United Nations - A Kashmiri reporter surviving attempts on his
life, a Mexican editor of Tijuana in Mexico, a Palestinian
journalist and co-director of Internews Middle East in Palestinian
Authority, and a Turkish editor who challenged press censorship,
were awarded prestigious US journalist prizes on 26th November.
Yusuf Jameel, a Kashmiri journalist with "Asian Age"
in Delhi, India, who was formerly a correspondent for the BBC
and a stringer for Reuters and "Time" magazine, is a
leading reporter on the civil war in Indianheld Kashmir.
His career has been marked by violent reprisal beatings, grenade
attacks and, last fall, a letter bomb addressed to him that killed
a colleague [Mushtaq Ali] and injured Jameel. He has withstood
pressure and attacks from all parties to the conflict in Kashmir,
which pits Indian security forces and governmentbacked militias
against an array of guerrilla groups fighting for the state's
independence or merger with Pakistan. The combatants view the
local press as biased in favour of their adversaries and retaliate
through violence and intimidation. In 1990 Indian security officers
seized Jameel, took him blindfolded to a remote location and interrogated
him about a colleague's alleged contacts with militants. Twice
in 1992 unidentified assailants threw grenades at his home and
office in Srinagar. Later that year security officers severely
beat him while he was covering a protest march by a Kashmiri women's
group. Jameel also has periodically faced threats from militant
separatists displeased with his coverage of the war. Although
he continues to be based in Delhi, he wrote in an article for
the International Press Institute (IPI) in September that he is
"keen to return to Srinagar to resume work, but many wellwishers
concerned for my safety insist that I should not do so."
He continues, "But I believe that such risks are part of
my profession."- cpj
On 29th December, Mushtaq Ahmed Lone (32), a prominent journalist
and editor of the weekly Wahdat-e-Mili, occupied Kashmir,
was shot dead by Indian troops in custody. The journalist community
of Indian-Occupied-Kashmir, expressed serious concern over the
cold-blooded custodial killing, and have demanded a judicial probe
of the tragedy. - kpi
On 1st January, Altaf Ahmed Faktoo, a news reader for the Indian owned Doordarshan Kendra television station in Srinagar, Kashmir, was assassinated by three unidentified men. No one has claimed responsibility for the murder. Faktoo is the seventh journalist to have been murdered in Kashmir since 1989. -cpj