3 Afghan journalists killed in 2 attacks
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Three women who worked for a local radio and TV station in eastern Afghanistan were gunned down Tuesday in separate attacks, the news editor of the privately owned station said.
Shokrullah Pasoon, of Enikass Radio and TV in Jalalabad, said one of the women, Mursal Wahidi, was walking home when gunmen opened fire, according to eyewitnesses.
The other two, whom Pasoon identified only as Shahnaz and Sadia, were shot and killed in a separate incident, also walking home from work.
Tuesday's killings brought to 15 the number of media workers killed in Afghanistan in the last six months.
The three women dubbed popular and often emotion-laden dramas from Turkey and India into Afghanistan's local languages of Dari and Pashtu, said Pasoon.
No one claimed responsibility for the killings, but in December the Islamic State group affiliate, headquartered in eastern Afghanistan, claimed the killing of another female Enikass employee, Malala Maiwand.
Talliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied any involvement in the killings.
Fire kills staff member in Syria aid camp
BEIRUT -- The international aid organization Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that a staff member was killed and three were injured in separate incidents last month in a camp for displaced people in northeast Syria.
The al-Hol camp houses families of members of the Islamic State group and has witnessed a sharp increase in crime in recent weeks.
In a statement, Doctors Without Borders said it is extremely concerned about the lack of security facing camp residents, two-thirds of whom are children. The group added that it was "shocked and saddened" after a staff member was killed and three injured in incidents on Feb. 24 and Feb. 27.
Will Turner, the group's emergency manager for Syria said the agency was still trying to understand the circumstances of the killing and did not provide details.
He said on Feb. 24 the child of a staff member died and three staff members were injured in a fire at a wedding in the camp. The fire spread to adjoining tents after a child accidentally knocked over a diesel heater. At least seven people were killed in the blaze, including the 4-year-old daughter of a staff member.
Burma protests continue to resist coup
RANGOON, Burma -- Police in Burma repeatedly used tear gas and rubber bullets Tuesday against crowds protesting last month's coup, but the demonstrators regrouped after each volley and tried to defend themselves with barricades as standoffs between protesters and security forces intensified.
Authorities have escalated their crackdown on the protests in recent days. The United Nations said it believed at least 18 people were killed Sunday when security forces fired into crowds, while a rights group said more than 1,000 people were detained over the weekend, including an Associated Press journalist. A lawyer for the journalist said he has been charged with an offense that could see him imprisoned for up to three years.
Despite the increasingly brutal crackdown, demonstrators have continued to flood the streets -- and are beginning to more rigorously resist attempts to disperse them. Hundreds, many wearing construction helmets and carrying makeshift shields, gathered in Burma's largest city of Rangoon, where a day earlier police had fired repeated rounds of tear gas.
Rangoon, Dawei and Mandalay were among the cities where security forces reportedly fired live ammunition into crowds Sunday, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. There were reports that they also fired live rounds Tuesday, but they could not immediately be confirmed.
Polish court acquits 3 LGBT activists
WARSAW, Poland -- A Polish court on Tuesday acquitted three activists who had been accused of desecration and offending religious feelings for producing and distributing images of a revered Roman Catholic icon altered to include the LGBT rainbow.
The posters, which they distributed in the city of Plock in 2019, used rainbows as halos in an image of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. Their aim was to protest what they considered the hostility of Poland's influential Catholic Church toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
The court in the city of Plock did not see evidence of a crime and found that the activists were not motivated by a desire to offend anyone's religious feelings, but rather they wanted to defend those facing discrimination, according to Polish media.
The conservative group that brought the case, the Life and Family Foundation, said it planned to appeal.
An LGBT rights group, Love Does Not Exclude, welcomed the ruling as a "breakthrough."
"This is a triumph for the LGBT+ resistance movement in the most homophobic country of the European Union," it said.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports]