Uwazi

A peasant activist was shot to death by still unidentified motorcycle-riding assailants in Antequera town, Bohol around 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

Lorenzo “Dodoy” Paña, 55, a resident of Barangay Bantolinao in Antequera town, was driving his motorcycle around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday when two men on board another motorcycle drove alongside him.

The backrider then pulled out a gun and shot Paña, who succumbed to gunshot wounds on his body.

Lt. Victor Tagsa Jr, acting chief of Antequera Municipal Police Station, said Paña was supposed to deliver lunch to his son who worked at a construction site in Barangay Dorol, Balilihan town when the incident happened.

Scene-of-the-Crime Operatives recovered two spent shells of an M16 rifle and four empty shells of a .45-caliber gun.

Investigators have yet to identify the suspects as well as the motive behind the killing.

The Hugpong sa Mag-uumang Bol-anon-Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Humabol-KMP) said in a statement that Paña was a former officer of Hugpong sa Mag-uuma Dapit sa Kasadpan (Humanda Ka), a district formation of Humabol chapters in the first district of Bohol.

Paña, along with his wife and children, voluntarily worked in the construction of a coconut processing plant managed by farmers’ organizations in Barangay Tinibgan in Maribojoc town, which now produces virgin coconut oil.

Paña and his family have been repeatedly red-tagged and harassed by the police and the military even if he was no longer a full-time organizer of Humanda Ka.

Members of progressive groups on Thursday condemned the Rizal Day killings of nine members of an indigenous community that is opposed to a dam project on Panay Island and demanded justice for the victims of what they called a “massacre.”

The Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives said it would seek a congressional investigation of the predawn raids on Dec. 30 by police and soldiers that led to the deaths of several leaders and members of the Tumandok, the largest ethnic group in the hinterlands of Panay.

“The year-end spate of killings in Panay is a chilling conclusion of a year marred by bloody attacks on rights defenders and ordinary citizens amid the pandemic,” said Rep. Arlene Brosas of Gabriela Women party list.

“These butchers in uniform have long been terrorizing communities since time immemorial. Now, under a bloodthirsty Commander in Chief, they have ramped up their efforts to silence the growing number of Filipinos calling for justice and opposing development aggression,” Brosas said.

She said the Gabriela Women’s Party and her colleagues in the Makabayan bloc would file a resolution to investigate the police and military operation.

The nine people were killed in separate raids in seven hinterland villages in Tapaz town, Capiz province, on Wednesday. One of them was Roy Giganto, chair of Tumanduk nga Mangunguma nga Nagapangapin sang Duta kag Kabuhi (Tumanduk), a former village chief and an incumbent village councilor of Barangay Lahug.

Tumanduk is an alliance of 17 indigenous communities in Tapaz and Jamindan towns in Capiz and Calinog in Iloilo. It is a member of Sandugo, an alliance of indigenous peoples organizations under Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan).

NPA rebels?

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the Philippine National Police said those killed were New People’s Army (NPA) rebels who fought back when the officers served search warrants and found firearms, ammunition and explosives in their houses.

Police said 16 other villagers in Tapaz and neighboring Calinog were arrested.

Lahug village chief Jobelyn Giganto, Roy’s sister-in-law and neighbor, said policemen barged into his house around 4 a.m. and “dragged his wife out [of the house] and shot him.”

“We are not armed and how can they say he fought back when all of us were asleep when they came,” Jobelyn told the Inquirer by phone on Thursday.

Another villager who was killed, Eliseo Gayas Jr. of Barangay Aglinab, was reportedly “tortured to the point of vomiting blood prior to his death,” according to Angelo Suarez, coconvener and spokesperson for Sama-samang Artista para sa Kilusang Agraryo.

Also killed in Lahug were Mario Aguirre and Reynaldo Katipunan. The other fatalities were Garson Catamin and Rolando Diaz of Nayawan village, Maurito Diaz of Tacayan, Artilito Katipunan of Acuña and Jomar Vidal of Daan-Sur. Fear on New Year’s Eve

Jobelyn said villagers were afraid to sleep in their own homes and planned to spend New Year’s Eve at the barangay day care center after most of their community and tribe leaders were killed.

“We fear that something will happen again while we are sleeping,” Jobelyn said.

“I have been telling the people here that despite what happened, we should continue to unite and face our situation together,” she said.

According to Danilo Ramos, chair of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, the Tumanduk leaders were fighting against the construction of the multibillion-peso Jalaur megadam in Calinog, Iloilo province, which would submerge their homes and farmlands in their ancestral land.

Some of them were also previously harassed and put under surveillance by the military, and most were accused of being rebels, Ramos said.

A month before the raids, the Tumanduk leaders were told by the military to sign up as NPA surrenderers, said Defend Negros spokesperson Ariel Casilao. When they refused, he said, they were warned that they could be charged under the new antiterrorism law. ‘Killed Negros-style’

“True enough, they were killed Negros-style,” he added, referring to the brutal massacre of farmers in Negros Oriental in 2018 and 2019.

ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro condemned the killing of indigenous peoples who were just protecting their ancestral lands “from destructive projects that do more harm than good for the Filipino people.”

“The Tumandok indigenous community has been vocal in resisting the construction of the Jalaur Mega Dam in Calinog, Iloilo. Because of their resistance and voices of dissent, they have been victims of Red-tagging and now EJKs (extrajudicial killings) and arrests on trumped-up charges,” Castro said.

“The Tumandok massacre proves further how Red-tagging kills and how the Duterte administration is determined to silence all voices of dissent,” she said.

The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) said the Rizal Day killings showed that the Duterte administration “does not choose any time to sow terror” in rural communities.

“Innocent civilians and indigenous peoples continue to suffer due to the culture of impunity that remains even as the year is about to end,” the group said. Dam opponents

The activist science group Agham, which helped conduct an environmental investigation of the dam project, demanded justice for the Tumandok and the punishment of state forces for their “heinous crimes.”

The Jalaur River Multipurpose Project Phase II (JRMPP), locally called the Jalaur Dam, was designed to produce hydropower and supply water for irrigation in the province of Iloilo.

Agham said that in partnership with the Jalaur River for the People Movement, it found that the project proponent “failed to establish a detailed geological mapping and subsurface investigations that are crucial in determining the potential natural hazards that will affect the dam, particularly with regards to the stability of the structure and its foundation.”

It said that geologic hazards, such as earthquakes posed dangers to the dam, which may lead to massive flooding.

Agham said there also was no “free and prior informed consent” from the tribe, which is required by law for such projects in ancestral lands.

“Also, risks and possible negative impacts were still not addressed and were not communicated to the stakeholders. These key findings have validated the fears and concerns of the Tumandok people who are valiantly fighting for the protection of the people and the environment,” Agham said.

On 24 December, in Deh Naw village, Hesa-i-Awal Kohistan district, Kapisa province, gunmen shot and killed civil society activist Freshta Kohistani. Civil society and media indicated that Kohistani had previously posted on her social media account about threats received. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. On 28 December, security officials reported having arrested suspects involved in the attack.

Afghan authorities must thoroughly investigate the killing of journalist Rahmatullah Nikzad and do everything in their power to ensure that members of the press can work safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

This evening, in the central Afghan city of Ghazni, unidentified gunmen shot Nikzad, a freelance photojournalist who contributed to The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera, three times in the chest while he was leaving his home to go to a local mosque, according to the AP, Al-Jazeera, and other news reports. He was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to those reports.

Nikzad was also the head of the Ghazni Journalists’ Union, which represented press workers in Ghazni province, those reports said.

