a suicide bomber, apparently targeting members of the media, detonated his explosives.

In one image, a cameraman from Al Jazeera can be seen kneeling wounded against the kerb, while nearby a journalist from Afghanistan’s Radio Azadi is being helped by an old man who was passing by when the blast went off.

Sobhani, who began working for Reuters as a driver and fixer in 2002 and has been a photographer since 2007, was among the journalists who had raced to cover the initial explosion on Monday morning in the Shashdarak area of central Kabul, not far from the U.S. embassy.

“I had been waiting with other journalists to cover an earlier blast. It was a normal scene. It was about 8:30 in the morning, there were security forces guarding the site of the first blast and quite a few people going to work and we were just waiting with other journalists,” he says.

“Then we heard a huge bang just behind me. I survived because I was standing in front of a concrete pillar that shielded me from the force of the explosion, but I saw all my friends and colleagues on the ground and a lot of them were dead with a few wounded – you can still see the smoke from the explosion in the pictures.”

Afghanistan’s interior ministry said the suicide bomber who detonated the second blast had posed as a media worker, showing a press card to security forces and standing among the gathered journalists before blowing himself up.

Sobhani was slightly wounded, but was able to quickly capture some images of the scene before withdrawing to seek help.

“I was shocked but I could see there was nothing to be done and I shot some pictures immediately before leaving,” he said. “I could feel some pain and there was some shrapnel in my shoulder, which was taken out at the hospital.”

Eight of the journalists were from Afghan outlets: two reporters from the Mashal TV, a cameraman and a reporter working for 1TV, three reporters from Radio Azadi and one from Tolo News, according to the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee.

The French news agency Agence France-Presse said its chief photographer in Afghanistan, Shah Marai, was killed.

For Sobhani and the other journalists at the scene, many of the victims of the attack were people they had worked alongside, covering the bloodshed in Afghanistan, for years.

“The people killed were all innocent people, people just going about their business or journalists just doing their job. They’re showing the truth of what’s happening, it’s not politics, it’s very important so that people can know what’s happening,” he said.

“It’s a challenging job with a lot of problems, you see war and violence all the time, but it’s important to make sure people know. I was very shocked, these were colleagues of mine, and one was a very good friend.”

(Reporting by Omar Sobhani and James Mackenzie; Editing by Alex Richardson)

India drops plan to punish journalists for “fake news” following outcry

FILE PHOTO: Television journalists report from the premises of India's Parliament in New Delhi, India, February 13, 2014. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo

By Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday ordered the withdrawal of rules punishing journalists held responsible for distributing “fake news”, giving no reason for the change, less than 24 hours after the original announcement.

The move followed an outcry by journalists and opposition politicians that the rules represented an attack on the freedom of the press and an effort by Modi’s government to rein in free speech ahead of a general election due by next year.

Late on Monday, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had said the government would cancel its accreditation of journalists who peddled “fake news”.

After Modi’s intervention, the ministry announced the withdrawal in a one-line statement.

Journalists said they welcomed the withdrawal but could not rule out the possibility that it was a “trial balloon” to test the waters for putting more restrictions on the press.

“A government fiat restraining the fourth pillar of our democracy is not the solution,” a statement issued by the Press Club said.

Co-opted by U.S. President Donald Trump, the term “fake news” has quickly become part of the standard repertoire of leaders in authoritarian countries to describe media reports and organisations critical of them.

Welcoming the change of heart, media groups in India nevertheless cautioned the government against changing its mind.

“The government has no mandate to control the press,” Gautam Lahiri, president of the Press Club of India, told journalists.

The events in India followed Malaysia’s approval this week of a law carrying jail terms of up to six years for spreading “fake news”.

Other countries in Southeast Asia, including Singapore and the Philippines, are considering how to tackle “fake news” but human rights activists fear laws against it could be used to stifle free speech.

India slipped three places last year to rank 136 among 180 countries rated in the world press freedom index of the watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

The non-profit body said Hindu nationalists, on the rise since Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power in 2014, were “trying to purge all manifestations of anti-national thought”.

