Europe & Central Asia

The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined seven other press freedom organizations in calling on the Russian authorities to end their harassment of journalists covering opposition protests in Moscow. Protests have taken place on four consecutive Saturdays in July and August after the local electoral commission’s decision to ban several opposition politicians from participating in…

Istanbul, August 21, 2019 – Turkish authorities must immediately release the seven journalists who were detained by police since August 19, as well as all journalists jailed for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On August 17, 2019, a group of men physically attacked Owen Jones, a columnist for the U.K. daily newspaper The Guardian, his employer reported.

On August 6, 2019, the Kiev Commercial Court ruled that a tweet posted by the independent news outlet Hromadske TV in May 2018 had harmed the reputation of C14, a Ukrainian nationalist group, according to Hromadske TV and other outlets.

Washington, D.C., August 8, 2019–Russian authorities should allow journalists to cover protests freely and safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today, after the detention of several journalists and the use of force by police against the media during demonstrations in Moscow on July 27 and August 3.

Istanbul, August 6, 2019–An Ankara court on July 16 ordered Turkish internet service providers to block access in Turkey to 136 web addresses, independent news website Bianet reported today. The blocked addresses include the websites of news outlets Bianet, ETHA news agency, Halkın Sesi TV, Özgür Gelecek, osp.org, geziyisavunuyoruz.org, Gazete Fersude, Yeni Demokratik Gençlik, Umut…

Washington, D.C., August 2, 2019–Journalist Mikhail Romanov, a correspondent with the weekly Yakutsk Vecherniy, was found guilty on July 25 by the city court of Yakutsk, in eastern Russia, on charges of “abuse of freedom of information by publishing false information that poses a threat to the public,” according to news reports. He was fined…

On July 30, 2019, a group of men disrupted a press conference at the Kiev offices of Ukrinform, according to the state-run news agency and Ukrainskaya Pravda.

Washington, D.C., July 30, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed deep disappointment and concern over today’s court decision in Kyrgyzstan to uphold the life sentence of journalist and human rights defender Azimjon Askarov.

A state-controlled internet service provider in Kazakhstan is requiring at least some of its subscribers to submit to having their internet traffic intercepted when they use specific websites–including social media sites, email and messaging services, and Google News, according to research published this week by Censored Planet, a project at the University of Michigan.