Europe & Central Asia

FEBRUARY 24, 2005
Posted: March 7, 2005

Radio Azattyk (Kyrgyz Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
CENSORED
A state broadcast regulator shuttered the popular Kyrgyz Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, known locally as Radio Azattyk, just three days ahead of the country's parliamentary elections, according to local and international press reports.

FEBRUARY 24, 2005
Posted: March 22, 2005

Viktor Panov, RIA Novosti
IMPRISONED, EXPELLED

Panov, Ashgabat correspondent for the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, was forced to leave Turkmenistan after being detained for more than two weeks.

New York, February 23, 2005—Belarusian authorities yesterday extradited to Russia two ethnic Chechens who are suspects in the July slaying of Paul Klebnikov, founding editor of Forbes Russia magazine, according to local and international press reports.

The Russian General-Prosecutor's Office today charged one of the men, Muslim Ibragimov, with complicity in the July 2004 murder of Klebnikov, 41, a prominent investigative journalist and author. Ibragimov, who is also known as Kazbek Dukuzov, is the first person officially charged in the drive-by shooting, which occurred on a Moscow street just outside Klebnikov's office.

FEBRUARY 22, 2005
Posted: March 7, 2005

The Media Support Center
HARASSED
Authorities cut off electricity on February 22 to the country's only independent printing house. The Media Support Center, funded and operated by the U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House, prints the country's major independent and opposition newspapers.

New York, February 22, 2005—The Interior Ministry in North Ossetia says a journalist recently ordered deported by the Federal Security Service may instead stay in Russia and reapply for citizenship, according to local press reports.

But the apparent shift does not lift any of the restrictions that have prevented Yuri Bagrov—who has covered the North Caucasus for The Associated Press and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty—from reporting for the last six months. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Russian government to take genuine steps to allow Bagrov to report freely.

Dear President Bush:

The Committee to Protect Journalists is extremely concerned about the dramatic decline in press freedom under Russian President Vladimir Putin's tenure, including a recent surge in new media restrictions spearheaded by the Kremlin and its allies.

Ongoing impunity for the murder of journalists, a series of proposed legal restrictions on the press, continued persecution of journalists reporting on the war in and around Chechnya, and informal censorship of regional television stations have strengthened the Kremlin's Soviet-style control over the independent media.

New York, February 16, 2005—A journalist ordered deported by the Russian security service was allowed to stay in Russia temporarily because officials in the passport office told him they could find no legal basis to expel him.

Yuri Bagrov, who has covered the North Caucasus for The Associated Press and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was summoned to the Interior Ministry's Passport and Visa Service in the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz this morning.

New York, February 15, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed that the Russian government is planning to deport Yuri Bagrov, a journalist who has covered the North Caucasus for The Associated Press and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in retaliation for his independent reporting on the war in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya.

An official from the Interior Ministry's Passport and Visa Service in the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz came to Bagrov's office today and summoned him to the passport office tomorrow morning to be informed of his pending deportation, Bagrov said in a telephone interview with CPJ today.

CPJ Update February 15, 2005 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

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