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie)

Kremlin supporters pressure Russian election observers before vote

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the audience during a rally marking the fourth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Crimea, March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Police last month detained David Kankiya, an observer at Russia’s forthcoming presidential election, yards from his home in southern Russia. Police said his car may have been used in a crime, according to Kankiya.

Hours later, Kankiya was charged with disobeying the police, something he denies, and jailed for five days by a court. Weeks later, his car tyres were slashed with a knife, he says, and on Tuesday, pro-Kremlin journalists ambushed him.

“I have information that you have insulted the Russian people,” one of the journalists said, a video of the incident shows.

Days before Sunday’s election, which polls show incumbent Vladimir Putin is on track to win comfortably, Golos, a non-governmental organization that monitors Russian elections, says it is under unprecedented pressure.

Its problems are part of what Kremlin critics say is a wider campaign by authorities to hinder or silence dissenting voices.

Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead in 2015, while current opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been barred from running in Sunday’s election over what he says is a trumped-up fraud conviction.

The Kremlin, which denies involvement in Nemtsov’s murder, wants Putin’s re-election to be viewed as legitimate and largely clean in the West so as not to further damage already poor relations. At home, wary of street protests, the Kremlin is keen that voters see it in the same way.

The Kremlin says complaints about a crackdown on dissent are hollow. Individual cases are a matter for the relevant authorities who it says are only trying to uphold the law.

Equally, the Central Election Commission says it will do everything it can to ensure Sunday’s vote is free of fraud and has turned to Golos for advice on how to do that.

However, opposition leader Navalny, accused by Putin of being Washington’s pick for president, has predicted the authorities will resort to widespread fraud to deliver a Putin landslide and has spoken of organizing post-election protests of the kind that roiled Russia after Putin’s last election victory in 2012.

Golos says the authorities unfairly blamed it for those protests — some of the biggest since the Soviet collapse — because of its work publicizing what it said were serious election violations, something it plans to do again on Sunday.

Kankiya, a Golos coordinator in the Krasnodar Region, says that’s why he was targeted.

“I was detained and charged on a false pretext,” Kankiya, 28, told Reuters by phone. “It’s political pressure.”

A court in Krasnodar disagrees. It rejected his appeal against his arrest and jailing on Wednesday. Police say he was detained after he failed to produce identification during a routine check.

‘FOREIGN AGENT’

Election fraud has been a problem in Russia since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Abuses have often been highlighted by Golos, whose observers spend election day at polling stations and flag suspected cases of fraud to the authorities.

Founded in 2000, the year Putin won his first presidential term, Golos says its problems began when Putin returned to the presidency in 2012.

“After the 2012 election, their task was to destroy Golos,” Grigory Melkonyants, the movement’s co-chairman said in an interview in his Moscow office, referring to the authorities.

A month after the election, the tax inspectors came. And, in July that year, Putin approved a law that forced non-governmental organizations engaging in political activity to register with the justice ministry as “foreign agents.”

Golos lost one of its main donors in 2012 when Moscow accused the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)of trying to influence politics and forced it to leave.

Soon, weighed down by the red tape that came with being designated a “foreign agent” and facing a funding squeeze, Golos was struggling to function. In July 2016, at the behest of the justice ministry, a court ordered Golos to close.

Today, Golos still operates after reconfiguring its structure in such a way that it is not classified as a legal entity.

PRESSURE

A shoe-string operation run out of a pokey Moscow office staffed by about nine volunteers, it says it relies on private donations from inside Russia.

It has coordinators in almost half of Russia’s voting regions, about 6,000 volunteers, and dozens of experts who train people how to observe elections.

Melkonyants says the movement on Sunday plans to field thousands of observers, run a telephone hot line for complaints, and chronicle reports of electoral abuses on a nationwide violations map on its website. It will deliver its verdict on how clean the election was on Monday.

But as election day draws near, pressure on Golos is intensifying.

Its volunteers have complained of being systematically stopped for long periods when leaving or entering the country by border staff who tell them there’s a note by their name that says they are linked to terrorism, Golos says.

REN TV, a Russian TV channel, on Monday broadcast what it billed as a special investigation into Golos and other groups. The program depicted Golos as a shadowy Western-funded group that worked to discredit Russia in the eyes of the world.

