Europe & Central Asia

  
The Albanian parliament is seen in Tirana on April 28, 2017. The parliament recently passed laws that could restrict online news outlets. (Reuters/Florion Goga)

Albanian media legislation threatens to restrict online news outlets

Berlin, December 19, 2019 — Albanian President Ilir Meta should reject proposed legislation that would restrict news websites and stifle the free press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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A fishmonger pictured at a bazaar in the Iranian city of Rasht, in March 2011. In 2018, Turkey extradited a journalist from Rasht whom authorities later sentenced to 10 years in prison for his work. (AFP/Behrouz Mehri)

Journalist extradited from Turkey and sentenced to 10 years in Iran

Turkish intelligence agents arrested Arash Shoa-Shargh, an Iranian journalist living in exile in Turkey, on January 5, 2018, in Van, a city near Iran’s border, a friend of the journalist, who asked not to be named to protect their safety, told CPJ on December 16, 2019.

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A mural memorializing journalist Lyra McKee is pictured in central Belfast on May 7, 2019. Leona O’Neill was harassed online after reporting from the scene when McKee was shot. (AFP/Paul Faith)

Q&A: Leona O’Neill on the aftermath of Lyra McKee’s killing in Northern Ireland

Leona O’Neill was reporting in Londonderry’s Creggan estate on April 18, 2019, the night Lyra McKee, 29, was struck by a bullet. Considered a rising star in the British and Irish media, McKee was the first journalist to be killed in Northern Ireland since 2001, CPJ noted at the time.

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Flowers cover the coffin of Mexican journalist Jorge Celestino Ruiz Vazquez, who was killed in Veracruz in August. Ruiz is one of at least five journalists murdered in retaliation for their work in Mexico in 2019. (Reuters/Oscar Martinez)

Number of journalists killed falls sharply as reprisal murders hit record low

As wars subsided and a record low number of journalists were murdered in reprisal for reporting, the total number of journalists killed because of their work fell sharply in 2019. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

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Russian blogger Yegor Zhukov is seen in Moscow on December 6, 2019. That day, a Moscow court sentenced him to a three-year suspended sentence on charges of “inciting extremism directed against the Russian state." (AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

Russian blogger Yegor Zhukov handed suspended sentence for 2017 protest coverage

Vilnius, Lithuania, December 12, 2019 — Russian authorities should not contest the appeal of journalist Yegor Zhukov and should allow him to work without fear of prosecution, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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A June 5, 2019, photo shows a "media interview area" for reporters set up near the Idkah mosque on the morning of Eid al-Fitr, when Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, in Kashgar, in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. China was the world’s leading jailer of journalists in 2019, with at least 48 in prison. (AFP/Greg Baker)

China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt are world’s worst jailers of journalists

For the fourth consecutive year, at least 250 journalists are imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammed bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

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Semiha Şahin, an editor at ETHA, is in legal limbo after Turkish authorities failed to fully implement the terms of her house arrest. (ETHA)

‘I could be jailed at any moment’: Turkish editor in limbo over terms of prison release

If somebody is legally under house arrest but in practice not, are they free? Semiha Şahin, an editor at the socialist Etkin News Agency (ETHA), confronts this question—and the legal ambiguity that it poses—every day. A Turkish court released the journalist under house arrest in June, pending the outcome of her trial, but authorities have…

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, right, gestures as he walks past journalists after talks in Warsaw, Poland, in September 2017. A joint mission to Hungary in November 2019 found that the government has pursued a strategy to silence the country's press. (AP/Alik Keplicz)

Hungary’s media control unprecedented in EU, joint mission finds

Since 2010, the Hungarian government has achieved a degree of media control unprecedented in an EU member state, seven international organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement released today. The organizations urged the EU “to take all available measures to respond.”

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Protesters hold up placards and pictures of the murdered Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia as they gather outside the prime minister's office in Valletta, Malta, on November 20, 2019. CPJ and other press freedom groups are reiterating their call for an independent investigation into the journalist's killing. (AFP/Matthew Mirabelli)

Malta must avoid political interference in Caruana Galizia investigation

CPJ and nine other international press freedom organizations today released a joint statement reiterating that the investigation into the assassination of Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia must be independent and free from political interference.

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A police car is seen in Rome, Italy, on July 31, 2019. Police are investigating recent attacks against journalist Mario De Michele. (AP/Paolo Santalucia)

Italian journalist Mario De Michele survives shooting attempt

Berlin, November 18, 2019 — Italian authorities must conduct a transparent and thorough investigation into the attempted shooting of journalist Mario De Michele and ensure his safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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