Europe & Central Asia

  
Russian President Vladimir Putin gives an interview at a May 15, 2018, ceremony opening a bridge that will connect the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine authorities accused the director of Russian state news agency RIA Novosti's Kiev office of propaganda supporting the annexing of Crimea. (Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters)

Ukraine authorities search Russian news agency, detain director

New York, May 15, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over the Ukraine Security Service’s (SBU) search of the Kiev office of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti and detention of the office director, Kirill Vyshynsky.

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An airport in Ashgabat features a portrait of Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov in September 2016. Turkmen authorities threatened and detained journalist Soltan Achilova on May 9, 2018, as she was attempting to take pictures. (Reuters/Marat Gurt)

Journalist detained, threatened in Turkmenistan

Turkmen police detained Ashgabat-based journalist Soltan Achilova on May 9, 2018, according to her employer, the Turkmen service of the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), locally known as Azatlyk.

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Police patrol outside the National Palace of Culture during a ceremony starting Bulgaria's six-month presidency of the European Union in Sofia, Bulgaria, January 12, 2018. (Reuters/Stoyan Nenov)

Investigative reporter attacked in Bulgaria

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.

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People visit an art installation of Easter eggs, in Kiev, Ukraine on April 10, 2018. 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, according to reports. (AP/Efrem Lukatsky)

In Ukraine, journalists harassed, 1 attacked while filming investigative report

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.

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A woman takes pictures with her cellphone as a ferry approaches Besiktas pier in Istanbul, Turkey on March 27, 2018. Turkish authorities continue to crackdown on the country's press. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 7, 2018

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.

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A poster of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is carried at a protest against government corruption revealed by the Daphne Project, in Valletta, Malta, on April 29. Reporting on corruption can be a dangerous assignment. (Reuters/Darrin Zammit Lupi)

Make solving journalist murders a priority, CPJ tells US Helsinki Commission

“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.

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The daily Vijesti with a picture of attacked Montenegrin investigative reporter Olivera Lakic on May 9, 2018. (Reuters/Stevo Vasiljevic)

Investigative journalist shot, injured in Montenegro

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.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán addresses supporters in Budapest after partial results of the country's parliamentary elections are announced on April 8, 2018. (Reuters/Leonhard Foeger)

Independent journalists in Hungary brace for tough times in next Orbán term

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.

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Uzbek journalist Bobomurod Abdullayev (center), was acquitted and released from state custody on May 7, 2018. (Reuters/Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov)

Uzbekistan releases remaining jailed journalists

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…

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People stroll by the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey on April 20, 2018. Turkish authorities sentenced to prison 10 former Feza Media Group employees on terrorism-related charges on April 30, according to reports. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 30, 2018

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”…

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