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In President Hu Jintao's fourth year in power, his administration effectively silenced some of the best journalists in China by sidelining independent-minded editors, jailing online critics, and moving to restrict coverage of breaking news. The government drew international criticism for its actions against foreign news agencies and their employees--including convictions of Zhao Yan, a New York Times researcher, and Ching Cheong, a correspondent for the Singapore-based Straits Times--along with new rules appointing the official Xinhua News Agency as sole distributor of foreign news services in the country.

Determined to forestall the kind of democratic uprising that toppled the government in neighboring Ukraine, authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and his government crushed dissent in the run-up to the March presidential election—and well beyond. Official results showed that Lukashenko collected 83 percent of the vote to gain a third term, but international observers said the election fell far short of democratic standards. Authorities arrested dozens of domestic and foreign journalists who tried to report on the campaign and subsequent demonstrations in the capital, Minsk, over voting irregularities. In the months surrounding the election, the Lukashenko administration made it nearly impossible for independent and opposition media to deliver news and opinion to their audiences. The state postal service refused to deliver newspapers critical of the government; the state distribution agency banned sales of such papers on newsstands; printing houses refused to print them under government pressure; and border police confiscated entire press runs of publications that managed to find alternative printers abroad. Under such dismal conditions, papers set up distribution systems reminiscent of the underground press in Soviet times, selling copies from their newsrooms and dispatching volunteers to deliver them door-to-door to subscribers. Even then, some volunteers were arrested, CPJ research shows.

As Russia assumed a world leadership role, chairing the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations and the Council of Europe’s powerful committee of ministers, the Kremlin cracked down on dissent and shrugged off astounding attacks on critics and journalists. In a grim year for the press, parliament passed a measure to hush media criticism by calling it “extremism,” and an assassin silenced Anna Politkovskaya, the internationally known reporter who exposed government abuses in Chechnya.

President Islam Karimov continued his crackdown on the independent press, political opponents, and civil-society groups. As his foreign policy shifted away from the West, Karimov’s regime expelled dozens of foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations, including those supporting local media. The few remaining independent journalists were forced to choose whether to sever ties to foreign-funded media or face harassment, legal action, and imprisonment. A restrictive new law regulating the work of journalists for international media made it illegal for local reporters to contribute to foreign media outlets not accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

New York, January 19, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder today of a prominent Turkish-Armenian editor outside his newspaper’s offices in Istanbul. Hrant Dink, 52, managing editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, was shot three times in the neck, according to the Turkish television channel NTV.

New York, January 11, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by orders from the Bangladeshi Information Ministry that private broadcast outlets suspend news programs and print outlets halt critical news coverage during a state of emergency announced this evening.

“It’s essential that at this very sensitive moment Bangladeshi citizens have unfettered access to information,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. “We call on authorities to withdraw their restrictions on the media, to respect the right of journalists to report fully and freely, and to ensure citizens’ rights to independent information.”

New York, July 12, 2006— The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ruling yesterday by Turkey’s High Court of Appeals to uphold the six-month suspended prison sentence of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Dink, managing editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, had appealed a conviction last October under Article 301 of the penal code, which forbids denigrating Turkish identity and state institutions.

New York, June 19, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the closure of a radio station in Somalia, and the brief detention by militiamen of two of its journalists, over a report of an alleged Ethiopian incursion.

Somalia’s weakened transitional government, which is based in Baidoa, 155 miles (250 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, closed down the local station of Radio Shabelle on Sunday after it broadcast a report saying that 300 Ethiopian soldiers had crossed into Somalia. The station’s deputy director, Mohamed Amiin, told CPJ that Radio Shabelle in Baidoa remained off the air today.

New York, June 9, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the acquittal of a Turkish newspaper columnist by an Istanbul court on Thursday, but remains deeply concerned by the ongoing criminal prosecution of journalists in Turkey.

Murat Belge of the daily Radikal was acquitted on charges of attempting to influence the outcome of judicial proceedings by challenging a court-ordered ban last year on an academic conference about the killing of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. Armenians call the killings from 1915 to 1917 the first genocide of the 20th century, a characterization that Turkey rejects.