Gunmen have abducted the director of Pakistan's largest media group, authorities say. The director of the media conglomerate was visiting Peshawar in the country's restive northwest.
Image: Reuters
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Pakistani police say media boss Abid Abdullah was nabbed by armed men who dragged him and his driver out of the car shortly after midnight Thursday after he left his hotel.
The driver was released before Abdullah, director of the Jang media group which publishes the country's highest circulation Urdu and English-language newspapers, was driven away in a second vehicle that disappeared into the lawless tribal areas in the mountains above the city.
Abdullah was reportedly in the city for a business meeting with local printers for the Urdu-language Jang newspaper, the best-selling newspaper in the country.
There has been no word on possible motive in the kidnapping. It's not the first time high-profile media figures from Jang group have been targeted. Hamid Mir, a prominent journalist working for Geo TV, was attacked in the southern city of Karachi in 2014 and survived.
Pakistan is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters; more than 50 journalists have been killed there in the last decade and a half.
jar/kl (Reuters, dpa)
8 films featuring journalists' fight for freedom of expression
On World Press Freedom Day (3.5.2016) we're honoring those journalists who've fought for their right to freedom of expression by looking at eight films telling their stories.
Image: Bild: BR/Wiedemann & Berg Film
Razor's Edge
The 2016 winner of Deutsche Welle's Best of the Blogs (The Bobs) prize for citizen journalism, the documentary "Razor's Edge" examines the situation that many secular bloggers and writers face in Bangladesh after attacks have left numerous people dead at the hands of religious extremists, including four in the last five weeks, because of their writing.
Image: Nastiker Dharmakatha
Frame By Frame
"Frame By Frame" follows four of Afghanistan's new crop of young photojournalists, who're learning how to shoot stories after years of living under a regime which banned photography. After a screening at the US Embassy in Kabul, seven journalists from the local TOLO news were killed in a suicide bombing, driving home the dangers these journalists face every day.
Image: Film Fprout
All the President's Men
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were two journalists working for the "Washington Post" who led the investigation of US President Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate hotel break-in that eventually led to his resignation. The pair wrote of their experience in "All the President's Men" which was made into a film by Robert Redford.
Image: Warner Bros./dapd
Good Night and Good Luck
Filmed in black and white to capture the atmosphere of broadcast journalism's early days "Good Night and Good Luck" stars George Clooney and focuses on tv newsman Edward R. Murrow's fight to expose the tactics employed in the US by Senator Joseph McCarthy in his 1953 "Red Scare" campaign to uncover "Communists" in the government and celebrity circles, a label which ruined many careers at the time.
Image: Kinowelt
People vs. Larry Flynt
The lawsuit by Reverend Jerry Falwell against Larry Flynt, the publisher of the nude magazine "Hustler" serves as the backdrop of the 1996 film the "People vs. Larry Flynt." The film about the controversial pornography publisher shows his clash with religious institutions and the law.
Image: dpa
Forbidden Voices
Three young women bloggers are the focus of Zurich-based director Barbara Miller's documentary (2012). From Cuba, China and Iran respectively, Yoani Sánchez, Zeng Jinyan und Farnaz Seifi use social media to bring awareness to the world about life under the dictatorial regimes in their homelands. Their work gets so much attention that they end up risking their lives to get the stories out.
Image: Das Kollektiv
Burma VJ
Danish Filmmaker Anders Østergaard focuses on the drama that unfolded in Burma in 2007 after Buddhist nuns and monks took to the streets to protest drastic price increases. After the protests turned against the country's military leaders, international news teams were kicked out of the country and filming could only be done in secret.
Image: flickr/Steve Rhodes
Die Spiegel Affaire (The Spiegel Affair)
Germany's "Der Spiegel" news magazine published an article about the sad state of the West German military in 1962, an article which brought out such an immense rage in Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauß that a search of the magazine's office was conducted. The arrests of editors led to an uproar among citizens who saw it as an attack on press freedom and protested, as this ARD film portrays.