“Rahmatullah Nikzad’s crucial work documenting the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan has been brought to a tragic end by this brutal killing,” said Aliya Iftikhar, CPJ’s senior Asia researcher. “The recent spate of killings of journalists in Afghanistan is unacceptable and the Afghan government must redouble efforts to ensure justice and safety for members of the media.”

Nikzad had received threats from different sources over the years, and had notified local and national officials about them, Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, director of the Afghan press freedom organization NAI, told CPJ in a phone interview.

Khalvatgar said that many of the threats came from local Taliban members upset with Nikzad’s work for international outlets, as well as his work with the journalist union.

Khalvatgar and Najib Sharifi, director of the Afghan Journalist Safety Committee, another local press freedom organization, who also spoke to CPJ via phone, both said they believed Nikzad was killed because of his work.

The Taliban, which controls large parts of Ghazni province, denied responsibility for the attack, according to those news reports.

Ghazni Police Chief Khalid Wardak and a spokesperson for the president’s office did not immediately respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app.

In November, reporter Elyas Dayee was killed in a bomb attack in Helmand province, and on December 10, journalist Malalai Maiwand was shot and killed in Nangarhar province, as CPJ documented at the time.

Malala Maiwand, 25, a female TV anchor for Enkaas TV and Radio, was killed by gunmen in a targeted attack in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan on December 10. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its Afghanistan affiliate, the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA) condemn the brutal killing and urge authorities to take swift and meaningful action to ensure the safety of journalists in Afghanistan.

The assailants opened fire on Malala Maiwand's car as she left to travel to work in Jalalabad from her home in eastern Nangarhar province. Both Malala and her driver, Mohammad Tahir, were killed. Following the shooting, the assailants fled the scene. The Islamic State (IS) has since claimed responsibility for the shooting, terming her a “pro-regime” journalist. Nangarhar is well known for IS militant activity and the group claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks on civilians in the area.

Tragically, Malala’s murder happened on the last day of the UN global annual 16 days of activism campaign against violence against women.Known as a women’s rights activist, Malala had previously delivered a speech about the challenges for female journalists in Afghanistan. Her mother, who was also a women’s right activist, was shot dead by unknown assailants five years ago.

The targeted killing is the first since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) issued a joint statement on December 7 condemning attacks on journalists and religious leaders.

Malala is the fourth Journalist to be killed in Afghanistan in 2020. On November 12, Elias Daei, 33-year-old correspondent for US-funded Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was killed in an targeted explosion in Helmand province. Former television presenter Yama Siawash was killed in the explosion in Makrorayan-e-Char area of Kabul on November 7. Earlier in the year on May 30, Khurshid TV journalist Zamir Amiri was killed when a roadside bomb exploded targeting the bus carrying Khurshid TV station employees. According to the IFJ South Asia Press Freedom Report, six journalists were killed in Afghanistan in 2019.

Rakesh Singh Nirbhek, a reporter working for Rashtriya waroop newspaper and his friend Pintu Sahu were assaulted and suffered fatal burn wounds when his house set on fire by three assailants in the journalist’s house in Kalwari village. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its Indian affiliates the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) and National Union of Journalists (NUJ-I) condemn this heinous murder and urge the authorities to hold its perpetrators accountable.

On November 27, Singh’s house was burnt down, causing serious burn injuries to him and his friend Pintu Sahu, who died on the spot , while Singh died hours later at King George's Medical University’s Trauma.

Minutes before dying, the journalist said the attack was due to his reporting on corruption by the Kalwari village head Sushila Devi and her son. “This is the price for reporting the truth,” he said in a video recorded by the police at the hospital.

The Balrampur police arrested the son of the village head and two other suspects who were allegedly involved in the crime. They all confessed to the crime and were sent to jail on December 1.

Singh’s reported on the alleged corrupt practices of the village major Sushila Devi over the installation of solar panels and the construction of roads and sewage facilities.

Singh is the second journalist murdered because of his reporting in November alone. Earlier, G. Moses, a reporter for Tamilian TV, was murdered in a western suburb of Kundrathru, following his coverage of illegal land grabbing. Impunity for crimes against journalists in India is rampant.

The IJU president Geetartha Pathak said: “The IJU expresses serious concerns over this murder and frequent attacks, arrests and other forms of media right’s violations in Uttar Pradesh. The IJU urges for exemplary punishment to the murderers of Rakesh Singh Nirbheek.”

The NUJ-I President Ras Bihari said: “We strongly condemn the gruesome murder of journalist Singh, appeal the state government to set up a high-level judicial commission to probe the incident and punish those behind the murder.”

The IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: “The horrible murder of Rakesh Singh for his reporting exposes the critical situation of journalists in India. The IFJ urges the Indian authorities to end impunity for crimes against media workers and punish those responsible for this crime regardless of their political affiliation.”

A leader of coconut farmers in Quezon was shot dead, November 14, by unknown assailants.

Armando Buisan, chairperson of the General Luna chapter of Coco Levy Fund Ibalik sa Amin (CLAIM), was found dead in barangay Santa Maria, Catanauan, some 24 kilometers from where he lived, according to initial reports by Karapatan Quezon.

Buisan was a copra farmer and a resident of sitio Luyahan, barangay Magsaysay, General Luna, Quezon. He fought for the rights of coconut farmers in the community for almost three decades and was a well-known leader.

Buisan, who was 60 when he was gunned down, was subjected to harassment over the years. In 2019, the military presented him alongside 39 others as a “rebel surrenderee” in a staged ceremony in General Luna.

“The farmers’ call for higher prices of copra and lukad (coconut meat) and for aid, in this time of successive storms and a pandemic, were met with summary killings from the state and the military,” said Orly Marcellana, secretary-general of the regional farmers’ organization Katipunan ng Samahan ng Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (KASAMA-TK).

In a statement, Karapatan Timog Katagalugan decried the “latest cases of extra-judicial killing during the time of pandemic.”

“Although a storm had just passed over the province, human rights violations are still rampant and the desperate moves of these butchers in government still prevail. They still prioritize their bloody counter-insurgency operation, affecting civilians, instead of assisting those affected by the storm,” the group said.

General Luna is part of the Bondoc Peninsula in Quezon. Three successive storms (Typhoon Quinta, Supertyphoon Rolly, and Typhoon Ulysses, international names Molave, Goni, and Vamco, respectively) hit the area in the span of one month and caused widespread devastation and flooding in the area.

A large number of evacuees have yet to return, while houses and crops were ruined. The Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, estimates that the three storms caused over P10 billion worth of damage nationwide.

Adding to this, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still felt in General Luna as limited transportation and months of economic shutdown have severely affected the coconut farmers in the area. Groups like KASAMA-TK and CLAIM have long clamored for additional aid and subsidies to farmers, as well as price controls to protect against losses in profit.

Despite all of this, however, reports from progressive organizations Anakbayan Quezon and Karapatan Quezon state that police and military units, particularly the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ 85th Infantry Battalion, remain active in “harassing farmers and accusing them of being members of the New People’s Army.”

KASAMA-TK is calling for justice for the slain peasant leader. A fact-finding mission is currently underway to investigate the details of Buisan’s murder.

A journalist was shot and killed by government soldiers in Milagros, Masbate, last Saturday, November 14.

Ronnie Villamor, 50, a stringer for local tabloid Dos Kantos Balita was killed by troops led by a certain 2nd Lieutenant Maydim Jomadil after covering an aborted survey of a disputed property.

Villamor was also a pastor of the Life in Christ Church.

A spot report on the incident by Milagros police chief Major Aldrin Rosales quoted army troops as saying they were investigating the presence of five armed men in Barangat Matanglad who fled at their approach.

The army and the police said Villamor was a New People’s Army (NPA) member who allegedly drew a firearm when ordered to stop his motorcycle at a Scout Platoon-2nd Infantry Battalion Philippine Army checkpoint.

