Europe & Central Asia

Around the world, 122 journalists were in prison at the end of 2004 for practicing their profession, 16 fewer than the year before. International advocacy campaigns, including those waged by the Committee to Protect Journalists, helped win the early release of a number of imprisoned journalists, notably six independent writers and reporters in Cuba.

The Toll: 1995-2004

Each year in January, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) publishes a list of journalists killed in the line of duty around the world. This list has become the most widely cited press freedom statistic and is often seen as a barometer of the state of global press freedom.

While the correlation between the number of journalists killed and the state of press freedom in a particular country is far from exact--no journalists have been killed in Cuba, for example, and only one has been killed in China during the last decade--the annual list does give some sense of the range of risks that journalists face in reporting the news. To provide a more complete statistical picture, CPJ releases a list of journalists killed during the last decade. The list has been broken down by year, country, and a variety of other categories.

New York, December 17, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that authorities in the southern Russian republic of North Ossetia have prosecuted and convicted Yuri Bagrov, a reporter who covered the North Caucasus and Chechnya for The Associated Press (AP) until September.

The Leninsky court in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia's capital, today convicted Bagrov on criminal charges of using falsified documents to obtain Russian citizenship and fined him 15,000 rubles (US$540).

CPJ Update December 15, 2004 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

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This article originally appeared in
The International Herald Tribune
December 13, 2004
www.iht.com/opinion.html

NEW YORK--When Raúl Rivero was released from prison and reunited with his family in Havana last week, newspapers around the world published photographs of the smiling Cuban writer embracing his wife, Blanca.

The Internet’s Role in Media Freedom By Mick Stern The Boston Globe December 14, 2003

Remembering a Friend Lost to Saddam’s Terror by Frank Smyth International Herald Tribune June 3, 2003

Murder by Media Why the Rwandan genocide tribunal went too far. By Joel Simon Slate

Al Jazeera: Leave It to Viewers By Joel Campagna The International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.come/opinion.html

Washington, November 18, 2004—The family of slain journalist Paul Klebnikov is calling on reporters worldwide to launch an investigation into the unsolved murder of the Forbes Russia editor, gunned down in a contract-style slaying outside his Moscow office in July, the journalist's brother said today.

"In this awful tragedy there are seeds of hope. We've been approached by many journalists who seek to send a message to the killers," Peter Klebnikov said at a press conference organized by the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ is honoring the slain Forbes editor with one of its 2004 International Press Freedom Awards.