Andrei Klimov, a senator who heads up a committee in the upper house of parliament to prevent interference in Russia’s internal affairs, told the program such groups posed a threat.

“They (Golos and other groups) will try to trigger protest,” said Klimov.

And on Thursday, Golos said the landlord of a hall in Moscow it had agreed to rent for a call center on election day had annulled the rental contract after being told by the police to back out of the contract or face problems.

Kankiya, the Golos coordinator in southern Russia, said he would continue his work regardless.

“We’re the only election observation movement in Russia capable of operating on a large scale,” said Kankiya. “Many people don’t like that.”

(Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low)

At least 65 media workers killed doing their jobs in 2017: Reporters Without Borders

At least 65 media workers killed doing their jobs in 2017: Reporters Without Borders

BERLIN (Reuters) – At least 65 media workers around the world have been killed doing their jobs this year, media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders said on Tuesday.

Among the dead were 50 professional journalists, seven citizen journalists and eight other media workers. The five most dangerous countries were Syria, Mexico, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines.

Of those killed, 35 died in regions where armed conflict is ongoing while 30 were killed outside of such areas.

Thirty-nine of those killed were targeted for their journalistic work such as reporting on political corruption or organized crime while the other 26 were killed while working due to shelling and bomb attacks, for example.

“It’s alarming that so many journalists were murdered outside of war zones,” said Katja Gloger, a board member of Reporters Without Borders.

“In far too many countries perpetrators can assume they’ll get off scot-free if they’re violent towards media professionals,” she added.

The organization said more than 300 media workers were currently in prison, with around half of those in five countries, namely Turkey, China, Syria, Iran and Vietnam.

(Reporting by Markus Wacket; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

After one week, Myanmar silent on whereabouts of detained Reuters journalists

After one week, Myanmar silent on whereabouts of detained Reuters journalists

YANGON (Reuters) – Two Reuters journalists completed a week in detention in Myanmar on Tuesday, with no word on where they were being held as authorities proceeded with an investigation into whether they violated the country’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act.

Journalists Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested last Tuesday evening after they were invited to dine with police officers on the outskirts of Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.

“We and their families continue to be denied access to them or to the most basic information about their well-being and whereabouts,” Reuters President and Editor-In-Chief Stephen J. Adler said in a statement calling for their immediate release.

“Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are journalists who perform a crucial role in shedding light on news of global interest, and they are innocent of any wrongdoing.”

The news group Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) on Tuesday cited government spokesman Zaw Htay as saying that the journalists were “being treated well and in good health”.

It gave no further details in its online report.

Reuters was unable to reach Zaw Htay for comment.

Myanmar’s civilian president, Htin Kyaw, a close ally of government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has authorized the police to proceed with a case against the reporters, Zaw Htay said on Sunday.

Approval from the president’s office is needed before court proceedings can begin in cases brought under the Official Secrets Act, which has a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The two journalists had worked on Reuters coverage of a crisis that has seen an estimated 655,000 Rohingya Muslims flee from a fierce military crackdown on militants in the western state of Rakhine.

CRITICISM FROM FAR AND WIDE

A number of governments, including the United States, Canada and Britain, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as well as a host of journalists’ and human rights’ groups, have criticized the arrests as an attack on press freedom and called on Myanmar to release the two men.

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini added her voice on Monday, with her spokeswoman describing the arrests as “a cause of real concern”.

“Freedom of the press and media is the foundation and a cornerstone of any democracy,” the spokeswoman said.

Myanmar has seen rapid growth in independent media since censorship imposed under the former junta was lifted in 2012.

Rights groups were hopeful there would be further gains in press freedoms after Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi came to power last year amid a transition from full military rule that had propelled her from political prisoner to elected leader.

However, advocacy groups say freedom of speech has been eroded since she took office, with many arrests of journalists, restrictions on reporting in Rakhine state and heavy use of state-run media to control the narrative.

BLACK SHIRTS PROTEST

About 20 local reporters belonging to the Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists (PCMJ) posted pictures on Tuesday of themselves wearing black shirts as a sign of protest. They said their act was meant “to signify the dark age of media freedom”.

