Watchdog

Pakistani police said on May 8 that unknown gunmen riding motorcycles have shot and killed a prominent rights activist and injured two others in the southern city of Karachi.

Khurram Zaki was attacked late on May 7 at a roadside restaurant, where he was dining with a friend, police said. The friend and a bystander were critically injured in the attack.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.

Zaki, a former journalist, was the editor of the website and a popular Facebook page, Let Us Build Pakistan, which claimed to "spread liberal religious views and condemned extremism in all forms."

Zaki was best known for helping lead a campaign against Abdul Aziz, the cleric of the controversial Lal Masjid or Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, a bastion of Islamic extremists.

The campaigners filed a court case charging the cleric with incitement against the country's Shi'ite minority, which are often the target of deadly attacks.

Based on reporting by AP and dawn.com

A court in Turkey has sentenced two journalists to at least five years in jail for revealing state secrets.

Can Dundar, editor in chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, was given five years and 10 months.

Erdem Gul, the paper's Ankara bureau chief, was given five years.

They were acquitted of some of the charges, including of trying to topple the government.

The ruling comes hours after an assailant tried to shoot one of them outside the Istanbul courthouse. Dundar, who was targeted, was not hurt.

Dundar and Gul were on trial for revealing state secrets on alleged arms smuggling to Syria in 2014.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had accused the men of undermining Turkey’s international reputation and vowed Dundar would "pay a heavy price," raising concerns the case was politicized.

The two will not immediately go to prison because the court is still due to deliver a verdict in a separate trial on charges of links to terrorist organizations.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP