Europe & Central Asia

New York, February 13, 2015--The Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office today charged Khadija Ismayilova, an award-winning investigative journalist, with embezzlement, illegal business, tax evasion, and abuse of power, regional and international press reported. The new charges came the same week that news reports said a leading press freedom advocate, Emin Huseynov, has been in hiding in the Swiss embassy in Baku to avoid arrest on similar accusations.

New York, February 12, 2015--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Azerbaijani authorities to drop the criminal investigation of Emin Huseynov, journalist and media freedom advocate, and allow him to work and travel without harassment and fear of arrest.

Dear Prime Minister Davutoğlu: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to express alarm at a fresh wave of anti-press actions in Turkey and to ask that you use the power of your office to reverse the measures.

New York, February 6, 2015--The Baku Appeals Court today upheld a lower court's decision to extend the pretrial detention of investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova to March 24, according to regional press reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for Ismayilova's immediate release.

Putting Charlie Hebdo in context

When masked gunmen raided the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, killing 12 people including eight journalists, the media turned to the Committee to Protect Journalists to put the attack in context and comment on the repercussions for press freedom worldwide. CPJ's experts and directors gave comments to The New York Times, NPR, Reuters TV, Yahoo News with Katie Couric, BBC World Service, France 24, and The Associated Press, among others. CPJ responded as soon as details of the attack emerged, and its regional experts helped provide a global perspective on the issues surrounding the attack.

ATR Director Elzara Islyamova describes the raid on ATR before agents cut her short. (YouTube)

New York, January 26, 2015--Authorities in Crimea should stop targeting the independent regional broadcaster ATR immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today after the broadcaster was raided and its equipment seized.

The Skopje Court of Appeals in the capital, Skopje, on January 15, 2015, reduced Tomislav Kezarovski's prison term from four and a half years to two years, but ordered the journalist to serve the remaining time--four and a half months--in jail, according to regional and international press. Kezarovski had been serving the term under house arrest.

New York, January 14, 2015--An independent journalist was attacked on Tuesday in the Russian city of Saratov, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the assault and calls on authorities to investigate and to consider journalism a motive in the crime.

On January 11, 2015, attackers firebombed the offices of the German daily Hamburger Morgenpost, in Hamburg, northern Germany, in apparent retaliation for the tabloid's reprinting of several cartoons from the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on its front page, according to news reports. The press reported that arsonists threw a firebomb and stones through a Hamburgen Morgenpost window. No one was injured, the reports said.

By Jean-Paul Marthoz/CPJ Europe Representative

The attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has sent shock waves through France and beyond. Not only because 12 people have been killed in cold blood and many were wounded in what was the deadliest terrorist attack in France since 1961, when right wingers bombed a train killing 28 people. Not only because, after an attack in neighboring Belgium last May and French citizens joining extremist fighters in Syria and Iraq in recent months, the country feared something dramatic might happen soon, and that it eventually did.