“By wearing black shirts, all journalists should show unity,” said Tha Lun Zaung Htet, a producer and presenter at DVB Debate TV and a leading member of the PCMJ. “We must fight for press freedom with unity.”

But most journalists in Yangon did not take part in the campaign. Mya Hnin Aye, senior executive editor at the Voice Weekly, said few participated because the arrested journalists work for foreign media, much of whose “reporting on the Rakhine issue is biased”.

Myo Nyunt, deputy director for Myanmar’s Ministry of Information, told Reuters the case against Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had nothing to do with press freedom, and said journalists have “freedom to write and speak”.

The Ministry of Information said last week that the two journalists had “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”, and released a photo of them in handcuffs.

The authorities have not allowed the journalists any contact with their families, a lawyer or Reuters since their arrest.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) called on the authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of the pair.

“All detainees must be allowed prompt access to a lawyer and to family members,” Frederick Rawski, the ICJ’s Asia-Pacific Regional Director, said in a statement on Monday.

“Authorities are bound to respect these rights in line with Myanmar law and the State’s international law obligations.”

On Sunday, spokesman Zaw Htay said the journalists’ legal rights were being respected. “Your reporters are protected by the rule of the law.”

(Reporting by Yimou Lee, Thu Thu Aung, Shoon Naing and Simon Lewis; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Alex Richardson and; Raju Gopalakrishnan)

U.S. says concerned about Myanmar’s silence over where Reuters journalists are being held

U.S. says concerned about Myanmar's silence over where Reuters journalists are being held

YANGON (Reuters) – The U.S. embassy in Myanmar said on Friday it was concerned that there had been no word on the whereabouts of two Reuters journalists three days after they were detained, and that authorities had not allowed their families to visit them.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information said on Wednesday that the reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and two policemen, faced charges under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act, though officials have since disclosed that they have not been charged. The 1923 law carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The journalists had worked on stories about a military crackdown in Rakhine state, which has triggered the flight of more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to southern Bangladesh since the end of August.

“We remain concerned about Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo,” the U.S. embassy said in a statement on its Facebook page. “Their families and others have not been allowed to see them, and don’t even know where they are being held.”

In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s spokesman Motosada Matano, said the Japanese government is closely watching the situation. He said Japan has been conducting a dialogue with the Myanmar government on human rights in Myanmar in general.

Bangladesh, which is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees into its southern tip, condemned the arrests of reporters working for an agency that had shone a light for the world on the strife in Rakhine state.

“We strongly denounce arrests of Reuters journalists and feel that those reporters be free immediately so that they can depict the truth to the world by their reporting,” said Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, information adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that the arrests were a signal that press freedom is shrinking in Myanmar and the international community must do all it can to get them released.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo went missing on Tuesday evening after they had been invited to meet police officials over dinner on the northern outskirts of Yangon.

Gutteres said they were probably detained because they were reporting on the “massive human tragedy” in Rakhine state.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh say their exodus from the mainly Buddhist nation was triggered by a military offensive in response to Rohingya militant attacks on security forces.

The United Nations has branded the military’s campaign “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” of the minority Rohingya.

POLICE HAVE 28 DAYS TO FILE A CASE

The Ministry of Information said the reporters “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”, and released a photo of the pair in handcuffs.

As of Friday evening, Reuters had not been formally contacted by officials about the detention of Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27.

A court official in the northern district of Yangon where they were detained, said that no paperwork had yet been filed relating to either journalist. The official said that usually cases are lodged 20-30 days after an arrest as suspects can be held in custody for up to 28 days without being charged.

Reuters President and Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler has called for the immediate release of the journalists, saying in a statement on Wednesday that the global news organization was “outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom”.

Britain has expressed “grave concerns” to the government of Myanmar over the arrest of the two journalists, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told reporters in London on Thursday.

“We are committed to freedom of speech and people’s ability to report the facts and bring into the public domain what is happening in Rakhine state,” he said.

(Writing by John Chalmers\; Editing by Martin Howell)

U.N. rights team warns Mexico of ‘crisis’ in journalists’ safety

U.N. rights team warns Mexico of 'crisis' in journalists' safety

By Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Monday the Mexican government is struggling to keep journalists safe and prosecute their oppressors, after officials toured regions of the country that are among the most dangerous in the world for reporters.

