
Rights body orders probe into journo attack
The nation's human rights body demanded that police investigate the brutal assault of a journalist who was tied, beaten and paraded through a village while reporting on alleged corruption.
Video footage circulated on social media showed journalist Bijay Pradhan being beaten up on May 25 after he went to report on construction of a housing scheme in the eastern state of Odisha.
'Reportedly, he was suddenly attacked ... The victim's legs and hands were tied, and he was paraded through the village before being tied to a pole and mercilessly beaten,' the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said Friday.
It demanded police provide a report within two weeks.
'The victim's mobile phones and video camera were also smashed by the perpetrators, and he was threatened not to report anything about the incident,' the NHRC added in a statement.
Four people suspected of assaulting the journalist have been arrested.
India, where incidents of intimidation and assaulting journalists are not uncommon, is ranked 151 on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders.
In January, India's media watchdog demanded a thorough investigation after the battered body of a journalist, who had widely reported on corruption in neighbouring Chhattisgarh state, was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete. — AFP
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The Star
3 days ago
- The Star
Rights body orders probe into journo attack
The nation's human rights body demanded that police investigate the brutal assault of a journalist who was tied, beaten and paraded through a village while reporting on alleged corruption. Video footage circulated on social media showed journalist Bijay Pradhan being beaten up on May 25 after he went to report on construction of a housing scheme in the eastern state of Odisha. 'Reportedly, he was suddenly attacked ... The victim's legs and hands were tied, and he was paraded through the village before being tied to a pole and mercilessly beaten,' the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said Friday. It demanded police provide a report within two weeks. 'The victim's mobile phones and video camera were also smashed by the perpetrators, and he was threatened not to report anything about the incident,' the NHRC added in a statement. Four people suspected of assaulting the journalist have been arrested. India, where incidents of intimidation and assaulting journalists are not uncommon, is ranked 151 on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders. In January, India's media watchdog demanded a thorough investigation after the battered body of a journalist, who had widely reported on corruption in neighbouring Chhattisgarh state, was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete. — AFP


Free Malaysia Today
3 days ago
- Free Malaysia Today
India orders probe into ‘mercilessly beaten' journalist
The National Human Rights Commission demanded Odisha police provide a report within two weeks. (EPA Images pic) NEW DELHI : India's human rights body demanded on Friday that police investigate the brutal assault of a journalist who was tied, beaten and paraded through a village while reporting on alleged corruption. Video footage circulated on social media showed journalist Bijay Pradhan being beaten up on May 25 after he went to report on construction of a housing scheme in the eastern state of Odisha. 'Reportedly, he was suddenly attacked… The victim's legs and hands were tied, and he was paraded through the village before being tied to a pole and mercilessly beaten,' the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said on Friday. It demanded police in Odisha provide a report within two weeks. 'The victim's mobile phones and video camera were also smashed by the perpetrators, and he was threatened not to report anything about the incident,' the NHRC added in a statement. Four people suspected of assaulting the journalist have been arrested, according to media reports. India, where incidents of intimidation and assaulting journalists are not uncommon, is ranked 151 on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders. In January, India's media watchdog demanded a thorough investigation after the battered body of a journalist, who had widely reported on corruption in neighbouring Chhattisgarh state, was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete.


The Star
21-05-2025
- The Star
Julian Assange open to political action as Cannes hosts documentary
CANNES, France (Reuters) -WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is at the Cannes Film Festival this week for the documentary "The Six Billion Dollar Man," is thinking about how to become politically active again once he has fully recovered from prison, said his wife, Stella. Assange, 53, returned to his native Australia after pleading guilty last June under an agreement with U.S. officials to one count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security materials. The plea ended Assange's five-year stay in a British prison, which followed seven years at the Ecuador embassy as he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations. Assange denied those allegations and called them a pretext to extradite him to the United States over WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks in 2010 released hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - the largest security breaches of their kind in U.S. military history - along with swaths of diplomatic cables. "He was in a very grave situation in the prison. He's recovering from that," Stella Assange told Reuters in Cannes. "But now he's coming to understand how grave the situation outside (prison) is and thinking, making plans to find the means of what to do about it," she added. "He's very, very concerned about the state of the world and the state that we're all in right now," said Stella, who met Assange in London in 2011 while working as part of his legal team. Julian and Stella Assange, wearing a brooch with a picture of British designer Vivienne Westwood holding a sign saying "Stop Killing," walked the red carpet on Wednesday evening. Julian has so far not spoken at any of his appearances. CANARY IN A COAL MINE The documentary from Emmy-winning director Eugene Jarecki takes on the tone of a high-tech international thriller to recount Assange's fight against extradition, using WikiLeaks footage and archives, and previously unpublished evidence. Jarecki, who began filming before Assange was released, said he never expected to see him walk around Cannes as a free man. By inviting Assange, the festival was sending a message about the need for freedom of information and a free press, Jarecki told Reuters, as those values are in decline in many parts of the world according to an index from Reporters without Borders. The director called Assange "a canary in the coal mine" in foretelling the U.S. government's current moves to exert more control over media access to U.S. President Donald Trump. "If we had taken that bit more seriously, we might have seen a bunch of this coming," said the U.S. director. Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told Reuters that the film portrayed the WikiLeaks founder as he should be shown. "This film is absolutely necessary in terms of telling the story of free speech and what Julian Assange, his case means for the world, not just for him, but for the world," she said. (Reporting by Hanna Rantala and Miranda Murray; Editing by Sandra Maler)