2018

Berlin, May 14, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Bulgarian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into an attack on investigative journalist Hristo Geshov, who was beaten on May 10 outside his home in the northwestern town of Cherven Bryag, and guarantee his safety.

Vladislav Pleshakov, a journalist from the privately owned television channel 1+1, was assaulted in an upscale neighborhood near Kiev on April 21, 2018, while filming for an investigative report about real estate allegedly owned by Ukraine’s finance minister, Oleksandr Danyliuk, according to the Kiev-based media monitoring organization Detector Media, which cites 1+1’s press service.

Journalists arrested On May 3, authorities in the southern city of Mersin transferred İsmail Çoban, former news editor for the shuttered Kurdish language daily Azadiya Welat, to the southeastern city of Diyarbakır, where he will remain in custody pending trial, according to reports.

“Being a reporter in much of the world is dangerous work. Being an investigative reporter can be deadly,” CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney told the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Commission, at a briefing in Washington, D.C. today.

Berlin, May 9, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Montenegrin authorities to guarantee the safety of Olivera Lakić, an investigative journalist with the local daily Vijesti, who was shot outside her apartment building in the capital Podgorica yesterday evening, the regional news website Balkan Insight reported.

As Hungary’s new Parliament holds its first session, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is due to form his third consecutive government after a landslide re-election a month ago, journalists critical of his power will closely monitor his words for hints of what awaits them in the next four years.

New York, May 7, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release from custody today of Uzbek journalists Bobomurod Abdullaev and Hayot Nasriddinov, who had been on trial in Tashkent since March 5, 2018. With the pair’s release, there are no journalists behind bars in Uzbekistan for the first time in two decades, according to…

Feza Media Group trial ends, defendants sentenced An Istanbul court on April 30 convicted 10 people affiliated with the shuttered Feza Media Group, best known as the publisher of the daily Zaman, on terrorism-related charges, CNNTurk and the media news website P24 reported. All of the defendants were acquitted on charges of “attempting to eliminate”…

A coalition of 26 international human rights, media and internet freedom organizations, including CPJ, today called on Russian authorities to revoke a court order that blocks access to the Telegram messaging app.