The victim’s colleagues however disputed the soldiers’ version of the incident, saying there was no encounter between the government soldiers and the NPA.

Masbate Tri-Media President Dadong Briones Sr. told Dos Kantos Balita the victim just came from a coverage of an aborted survey of a piece of land being disputed by certain Dimen family and businessman Randy Favis.

Favis’s goons reportedly prevented the survey from proceeding, prompting the surveyors to return to mainland Bicol and the victim to proceed to his brother Arthur’s house at Barangay Bonbon.

Dos Kantos Balita reported that witnesses saw army troopers flagging down the victim and, after being identified by Favis’s men Johnrey Floresta and Eric Desilva, shot Villamor dead.

In a statement, the Masbate chapter of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemned the killing of their colleague and demands a thorough investigation of the incident.

“The killing of our colleague…at the hands of government soldiers sends a chilling message to us journalists not only here in Masbate but all throughout the country,” the victims’ colleagues said.

Villamor is the fourth journalist murdered in Masbate after Joaquin Briones (March 13, 2017), Antonio Castillo (June 12, 2009), and Nelson Nedura (December 2, 2003), the NUJP said.

“He (Villamor) is the 19th slain during the Duterte administration and the 191st since 1986. He was also the second killed this month, only four days after NUJP member Virgilio Maganes, who had survived an attempt on his life in 2016, was shot dead outside his home in Villasis town, Pangasinan,” the group added.

An improvised explosive device (IED) attached to the car of Elyas Dayee, a reporter with Azadi Radio, exploded and killed him on November 11, 2020 in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, Human Rights Watch said today.

Although the Taliban have not issued any statement about the attack, Dayee had recently told Human Rights Watch that he had received numerous death threats warning him to stop his reporting on Taliban military operations. The Taliban frequently uses IEDs to carry out targeted attacks on civilians, which are war crimes.

“The killing of Elyas Dayee simply for doing his job sends a chilling message to the Afghan media that reporting on the Taliban puts them in grave danger,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This brutal killing of a journalist is nothing more than a cold-blooded execution and raises serious doubts about the protection of free expression in any peace deal with the Taliban.”

Dayee is one of dozens of Afghan journalists who in recent months have increasingly received threats from the Taliban. Many have told Human Rights Watch that they had also been warned not to report on Taliban activities.

Journalists who knew Dayee, 33, said that in the weeks before the attack, the Taliban had searched Dayee’s house, questioned him about his movements, and asked local residents to report on his behavior. The night before he was killed, Dayee had emailed a colleague saying he believed his life was in danger.

Dayee had told colleagues that, in October, the Taliban had explicitly warned him not to report on the Taliban’s recent operations in Helmand province or on any loss of territory or deaths of Taliban fighters, or to suggest that the Taliban were violating the agreement with the United States on the terms of the US withdrawal.

On November 12, the Taliban issued a statement accusing the Afghan media of engaging in “enemy propaganda” and defamation against the Taliban.

Residents of Taliban-held areas have long expressed fear of retaliation if they complain about the way Taliban forces carry out military operations or enforce restrictions. In a report released in June, Human Rights Watch said the Taliban have imposed severe restrictions in areas under their control despite claims of reform, and have placed severe limits on freedom of expression and the media.

The Taliban assert that they hold commanders and other authorities accountable for abuses, but Taliban officials have seldom considered practices amounting to war crimes, including unlawful attacks on civilians, to be wrongful acts.

The Taliban should immediately cease all threats and attacks on the media, and all acts of intimidation, harassment, and summary punishment of residents who have criticized Taliban policies, Human Rights Watch said. Countries supporting the Afghan peace negotiations in Doha should condemn these attacks and press the Taliban to publicly commit to ending all attacks on the media and to uphold freedom of expression in any settlement.

“The Taliban appear emboldened by the peace talks to commit deadly abuses without fear of being held accountable,” Gossman said. “Countries supporting the talks need to press for effective protections for the media throughout Afghanistan.”

Unidentified gunmen have killed a local union leader in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan.

Police said on November 10 that Allah Dad Tarin was shot dead while on his way home after offering evening prayers in a mosque in Pashin district.

The assailants fled the scene after the attack, police added.

No one immediately claimed responsibility.

As general-secretary of the Balochistan Traders Association, Tarin was known for his struggle to protect the rights of traders and shop owners in Balochistan.

He was also a member of a Pashtun nationalist party, the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party. The union said shops and markets would remain closed in the provincial capital, Quetta, on November 10 in protest of Tarin’s slaying.

Balochistan government spokesman Liaquat Shahwani pledged that Tarin’s killers would be brought to justice.

Resource-rich Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has been plagued by sectarian violence, Islamist militant attacks, and a separatist insurgency that has led to thousands of casualties since 2004.

A reporter of Tamilan TV was hacked to death by a few known persons near his house in the city’s outskirts, reportedly over his questioning of the illegal sale of government poramboke land.

The victim G. Moses, 26, was residing at Nallur village near Somangalam in Kundrathur and he was covering the Sriperumbudur and Kundrathur areas for Tamilan TV. His father, Gnanaraj Yesudasan is a reporter with Malai Tamizhagam, a daily. At 10.30 p.m on Sunday, somebody called him out, and Moses stepped out of his home. His father was under the impression that he was going to meet some friends.

Police said Moses was made to walk up to the lakebed, a few yards away from the house. The suspects then attacked him using knives. Moses ran from there towards his house, but the suspects again attacked him again and fled the spot by the time, his father and neighbour came out, on hearing his cries.

Moses was taken to Government Chromepet Hospital, where the doctors declared him ‘brought dead’.

Kancheepuram district Superintended of Police D. Shanmugapriya and other police officers visited the spot and held enquiries. Police sources said a few antisocial elements had encroached upon poramboke land on the lake and attempted to sell the land fraudulently. The residents in the area reportedly demolished the structure on the layout besides reporting the incident to the police and had caused police action to be taken upon the illegal encroachers. The encroachers believed the the father and son were those leading the local residents.

Police arrested the suspects, Attai alias Venkatesan, 18, Navamani, 26, Vignesh, 19, and Manoj, 19, and further investigations are on.

Elias Mia, a correspondent of Daily Bijoy, was hacked to death on October 12 by miscreants in the Narayanganj district for allegedly exposing a criminal nexus in gas line distribution. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the brutal murder and urges the Bangladesh government to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Mia, a 52 year old journalist, was stabbed with a sharp weapon in the Geodhara area of Bandar whilst returning home. Despite the best efforts of passers-by, who took the journalist to Narayanganj General Hospital immediately after the incident, Mia died of his injuries around 9:00pm on October 12.

Bandar Police Station stated that three suspects have been arrested —Tusher, Minnat Ali and Mishir Ali — for their involvement in the killing. Police have presented them before a local court following the incident. The Daily Bijoy editor Sabbir Ahmed argues that there is a strong connection between the murder of Mia and his past reporting. Investigators said one suspect’s family had previously accused Mia of providing information that lead to Tusher’s earlier arrest and detainment for drug possession. Tusher was also allegedly involved in managing illegal gas connections.

The journalist had formerly voiced feelings of insecurity relating to his past news reports. Local media details that Mia had filed a general diary with Bandar Police Station seeking security arrangements.

Mia is the second journalist to be killed in Bangladesh during 2020. Julhas Uddin, a correspondent of Bijoy TV, was murdered on September 3, 2020 after being stabbed.

On television and in the courtroom, the young lawyer could be a force. Babar Qadri stood as a rare, pugilistic voice arguing on behalf of his native Kashmir, the rocky region long torn between India and Pakistan, on India’s combative and increasingly nationalistic talk shows.

