2008

TURKEY The murder of an outspoken newspaper editor underlined a troubling year in which journalists continued to be the targets of criminal prosecution and government censorship. Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian editor of the bilingual weekly Agos, was gunned down outside his newspaper’s Istanbul office on January 19. Dink had received numerous death threats from nationalist…

TURKMENISTAN The sudden death of President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov in December 2006 marked an end to an eccentric and authoritarian rule, raising modest hopes for social, economic, and political reform. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, a deputy prime minister and Niyazov loyalist, was named interim leader and then became president in a government-orchestrated “election” in February.

UKRAINE Intense political rivalries among a trio of powerful leaders created a chaotic and highly politicized environment in which journalists were vulnerable to a variety of abuses. Parliamentary elections in September and negotiations to form a new government in the succeeding months intensified pressure on journalists to take sides. In November, Ukraine’s two pro-Western parties…

UZBEKISTAN In power for nearly two decades, President Islam Karimov had little trouble securing another seven-year term in office. He faced three candidates but no genuine opposition in a December election that international observers said was neither free nor fair. Though constitutional term limits seemed to constrain the president from seeking re-election at all, the…

See also: Journalists killed   |   Journalists abducted   |   Background reports The war in Iraq illustrated the dangers faced by people who work with journalists in supporting roles–as drivers, interpreters, fixers and guards. Here is a statistical look at media support workers killed in Iraq 2003-09. Capsule reports detailing each death are…

February 2008 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, January 29, 2008–Police in the southern Russian Republic of Ingushetia detained, beat, and deported journalists and human rights activists who tried to cover an opposition rally in the regional capital on Saturday, according to CPJ sources and local news reports. Authorities mounted a massive crackdown against the roughly 200 protesters in Nazran. Riot…

JANUARY 28-30, 2008 Posted February 1, 2008 Uzeyir Jafarov, Baku Zaman THREATENED Jafarov, a reporter of the independent daily Baku Zaman and a former editor of the now-shuttered Azeri-language daily Gündalik Azarbaycan, said he received numerous death threats from anonymous callers. Jafarov said the calls began after he wrote critical stories about the army and…

New York, January 18, 2008—Minsk City Court in Belarus today imprisoned Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, an editor at the now-shuttered independent weekly Zgoda (Consensus) newspaper, for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006. Sdvizhkov was charged with “incitement of religious hatred” and sentenced to three years in a high-security prison. Sdvizhkov was arrested on…