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Iraq is the world's deadliest country for the press for the sixth consecutive year, CPJ's year-end analysis finds. The 11 deaths in Iraq, while a sharp drop from prior years, remained among the highest annual tolls in CPJ history. Worldwide, 41 journalists were killed in connection to their work in 2008. South Asia became a riskier place. There, the victims included reporter Abdul Samad Rohani, right.

CPJ makes headway in cases in Russia, Georgia

Amid ongoing attacks on journalists, CPJ advocacy in Europe and Central Asia has generated some positive results. Earlier this month, a CPJ delegation met with Russian and European officials, who promised to revisit 17 journalist murders in Russia since 2000. The declared commitment to reverse Russia’s grim record of impunity came after we presented our own in-depth investigation into the unsolved killings of Russian journalists in our report Anatomy of Injustice.

New York, September 18, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Georgian authorities to drop criminal charges against the Tbilisi bureau chief for the Russian news agency RIA Novosti and allow him to work without fear of harassment. According to RIA Novosti, Besik Pipia is facing up to three years in prison if convicted on a criminal charge of document forgery. 

Mikhail Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin used strikingly similar tactics to create uncritical television media. The one-sided, one-dimensional coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia was the product of their efforts By Nina Ognianova
Three journalists were killed and at least 10 were wounded during a brief but bloody conflict in the disputed region of South Ossetia that pitted Georgian troops against local and Russian forces. South Ossetian separatists strengthened their position after the conflict--gaining full recognition from Moscow and the active support of Russian troops--although Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili reaped at least a short-term spike in popularity.

CPJ’s Joel Simon, Robert Mahoney, and Nina Ognianova pay tribute to journalists who died in 2008. The toll was highest in Iraq, but conflicts in South Asia and the Caucasus were deadly as well. Impunity in journalist murders in Russia, Philippines, and Mexico were top issues.

New York, December 18, 2008—For the sixth consecutive year, Iraq was the deadliest country in the world for the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its end-of-year analysis. The 11 deaths recorded in Iraq in 2008, while a sharp drop from prior years, remained among the highest annual tolls in CPJ history.

New York, September 9, 2008The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s release of Telewizja Polska (TVP) crew members who were detained outside the Georgian village of Karaleti by South Ossetian militia members, and taken into custody in the regional capital, Tskhinvali on Monday.

Reporter Dariusz Bohatkiewicz told CPJ that authorities in Tskhinvali transferred him and his colleagues—cameraman Marcin Wesołowski and driver Levan Guliashvili—to Russian peacekeepers who turned them over to Georgian authorities and Polish diplomats. TVP crew’s equipment and car were returned undamaged.

New York, September 8, 2008—South Ossetian and Russian authorities should immediately release three members of a Polish television crew detained today near the village of Karaleti in the buffer zone between South Ossetia and Georgia, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Authorities confiscated equipment and cell phones from the Telewizja Polska (TVP) crew and were holding the three members incommunicado in the regional capital, Tskhinvali, according to CPJ sources.

September 2008
News from the Committee to protect Journalists

Bob Dietz called attention to the Chinese propaganda department's recent 21-point press directive, first reported by the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. The whole thing in English and Chinese is posted today at Berkeley's China Digital Times. Among the orders given to the domestic media during the Olympic Games is that they are not to report on the protest zones set up at three places around Beijing. This apparently holds true even if they are empty, which they are.

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Killed in Georgia

8 journalists killed since 1992

1 journalist murdered

Contact

Europe and Central Asia

Program Coordinator:
Nina Ognianova

Research Associate:
Muzaffar Suleymanov

nognianova@cpj.org
msuleymanov@cpj.org

Tel: 212-465-1004
ext 106, 101
Fax: 212-465-9568

330 7th Avenue, 11th Floor
New York, NY, 10001 USA

 

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Anatomy of Injustice

Unsolved murders in Russia
Anatomy of Injustice

Pakistani reporters
face grave risks

CPJ’s Bob Dietz
examines the challenges on the CPJ Blog