Shouted at, he would shout back. More than once, an angry host kicked him off the air.

On Thursday, Mr. Qadri, 40, was shot to death in his home, making him one of the most high-profile casualties of the violence wracking Kashmir.

Family members said an assailant posing as a potential client shot him in the head and chest in the courtyard of his home in the old part of Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. The identity of the assailant was not clear, the police said, according to local media. They declined to answer questions from The New York Times on Friday.

Kashmiris on Friday mourned Mr. Qadri as a rare public advocate for his home in a troubled time. One year ago, India tightened its hold on the Kashmir region, and local activists say speaking out has become increasingly dangerous.

“The lion was killed in his den,” said Majid Hyderi, a longtime friend of Mr. Qadri, citing a common nickname for him. “With his killing, we have lost a roaring voice for peace.”

Long volatile, the predominantly Muslim Kashmir region has suffered growing violence since the Indian government last year revoked the region’s semiautonomy and increased its security presence there. The move hardened the attitudes of militants who have fought for years for independence from India and sidelined moderate voices calling for ways to improve relations with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has taken an increasingly hard line toward India’s Muslims.

Mr. Qadri’s death is part of a wave of political assassinations that have shaken the region in the last few months. It was the first killing of a prominent civil society member since the killing of Shujaat Bukahri, the editor of a local daily newspaper, two years ago. Editors’ Picks Nicole Kidman Leans Into the Pain The One Name the W.N.B.A. Won’t Say Buried in Salt, These Potatoes Are a Joy to Eat Continue reading the main story

Mr. Qadri had said in recent weeks that he had received death threats. On Twitter this week, he said the police should investigate people who had accused him of being a man of “agencies,” implying he worked secretly for Indian intelligence.

“The sense of tragedy is all the more because he warned of the threat,” Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister of the region, wrote on Twitter. “Sadly his warning was his last tweet.”

Mr. Qadri’s round, bespectacled face was famous in the region and throughout India for his vociferous criticism of New Delhi’s increasingly stronger hand in Kashmir. In person, he could be shy and retiring and would rarely interrupt others, unlike when he was on television. He also had sharp words for Pakistan, which India accuses of supporting pro-independence Kashmiri militants and other armed groups.

Both countries, Mr. Qadri said in an interview with The Times about a month before his death, “play with the dead bodies of Kashmiris.”

Mr. Qadri grew up in Srinagar speaking Kashmiri, Hindi and English, which later made him an effective spokesman in polyglot India. He studied law in the city and became a human rights lawyer. He was a common sight in Srinagar, driving around the city in a gray hatchback with his two young daughters.

He rose to prominence in 2012, when Indian police forces accused a number of children of attempting to murder officers and burning police vehicles. A photo of him wearing a gray suit, perhaps a size too large, while trying to comfort a terrified boy being led away by a police officer went viral on the Kashmiri internet. When the boy was set free, his family members said Mr. Qadri had argued in court on his behalf “like a lion,” giving the young attorney the nickname.

As security forces put more Kashmiris in prison, Mr. Qadri was widely sought after, and he became known for his ability to win the freedom of children in particular. He also became a frequent guest on Indian television, where he sharply criticized the Indian forces for their harsh oversight of Kashmir.

Mr. Qadri kept up his television appearances even as Indian media became increasingly nationalistic after the election of Mr. Modi in 2014. As Indian forces stepped up their enforcement efforts in Kashmir in the name of fighting terrorism, he faced an increasingly difficult reception. Other panelists often called him “Mr. Traitor.”

Late Thursday, as the dust settled in the city, Mr. Qadri’s body, covered by a red blanket, was put in an ambulance and taken to his ancestral home in north Kashmir, where family and friends lowered his body into the ground and bade him farewell.

Friends and relatives beat their chests. During the procession, one of Mr. Qadri's daughters — Zahera, 4 — asked her mother where her father was, according to Surat Shakeel, a family friend. Mr. Qadri’s wife told her that he had gone to perform the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Kashmiri parents often tell their children that the dead have gone to hajj.

Burhan Ahmad Bhat, a university student who participated in the procession, said he wondered whether Mr. Qadri’s killers would be found and whether they would continue to be labeled “unidentified,” like the killers of so many other Kashmiris.

“All we know is that they are killed by unidentified gunmen,” Mr. Bhat said. “But we never come to know why.”

Journalist Jobert “Polpog” Bercasio was shot dead as he was riding a scooter in Sorgoson City, Sorgoson, Luzon on the evening of September 14. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) in condemning the killing and calls on the authorities to conduct a swift investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Bercasio, a former radio reporter who ran his own Balangibog TV channel on social media, was killed by two gunmen riding in tandem on a motorcycle. The police found empty casings of an M16 rifle at the crime scene. According to Sorsogon City Police Chief Supt. Benito Dipad, Bercasio died on the spot.

Bercasio hosted a program broadcast via Facebook live and commented on social issues, including illegal logging. He has been described as a “hard-hitting” commentator. An hour before the killing, Bercasio wrote on his personal Facebook page about the irregular movement of trucks from a “quarry area” in Bulan town.

According to NUJP, Bercasio is the 17th journalist killed under President Rodrigo Duterte's rule and the 189th since 1986. This year, he is the second journalist killed, after radio host Cornelio “Rex Cornelio” Pepino was gunned down by two men on separate motorcycles in Dumaguete City on May 5, just days after World Press Freedom Day.

NUJP said: “NUJP stresses again that we see no official government policy at work in the continuing murder of journalists and other attacks on the press. But the general disinterest, apathy even, in solving and, just as important, bringing an end to media killings and the harassment of journalists have served to embolden those who seek to silence those in the profession of truth.”

Shaheena Shaheen Baloch, a Baloch woman journalist, was shot and killed in Kech, Balochistan on Saturday. Shaheen was a morning host at at PTV and was the Editor of Balochi magazine Dazgohar.

She had been getting death threats and warnings by the Baloch militants to leave her job. However, she did not submit to the threats.

The police has started an investigation in the matter. Turbat police has now claimed that Shaheen was killed by her own husband in what appears to be a case of ‘honor killing’. The suspect has not been arrested yet. A case has been registered and the area has been sealed for further investogations.

As per the local reports, the incident took place at a housing quarter in Turbat and unidentified men left her body at a private hospital. However, these reports have not been confirmed by the local police yet.

The body was dropped off to a a government hospital for medical formalities by an unknown person.

A supporter of gender equality, Shaheen was known to campaign for women’s empowerment in Balochistan.

Before Shaheen, another Pakistan's journalist Sajid Gondal, too, went missing from Islamabad who was being questioned on social media for his rumoured ties with Ahmed Noorani.

A human rights leader has been killed in the central Philippines in what observers and rights defenders have said is a continuing escalation of the "war against dissent" under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Zara Alvarez, former education director of the human rights alliance Karapatan, died on the spot after being shot six times on Monday evening as she was heading home after buying food for dinner. She was the 13th member of the organisation killed since mid-2016, when Duterte came to power, the group said.

Police said Alvarez was killed by an unidentified assailant in the central city of Bacolod. Witnesses reportedly chased the attacker, who got away with the help of an accomplice on a motorcycle.

On Wednesday, government investigators promised to investigate the case, adding that they are looking into the victim's affiliation with alleged "leftist groups" as a possible lead for the attack.

Alvarez's death comes just weeks after Duterte signed into law controversial anti-terror legislation, which allows for warrantless arrests and longer detentions without charge - provisions that legal experts warned could be directed at anyone criticising the president.

Karapatan's national leader, Cristina Palabay, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that given the circumstances of Alvarez's murder, she is blaming the government.

