Europe & Central Asia

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about threats made against Vukasin Obradovic, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Vranje-based weekly Novine Vranjske, and Goran Antic, a reporter with the publication, in retaliation for reporting allegations of sexual abuse made against Serbian Orthodox Bishop Pahomije. The bishop's secular name is Tomislav Gacic.

In early January, Novine Vranjske began publishing a series of articles about five boys from the southern Serbian city of Vranje who have accused Bishop Pahomije of sexual abuse over a period of several years and are pressing criminal charges against him. Bishop Pahomije is the leader of the local Serbian Orthodox Diocese in Vranje.

New York, March 7, 2003—A Belarusian court ruled on Tuesday, March 4, that jailed journalist Mikola Markevich, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly newspaper Pahonya, could serve the remainder of his sentence in his hometown of Hrodna, in western Belarus.

Markevich will be allowed to reside with his family, but he will now have to register with Hrodna law enforcement authorities and find employment. He is also obligated to give 15 percent of his earnings to the state and sign a pledge not to leave Hrodna's city limits.

New York, March 6, 2003—Armenian police yesterday arrested six suspects in the December 2002 murder of Tigran Nagdalian, the 36-year-old head of the state-owned Armenian Public Television. The police continue to look for other individuals linked to the crime.

Law enforcement authorities have not released the suspects' names or details of the crime, including the possible motive. But officials revealed that during the arrest they found and confiscated the handgun used to kill Nagdalian.

New York, March 5, 2003—A suspect accused of issuing death threats against Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent with the Moscow-based twice weekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was cleared of the criminal charge against him yesterday. Politkovskaya is well known in Russia for her investigative reports on human rights abuses committed by the Russian military in Chechnya.

The prosecutor’s office in the Siberian city of Nizhnevartovsk dropped the criminal charge against Sergei Lapin, a Russian officer nicknamed "Kadet," citing evidence that another individual, who died in 2002, issued the threats and signed Lapin’s nickname to them.

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is extremely concerned about an official warning issued by the Russian Media Ministry on Wednesday, February 26, to the Moscow-based communist, ultra-nationalist weekly Zavtra. This warning, which followed the publication of an interview with exiled Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev, is the latest in the Russian government’s ongoing attempts to control coverage of the conflict in Chechnya.

New York, March 3, 2003—A bomb destroyed the vehicle of Nino Pavic, an influential independent newspaper publisher, on the morning of Saturday, March 1, in Croatia's capital, Zagreb.

According to local and international press reports, the 50-year-old publisher and his family were sleeping in their home in the affluent suburb of Tuskanac when a bomb placed under their Mercedes SUV exploded at around 4 a.m. The car was parked down the street from their house.

New York, February 28, 2003—Zamid Ayubov, a 40-year-old Chechen journalist for the local pro-Russian administration's thrice-weekly Vozrozhdeniye Chechni, was beaten and detained by Interior Ministry forces in the Chechen capitol of Grozny on the evening of February 16.

Ayubov was assaulted when he approached an Interior Ministry unit and identified himself as a journalist researching an article about Interior Ministry units conducting night patrols in Grozny, according to Radio Svoboda, the Russian-language service of the U.S. government­funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about two libel lawsuits that have been filed by a senior government official against Elmar Huseynov, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Baku-based, independent magazine Monitor.

These lawsuits are the latest actions in a 7-year-old campaign of official harassment targeting Huseynov and the Monitor in retaliation for criticizing government policies and senior political officials, including Your Excellency.

Guide for reporting in hazardous situations.

February 23, 2003—Euskaldunon Egunkaria, a Basque daily based in the northern Spanish town of Andaoin, was closed by government authorities on Thursday, February 20, because of alleged links to the armed separatist group ETA.

The paper reappeared on newsstands the next day under the new name Egunkaria.

Hundreds of Civil Guard police officers raided the offices of Euskaldunon Egunkaria and the homes of its senior staff throughout the Basque region of northern Spain last Thursday after a court ordered the paper's closure.