Jyotirmoy Dey, a journalist and special investigations editor with the afternoon daily Midday, was shot dead earlier this month as he returned home from work.
Dey regularly reported on organised crime and had recently received threatening phone calls after publishing a series of articles about the "Oil Mafia" and the illicit trade in diesel fuel. Four men on motorcycles reportedly followed the journalist before gunning him down as he rode home through the Powai district of Mumbai.
"We are seriously concerned that during the past 20 years, 43 journalists have been murdered in your country, and respectfully remind you that it is the duty of the state to provide an environment in which journalists are able to carry out their professional duties without fear of violence," the global press organisations said in a letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The full letter can be read at http://tinyurl.com/5wpuw5x.
More about WAN-IFRA's press freedom campaigns can be found at http://www.wan-ifra.org/microsites/press-freedom
WAN-IFRA, based in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, with subsidiaries in Singapore, India, Spain, France and Sweden, is the global organisation of the world’s newspapers and news publishers. It represents more than 18 000 publications, 15 000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries. The organisation was created by the merger of the World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the research and service organisation for the news publishing industry.
Go to: http://www.wan-ifra.org