"Considering the prior threats that they received from state forces, it is not really far from our mind that those who killed them are from the state forces," she said, adding that Alvarez was among those listed by Duterte's justice department as suspected "terrorists".

Palabay pointed out that with the coronavirus pandemic, cities have imposed curfews and set up checkpoints in their respective areas.

"Everything is on lockdown, isn't it? The streets are very much guarded by state forces with all the checkpoints. And yet, the killers were able to get through these cordons of state forces." Failed peace talks

Communist rebels have been fighting a rebellion for more than 50 years in a conflict that has so far killed more than 30,000 people. In recent years, the number of rebel fighters has dropped significantly, and there have been several attempts by both the government and communist leaders to reach a peace agreement.

During his 2016 campaign for the presidency, Duterte promised to negotiate with the rebels and found some allies among activist groups, proclaiming himself as the country's "first leftist president". As mayor of the city of Davao, Duterte had also established cordial ties with the communists.

But while he quickly initiated talks with the rebels once taking office, negotiations collapsed in mid-2017.

Since then, the president has stepped up his rhetoric against the rebels, declaring them "terrorists" and pledging to wipe them out after a series of recent ambushes against government troops.

As the prospects of a peace deal with communists dimmed, Duterte even goaded the military in early 2018 to shoot female rebels in their genitals to render them "useless".

Later that year, Duterte ordered more military troops and police to Negros Occidental - where Bacolod is the capital - and two other central Philippine regions, "to suppress lawless violence and acts of terror".

He also created a national task force "to end local communist armed conflict".

Duterte also directed his ire against other activists, farmers organisations, land rights campaigners, as well as those who have openly criticised his deadly war on drugs and other alleged rights abuses.

Around the same time, the military and other officials in the Duterte administration started accusing several activist groups of acting as "fronts" of the rebels, raising fears that they could be killed after the president tagged the communists as "terrorist".

The government has denied carrying out targeted killings, and said that those who have been killed had resisted arrest. Advocate for farmers

Alvarez, the 39-year-old rights leader killed on Monday, had been advocating for years for farmers' rights in Negros, a resource-rich island, where a few politically connected families own vast tracts of sugarcane plantations.

In 2019, she led a group of farmers in documenting and denouncing alleged rights abuses by government troops following the killing of farmworkers, accused of being members of the communist rebels. Alvarez herself was accused of being a rebel sympathiser, or an outright rebel member.

In an interview with Al Jazeera's 101 East in 2019, Alvarez said that with regards to the recent killings in Negros, "it is very clear that it is the police who killed those victims."

Authorities denied those allegations and have pledged to investigate the dozens of killings, although no suspects have been apprehended or prosecuted.

Now, Alvarez herself has been killed.

Palabay said her group, Karapatan, and other activist groups are in anguish with the series of killings of their colleagues, including Alvarez.

In a statement obtained by Al Jazeera, San Carlos Catholic Bishop Gerardo Alminaza decried the death of Alvarez saying that her work on behalf of the poor residents of Negros "is worthy of emulation".

The Philippines' National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) also condemned the killing, saying Alvarez was "a constant force in the struggle for justice" for farmers in her hometown.

In a separate social media post, NUPL President Edre Olalia said that "the obvious intent" of the Alvarez's killing was "to sow terror".

Earlier on Monday, activists buried Randall Echanis, one of the land rights activists who negotiated for a peace deal with the Duterte administration.

Echanis, head of the urban poor organisation, Anakpawis, was killed on August 10 following an alleged encounter with police in Metro Manila. His relatives, however, said the 72-year old activist was undergoing medical treatment and unarmed when he was killed.

Randall Echanis, peace consultant and known peasant leader, was killed in a house raid early this morning, August 10 in Novaliches, Quezon City.

Echanis, 72, was seeking medical treatment.

�Our anger is beyond words. This is a culture of extrajudicial killings with impunity under the Duterte regime. This is a declaratory act that national leaders of legal-democratic movement are now targeted to be killed by the Duterte regime. The entire civil society, human rights advocates and freedom fighters must totally denounce this criminal act,� said former Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao.

Echanis was first arrested under the Marcos dictatorship, where he was detained incommunicado. He was released in 1986. He and wife Linda, along with their then two-year-old daughter were arrested four years later. Charges against them were later dropped.

In 2008, Echanis was arrested in Bago, Negros Oriental while holding a consultation with sugarcane workers. He was charged with multiple murder over the Hilongos mass grave.

Under the Duterte administration, Echanis was a member of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines� Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms, where he pushed for free land distribution, better living conditions for farmers and fisherfolk, rural development, to name a few.

He faced threats of re-arrest after the termination of peace talks between the Philippine government and the NDFP Peace Panel.

Afghanistan government must bring to justice perpetrators of the attack on Asmatullah Salaam a Civil Society Activist and Head of Local Council in Andar District of Ghazni Province.

Safety and Risk Mitigation Organization (SRMO) strongly condemns the killing of Mr Salaam and demand the Afghan government to bring the perpetrators to justice.

According to the report, Mr Salaam was travelling to visit his relatives during the second day of Eid (1st of August 2020) in Khwzeyo village in Andar District of Ghanzni Province, where Taliban stopped his car, kidnapped him and his body was recovered a day later on 2nd August in Wahghez District with severe sings of torture.

SRMO stresses the urgency for the protection of the Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in Afghanistan as the organization has documented a worrying trend of increasing targeted attacks against the HRDs by Taliban across Afghanistan. This is a continuation of a series of violent attacks against human rights defenders including Women Human Rights Defenders, civil society activists and media workers which have been carried out with impunity. Despite the fact that the Afghanistan government launched the Human Rights Defenders Protection Strategy in January 2020, the government has failed g to investigate such crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.

These attacks deliberately targeting the HRDs have a chilling effect on the wider community of human rights activists and civil society in Afghanistan who have already reported shrinking of their space to express opinion and hold the powerful to account.

Taliban announced ceasefire during the Eid in Afghanistan but it did not stop conducting deliberate and targeted attacks such as this incident, on Afghan HRDs, CSOs and other civilians. In the context of the upcoming peace talks between the Afghanistan Government and the Taliban, the role of civil society and HRDs is extremely vital as they bring the voice and speak out in defence of the rights and freedoms of Afghan society and victims, which is important to end the cycle of violence and reach a sustainable peace in Afghanistan. HRDs must never be targeted for simply carrying out their legitimate and peaceful work to promote and protect the human rights of Afghan people. The deliberate attack on HRDs in the context of the armed conflict constitutes a war crime.

SRMO is calling on Afghan government to do everything to protect Human Rights Defenders and Women Human Rights Defenders in Afghanistan and bring the perpetrators of such crimes to justice.

SRMO is also calling on Taliban to do everything to refrain its fighters from attacking HRDs, WHRDs, CSOs members and media workers in Afghanistan and punish the ones who are deliberately attacking, threatening and killing Afghan civilians including HRDs, WHRDs, CSOs members and media workers.

International and diplomatic community must put pressure on Afghan government to take the protection of Afghan HRDs seriously and bring the perpetrators of crimes against HRDs to justice.

In a previous attack on human rights defenders, Taliban targeted two staff members of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Kabul on 27 of June 2020; and on 3rd June 2020 Mr. Ibrahim Ebrat, a local civil society activist was killed in Qalat city of Zabul province. To date no investigation or arrests were made in connection to his killing despite promises by the government to do so.

A social media activist in Barkhan district of restless Balochistan province was shot and dead on 23 July 2020 (Thursday evening) and a provincial government minister and his bodyguards were booked in the citizen journalist�s murder case.