Mexican federal prosecutors have yet to secure any convictions for crimes against reporters due to ineffective probes and scant resources, said the U.N.’s special rapporteur for freedom of expression, David Kaye, and his counterpart from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Edison Lanza.

They released a preliminary report describing a “profound crisis of safety” after a week-long tour of Mexico City and the violent states of Veracruz, Guerrero, Tamaulipas and Sinaloa, and plan to release detailed recommendations in the spring.

“Past prosecutors didn’t have the same political will to actually get the job done,” said Kaye, expressing cautious hope that current prosecutors will do more to address the problem.

“There’s a bit more attention to getting this done right. I hope what we heard wasn’t just words because we are here,” he added after the two met with 250 reporters on their trip.

A news photographer in the state of San Luis Potosi last October was the 11th journalist murdered so far this year, according to advocacy group Article 19, equaling the death toll in 2016, which was the bloodiest year for journalists on record in Mexico.

Murders are on track to reach a record high this year, as Mexico continues grappling with turf wars between violent drug gangs that have convulsed the country for more than a decade.

In the past 17 years, 111 journalists have been killed in Mexico, 38 of them under the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Kaye said the prosecutor’s office tasked with investigating attacks on reporters, formed in 2006, needs to deter such crimes by committing substantial resources to solving a single high-profile case, or a handful of them.

“Until that happens, there will be very little prevention, and very little ending of this cycle of violence,” Kaye said.

He and Lanza also said Mexico’s government must devote more funding and staff to a journalist protection program launched in 2012, taking measures such as daily monitoring of the situation in states where reporters are most at risk, and helping them to continue to work if they are forced to leave their homes.

“It has an amount of money that’s absurdly insufficient for the emergency that it’s facing,” Lanza said.

(Editing by Dave Graham and Leslie Adler)

North Korea sentences South Korean reporters to death over review of book about country

SEOUL (Reuters) – A North Korean court sentenced two South Korean journalists and their publishers to death for “seriously insulting the dignity” of the country by reviewing and interviewing the British authors of a book about life in the North, its state media said on Thursday.

North Korea has previously issued harshly worded accusations against South Korean entities and individuals for allegedly violating its dignity, by slandering its leadership and its political system.

The book in English titled “North Korea Confidential” was authored by James Pearson, a Seoul-based correspondent for Reuters, and Daniel Tudor, former correspondent in South Korea for the Economist magazine.

The book, based on interviews with North Korean defectors, diplomats and traders, depicts a growing market economy where ordinary North Koreans enjoy access to South Korea music and TV dramas, fashion and smuggled Chinese and American films. Pearson wrote the book, published in 2015, before joining Reuters.

The Korean-language edition, published earlier this month with the title translated as “Capitalist Republic of Korea”, was reviewed by South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo newspapers.

A spokesman for the North’s Central Court said in a statement carried by the country’s official KCNA news agency that the book “viciously slandered the reality of the DPRK”, the initials for North Korea’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The book painted life in the country as increasingly capitalistic where money can buy power and influence, the spokesman said.

The South Korean journalists who reviewed the book “committed a hideous crime of seriously insulting the dignity of the DPRK with the use of dishonest contents” carried by “North Korea Confidential”, the court spokesman said.

The Central Court has ordered the execution of the journalists, Son Hyo-rim of the Dong-A Ilbo and Yang Ji-ho of the Chosun Ilbo, and the publishers of the newspapers. It also demanded the South Korean government investigate their crimes and punish them, the state media said.

The court statement did not make any mention of punishment for the book’s authors.

A Dong-A Ilbo representative said the newspaper declined to comment and its reporter Son did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chosun Ilbo reporter Yang declined to comment while a newspaper representative could not be immediately reached for comment. Tudor, the co-author of the book, declined to comment.

A Reuters spokeswoman declined to comment.

“Dong-A Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo and other conservative media in South Korea have so far committed smear campaign against the DPRK nonstop,” KCNA quoted the court as saying. “The criminals hold no right to appeal and the execution will be carried out any moment and at any place without going through any additional procedures.”

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Soyoung Kim; Editing by Neil Fullick)