�We are shocked at this brutal murder of citizen journalist Anwar Kethran,� Islamabad-based media watchdog organization Freedom Network said in a statement on 27 July 2020.

�The provincial government in Quetta must condemn this murder and make sure the accused minister and his bodyguards did not influence their positions to deny the bereaved family justice in the court of law,� the statement urged Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal.

Anwar Jan Kethran, who highlighted social injustices and challenged powerful landlords on his Facebook and Twitter handles, was on his way home on his motorcycle when unidentified gunmen opened fire at him, his family confirmed to Freedom Network, Islamabad-based media watchdog.

Akbar Khan, late Kethran�s brother, accused Balochistan government�s minister for food and population Abdur Rehman Kethran and his bodyguards were nominated in the police�s First Information Report (FIR).

The minister denies the allegation and says the late Kethran was �using social media platform to blackmail� him.

In his 12 July 2020 tweet (see screenshot below), late Kethran accused Abdur Rehman of �ruining� all government departments in his Barkhan district.

It is the first such murder of citizen journalist in Balochistan where citizens are taking to social media platforms as mainstream media of the country is not reporting Balochistan because of �self-censorship.�

�Both the accused in the FIR are bodyguards of the provincial minister, Abdur Rehman,� said the late Kethran�s brother. �The minister is also among the accused.�

The brother said: �The cause of my brother�s murder is journalism. The minister warned my brother to stay away from journalism.�

Late Kethran was a social media activist, younger brother Ghulam Sarwar told online news portal Urdu News. �He (Kethran) was working with Daily �Naveed-e-Pakistan� newspaper in Punjab province. He was very active on social media highlighting social issues and challenged strong feudals openly through his writings, the younger brother was quoted as saying.

Akbar said: �I am sure Kethran was killed at the minister�s instigation. My brother received threats over telephone for writing on social media platforms.� He said his family was told to �stay quiet� otherwise would face �consequences.�

On 1 July, in Farah city, gunmen shot and killed the spokesperson of the Farah Civil Society Network Hamidullah Rahmani. He was also a teacher, an elder and the head of the Teachers’ Association. He had reportedly previously asked the National Directorate of Security to provide security for him. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

It is with deep regret that the AIHRC announces that its employees lost their lives when their car was targeted by an IED in Kabul this morning, Saturday, 27 June, 2020. They were Fatima Khalil, a Donor Liaison Officer and Jawid Folad, a driver. They were traveling in a Commission shuttle taking them to the office early this morning when the vehicle was struck by an IED at Butkhak Square, District, 12.

AHIRC sends deepest condolences to the families of these respected colleagues. The Commission is shocked by their killing which goes against the teachings of Islam, the Constitution, and International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Ms Khalil was a young human rights defender at the beginning of her career. That she will not be able to fulfill her enormous potential is a tragedy. Mr Folad was one of the Commission�s longest serving and loyal drivers.

We condemn such a heinous attack on our employees in the strongest possible terms. As of now, no group has claimed the responsibility of the attack and the perpetrators have not been identified yet. Those responsible should be identified after an investigation and brought to justice for committing this terrible crime.

This is not the first time that Commission staff have been targeted and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Last September, Abdul Samad Ameri, the Acting Head of the Ghor Provincial Office was abducted on the Kabul-Ghor highway in Maidan Wardak Province and killed two days later by gunfire.

In previous years other AIHRC personnel have also lost their lives in targeted attacks. This forms a pattern of attacks on a constitutionally mandated national human rights institution that is unparalleled. It is intolerable. In the context of armed conflict deliberately killing human rights defenders is a war crime.

AIHRC assures all Afghans that it remains committed to promoting and protecting human rights in Afghanistan.

A local correspondent for the Kampu Mail, a Hindi-language daily, Shubham Mani Tripathi died on the spot when he was shot six times, three of them in the head, on 19 June in Unnao, a suburb of Lucknow, the state capital. In a recent Facebook post, he said he feared he could be killed because of his investigations into land expropriations of questionable legality linked to illegal sand mining.

Kampu Mail local bureau chief Ritesh Shukla mentioned the name of Divya Awasthi, a local businesswoman involved in land transactions, as did the reporter�s uncle, Dhirendra Mani Tripathi. The NewsClick website quoted him as saying: �There is some government land that Divya Awasthi wanted to take possession of. [Shubham] exposed the matter and [said] she could not do that (...) Her goons had attacked Shubham at his house last year after he exposed her and now have killed him.�

�We call on the Uttar Pradesh authorities to appoint an independent investigation to shed all possible light on Shubham Tripathi�s horrific murder,� said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF�s Asia-Pacific desk.

�In this region of northern India, the links between sand mafia bosses and local police chiefs mean that, when journalists are murdered in connection with their reporting, the police investigation is almost always closed without further action. The vicious cycle of impunity needs to be broken by means of legislation guaranteeing journalists� safety.�

Dangerous state

India�s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh is also one of the most dangerous regions for journalists, especially those who try to cover the sand mafia, the name given in India to those who illegally mine sand from riverbeds for sale to the construction industry.

In 2016 alone, two journalists, Karun Misra of the Jansandesh Times and Ranjan Rajdev of the Hindustan Daily, were killed by gunmen on motorcycles in separate attacks after covering such illegal mining. In June 2015, the journalist Jagendra Singh died from the severe burns he sustained when set on fire during a police search of his home. He had been investigating a local government minister�s links to organized crime and illegal mining.

The journalist Haider Khan was badly beaten and dragged behind a motorcycle for 100 metres the same month after writing about dubious land expropriations. In October of that year, men on a motorcycle fatally shot journalist Hemant Kumar Yadav in the chest in reprisal for his reporting. In all of these cases, the police investigations drew a blank and the instigators remain unpunished.

Judicial harassment

When they don�t fall victim to physical violence, Uttar Pradesh journalists who try to do their job are often the targets of judicial harassment orchestrated by the state government headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, an unwavering supporter of India�s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his Hindu nationalist policies.

Such was the experience of Supriya Sharma, the executive editor of the Scroll.in news website, and her chief editor, Naresh Fernandes, on 18 June, when the Uttar Pradesh police registered a complaint against them over a story about the coronavirus lockdown�s impact in remote villages in Varanasi, the district that Modi represents in the federal parliament. The two journalists are facing up to five years in prison on the four charges registered by the police.

Siddharth Varadarajan, the editor of The Wire, another independent website, is meanwhile being investigated as a result of a complaint filed on 1 April over an allegedly �fake news� report that the state�s chief minister attended an enormous religious gathering two days after the imposition of a nationwide lockdown.

India is ranked 142nd out of 180 countries and territories in RSF's 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Long-time urban poor leader Carlito Badion was killed in Ormoc City, Leyte.

He was found dead along a highway in Ormoc City on May 28, 2020.

Kadamay, where Badion served as its secretary general for a long time, assailed his killing, describing the slain leader as �determined and brave.�

Two days before his killing, Kadamay said Badion was red-tagged and received death threats.

In a statement, Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite said Badion was �another victim of state-sponsored murders as his death comes after numerous incidents of political harassment, vilification, and red-tagging that he experienced.�

�Badion championed the cause of the homeless and the informally settled. He was instrumental in Kadamay�s housing occupation campaigns and community barricades against demolition. Because of this, he and other fellow urban poor activists were repeatedly and ruthlessly maligned and harassed, and were labeled as criminals, or worse as enemies of the state, as terrorists,� Gaite said.

Stop the Killings in the Philippines � Canada Network said Badion was a �leader who valiantly defended the right to housing of marginalized sectors.�

He has helped various communities facing threats of demolition such as Sitio San Roque in Quezon City and Corazon de Jesus in San Juan City � fighting with residents along barricades they built to defend their homes and livelihoods.

Badion also brought to fore the issues confronting substandard relocation sites.

On 21 May, in Qalat city, gunmen shot and injured human rights defender Mohammad Ibrahim Ebrat. Ebrat, the coordinator for Zabul of the Civil Society Joint Working Group, died of his injuries on 28 May. Before the attack, reportedly Ebrat had received death threats from the Taliban, who urged him to cease his human rights work. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

A Philippine radio broadcaster from the central island of Negros has been shot dead, becoming the third media worker slain in Dumaguete City since 2018 and the 16th nationwide since President Rodrigo Duterte came to office in June 2016.

Cornelio Pepino was riding home from work on his motorcycle with his wife late on Tuesday when he was shot and killed, capping a turbulent 24 hours in the country's media industry, which also saw the closure of its largest television network.

According to the police report obtained by Al Jazeera, two unidentified male perpetrators on a motorcycle shot and killed Pepino, also known as Rex Cornelio to radio listeners in the community.

Before fleeing, the attackers shot the victim once more in the head, according to a radio report quoting Pepino's wife, Colen.

The 48-year-old Pepino was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

In a video, Colen, who was unharmed, was seen weeping and begging for help on her mobile phone, while cradling her bleeding husband who was slumped next to their overturned motorcycle. Police said an investigation is "still ongoing".

The Philippines is one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists, with at least 186 media professionals killed since the country's return to democracy in 1986, according to the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP).

Media observers say the level of impunity has reached an unprecedented level since Duterte was elected president.

This latest media killing comes as the country is under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Across the country, police have set up several checkpoints, raising questions about how Pepino's killers managed to flee.

Al Jazeera has learned that just days before Pepino's killing, a police checkpoint was set up near the area of the shooting incident, but that had been decommissioned after some of the restrictions were eased in the city. Critic of government corruption

In his afternoon radio programme, Pepino was known as a critic of corruption in local government in Negros. He had also criticised the distribution of allegedly overpriced food packs to communities affected by the coronavirus lockdown.

The management of the radio station where Pepino worked told Al Jazeera it was "saddened and angered by the senseless and brutal killing".

While "hard-hitting" in his commentaries, colleagues were quoted as saying the victim never used profanity and would never flare up with emotion on the radio.

"Authorities should leave no stone unturned in bringing the killers of journalist Rex Cornelio Pepino to justice," said Shawn Crispin, Committee to Protect Journalists senior Southeast Asia representative.

"Until the Philippine government shows it is serious about solving media murders, the vicious cycle of impunity will continue."

The Dumaguete Press Club said the attack could be "politically motivated since politics was his favourite topic, which might have hit the nerve of some political sectors", adding that "divine justice in all its forms will unmistakably come and be served". 'New level of impunity'

Meanwhile, the NUJP urged the Duterte administration to investigate the murder immediately.

"We demand justice for Cornelio Pepino, aka Rex Cornelio, and will continue to hold this government accountable for every death that remains unsolved."

In a statement, Joel Egco of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security vowed that "justice will be served" and that police have been directed "to hunt down the suspects".

"As in the past cases we handled, we will leave no stone unturned," Egco said.

Maria Ela Atienza, professor of political science at the University of the Philippines, said that while the killing of journalists and targeting of media companies are nothing new in the country, "it got worse".

"The level of impunity and the killing of journalists and critics has been pushed to a new level by the Duterte administration," Atienza told Al Jazeera.

Since becoming president, Duterte has been known to denounce the press for critical coverage of his administration, including the deadly war on drugs that left thousands of people dead.

He had previously cursed foreign journalists for their reporting and said corrupt journalists are legitimate targets of assassination.

On Tuesday, the country's largest media company, ABS-CBN, which was a frequent target of the president's tirades, was forced to shut down after his allies in Congress refused to renew on time the station's 25-year licence to operate.

The government had also filed charges against the Rappler website and its editor, Maria Ressa and forced the country's largest newspaper, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, to sell the publication to billionaire Ramon Ang, a Duterte ally.

President Duterte, however, has repeatedly assured reporters that he welcomes questions from the media and that the country still has a free press.

"I have nothing against you. I am not at liberty to [be] angry at anybody," said Duterte.

Atienza said that given Duterte's popularity now as president, it is surprising that "the level of insecurity of his administration is so high it has to threaten and harass critics".

"This is worsened by a group of rabid bloggers and PR (public relations) machine working relentlessly not only through regular media but social media to attack critics and promote intrigues and fake news."

Arif Wazir, a leader of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), died in Islamabad on Saturday after being attacked a day ago by unidentified assailants outside his home in Wana, South Waziristan.

Wana Station House Officer Usman Khan confirmed Wazir had passed away after being shifted to Islamabad for treatment.

The police official said a first-information report (FIR) of the incident had been lodged at the Wana police station.

According to another official, on Friday Arif Wazir was strolling outside his residence in Ghwa Khwa, near Wana, when armed persons opened fire from a moving vehicle. The official had told Dawn that Arif Wazir received life-threatening injuries.

He was initially admitted to the District Headquarters Hospital, Wana, but later shifted to an Islamabad hospital.

Arif Wazir is the first cousin of MNA Ali Wazir. Seven members of Arif Wazir�s family were killed in a clash with militants near Wana in 2007. His father, Saadullah Jan, and uncle, Mirza Alam, were among the dead.

Arif Wazir was released from jail on bail about one month ago.

Rights group Amnesty International in a statement on Saturday said authorities must carry out an independent and effective investigation into the attack on Arif Wazir, and that the suspected perpetrators must be held accountable. PTM movement

PTM is a rights-based alliance that, besides calling for the de-mining of the former tribal areas and greater freedom of movement in the latter, has insisted on an end to the practices of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful detentions, and for their practitioners to be held to account within a truth and reconciliation framework.

The party has been critical of the state's policies in the country's tribal belt, where a massive operation against terrorists was conducted in recent times leading to large-scale displacement and enforced disappearances.

PTM's leaders, in particular its elected members to the National Assembly, have come under fire for pursuing the release of individuals detained by authorities without due process. The army has alleged the party of running an anti-national agenda and for playing into the hands of the state's enemies.

The party while rejecting these allegations, has insisted that theirs is a peaceful struggle for the rights of people from the country's tribal belt.

Last year, MNAs Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir were arrested by police after a protest gathering in Kharqamar for allegedly using violence and clashing with army personnel.

This year in January, PTM chief Manzoor Pashteen was arrested from Peshawar's Shaheen Town for making a speech in Dera Ismail Khan during which he allegedly said that the 1973 Constitution violated basic human rights. The FIR said Pashteen also made derogatory remarks about the state.

A day later, Dawar was arrested briefly from outside the Islamabad press club alongside several other individuals while protesting Pashteen's detention.

Pashteen was later released on bail on January 25.

A leader of Bayan Muna Party-list was gunned down in Iloilo City this morning, April 30.

Panay Today reported that witnesses heard several gunshots and saw men wearing masks at barangay Sto, Nino, Arevalo District, Iloilo City.

Jory Porquia sustained nine gunshots according to his son, Lean.

�They killed my tatay, mercilessly. Nine gunshots to kill him, nine! He was alone. He was defenseless,� Lean said in his post in social media.

Siegfred D. Deduro, Bayan Muna vice president for Visayas, suspects that perpetrators are state agents. He said Porquia was harassed by members of Iloilo police prior his killing.

Porquia was leading the relief operations and education campaign on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to the poor communities in Iloilo City, which is also placed under enhanced community quarantine.

Deduro said that while Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Tre�as welcomed initiatives in educating and feeding the residents who are under the ECQ, these did not sit well with the police.

�They prevent activists in doing volunteer work in fighting the pandemic, even to the extent of spreading blatant lies that food served by activists is contaminated with COVID-19 virus. Apparently, the Philippine National Police gets instructions from their generals ignoring the policies of local chief executives,� Deduro said in a statement.

Colleagues and friends of Porquia strongly condemned the killing and demanded justice.

Porquia was an activist since martial law. After the Edsa People Power in 1986, Porquia served as officer-in-charge of the National Youth Commission under then President Cory Aquino.

Eventually, Porquia became an overseas Filipino worker, organizing and advocating for Filipino migrants� rights. When he returned to the Philippines, he helped form Migrante chapter in Panay. He was also one of the founders of Bayan Muna in the province.

�Jory is a great loss to the progressive movement for social transformation, but will inspire Bayan Muna members and all activists to persist in advancing �new politics� against the tyrannical rule of the current administration,� said Deduro.

Clarizza Singson of Karapatan Negros who knew Porquia since she was a student described him as jolly and artistic person.

�Kaupod Jory, you will be missed by the masses whom you served and loved!� Singson said in her social media post.

Meanwhile, Lean remembered his father as someone who has always been there when needed.

�How can I go home and grieve? How can we cry for justice when justice is elusive for people who fight for justice? I can only place my rage in words that mean nothing to those who killed you,� Lean said.

Farmers and human rights groups are condemning the killing of a peasant leader who had been tagged as a member of New People�s Army (NPA) whom the military said was killed in a clash in Miag-ao town, Iloilo province last Saturday (April 18).

The leftist groups were also calling for the release of 11 persons, including minors, who were captured by the military and tagged as rebels.

The farmers group Pamanggas said John Farochilin was one of its council members and chair of the local peasant group Alyansa sang Mangunguma sa Miag-ao.

�We are saddened as we are angry at the cold-blooded murder of a dedicated peasant leader,� Cris Chavez, Pamanggas secretary general said.

Chavez said Farochilin was a key leader in the campaign to address hunger and poverty among farmers of Iloilo and to seek government assistance at the height of the El Ni�o weather phenomenon.

The Army�s 3rd Infantry Division (3ID) said soldiers of the 61st Infantry Battalion overran a rebel camp at the village of Cabalunan in Miag-ao and killed one rebel after a 35-minute gunfight.

The 3ID said in a statement that soldiers arrested seven persons, including a minor, and recovered firearms, improvised explosive devices, medical paraphernalia and rebel documents.

In another statement, the 301st Brigade said soldiers had captured rebels, including five minors.

But the NPA�s Mt. Napulak Command, which operates in southern Panay, denied that a clash occurred between rebels and government soldiers.

In a statement, Ilaya Kanaway, the command�s spokesperson, said no rebel was killed or captured as there was no clash in the first place.

The human rights groups Karapatan said those arrested were civilians and residents of the village of Igpanulong in Sibalom town in Antique province.

Reylan Vergara, citing an account of the mother of one of those arrested, said the men captured by the military were just gathering honey from beehives which they intended to sell when they were chanced upon by the soldiers.

In another statement, the 303rd Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army lauded the bravery of soldiers of the 94th Infantry Battalion during a clash with NPA rebels at a village in Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental province last Sunday (April 19).

Maj. Franco Ver Lopez, civil military officer of the 303rd Infantry Brigade, said 2Lt Ralf Amante Abibico, Cpl Joel Nobleza and Pfc Carl Venice Bustamante sacrificed their lives to protect the people from alleged extortion by NPA.

Four soldiers, who were wounded in the gun battle, were in stable condition, he said. They were Cpl John Cris M. Laus, PFC John Paul M. Geonzon, Cpl Lismer Jade J. Tumayao and Pfc Alexis I.Mepranum.

Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1261738/army-in-iloilo-told-you-killed-a-peasant-leader-not-rebel#ixzz6Uo8k45Dh Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

A village head was arrested after a renowned development monk and his layman companion were shot dead after being detained for violating the night curfew.

The fatal shooting occurred near the entrance to Khao Phela monastery on Khao Phela Road in tambon Samor Thong of Tha Chana district.

Wisut Intharakamnoen, chief of Tha Chana district, said it was reported to him about 2am on Tuesday, and he accompanied Thana Chan police chief Pol Col Thitiwat Suthitivanich and other police to the scene.

They found a converted flatbed pickup truck loaded with torches, fuel and coconut coir parked on the road. A man identified later as Churat Khongkhlai, 48, was lying dead on the back of vehicle with a gunshot wound to his neck.

About 10 metres away, was the body of a monk, identified later as Phra Chonlathan Thavaro Kanchanabut, 49, abbot of Khao Phela monastery. He had two gunshot wounds, one in the back of his head and the other in his right rib cage. A .32 handgun was found near his body.

Manop Kopin, 55, headman of Moo 9 village in tambon Samor Thong, was waiting for police, and surrendered to them.

Panyaporn Wattanapramote, assistant district chief, said he received a report from Thasaphon Thipsak, chief of tambon Samor Thong, that two people had been arrested about 12.30am for leaving their homes during the 10pm-4am curfew.

He led a team to the area and found Mr Manop and his team had already detained Mr Churat and Phra Chonlathan. They had seized the truck and equipment used for catching bees.

Mr Panyaporn said while he was reporting the curfew violation to the district chief over the phone, he heard gunshots. He went to check and found the village head had shot dead the monk and the layman.

During police interrogation, Mr Manop claimed he saw the monk pulling out a pistol and Mr Churat grabbing a knife. He was frightened, believing they would attack him, and fired three shots at them, killing the pair on the spot.

Police detained the village head for further interrogation. Forensic officers were collecting evidence from the scene.

Phra Chonlathan was a development monk in Tha Chana district. He played a key role in leading local residents to build weirs and plant trees. In 2016, he received the Hemmarat award for being a good role model in the field of forest and environment protection. Two years later, he received another award for being a good role model.

However, local sources said the monk had later been involved in a conflict with some people in the area.

A woman peasant leader was killed on March 31 in San Miguel, Surigao del Sur.

Nora Apique, 66, who was shot by unidentified assailants at 7:00 p.m. yesterday. She was reportedly on her way home when gunmen fired at her in barangay Patong, according to Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women.

Apique was a leader of Kahugpungan sa mga Mag-uuma sa Surigao del Sur. She was also a member of Barangay Agrarian Reform Committee (BARC), and became the chairperson of the Municipal ARC.

She was also a member of the Provincial ARC since 2016. She joined in the 20017 caravan to Manila demanding free irrigation services for farmers.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)-Caraga chapter said Apique was constantly red-tagged allegedly by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and paramilitary groups.

In a statement, Zenaida Soriano, chairperson of Amihan, said, �Apique�s killing show that military operations continue despite the crisis the country is facing and the �preventive community quarantine� being implemented in the province.�

Bayan Muna Rep. Eufemia Cullamat also condemned the killing of Apique. She said while the country is facing the crisis brought about the pandemic, members of the military in the provinces continue to commit abuses and rights violations.

Cullamat�s family harassed

Cullamat also cited the harassment against her family in Lianga, Surigao del Sur, by the members of the military.

She said after the arrest of her sister, Gloria Campos Tumalon, on March 19, soldiers went to her children and asked about her personal information.

�For what will they use the information about me? Why not ask me personally�, she said.

She said trolls also circulate fake news about her, labeling her as a member of the New People�s Army.

�Authorities have been warning the public about spreading fake news, but they are the ones who are leading it. They should be the one who should be punished,� she added.

She called on the government especially the Philippine National Police and the AFP to stop the attacks on national minorities, respect indigenous people�s right to self-determination.