Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of September 10, 2017
Court orders four Cumhuriyet managers and journalists to remain in custody for trial A Turkish court remanded four members of the Cumhuriyet newspaper yesterday who are on trial for terrorism-related charges, according to reports from their employer and Reuters.
Journalists on trial in France after calling Azerbaijan a dictatorship
New York, September 7, 2017–The French justice ministry should dismiss criminal defamation charges the government of Azerbaijan brought against journalists Elise Lucet and Laurent Richard, and allow the pair to continue their work without obstruction, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Kazakh editor convicted of money laundering, banned from journalism
New York, September 7, 2017–A Kazakh court today handed down a suspended prison sentence to Zhanbolat Mamay, editor of the independent newspaper Sayasi kalam/Tribuna, for charges of money laundering, and banned him from working as a journalist for three years, according to media reports. Mamay said he plans to appeal.
Separatists in east Ukraine ‘sentence’ blogger to 14 years in captivity
Pro-Russia separatists in the rebel stronghold of Luhansk, east Ukraine, took Eduard Nedelyayev, a Ukrainian blogger, captive in November last year, according to local media reports. The group claims authority over a region it has named the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR).
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of September 3, 2017
Columnist’s passport returned Turkish authorities on September 7 returned Aslı Erdoğan, a former advisory board member of the shuttered pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem and a frequent columnist, her passport, according to the Hürriyet Daily News website, which cites Erdoğan’s lawyer.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of August 27, 2017
Turkish authorities confiscate columnist’s passport Turkish police confiscated Aslı Erdoğan’s passport as the former advisory board member of the shuttered pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem and frequent columnist was on her way to Germany to accept an award for her work, according to a report yesterday on the online news site sendka.org.
Ukraine’s security service deports Russian journalist
New York, August 30, 2017– Russian journalist Anna Kurbatova was today grabbed on the street in the center of Kiev by unknown people and later deported, according to her employer Russian state television’s Channel One. Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said authorities have banned the journalist from entering Ukraine for three years.
Ukraine bars Spanish journalists over coverage of conflict in east
New York, August 29, 2017–The Security Service of Ukraine today said that it barred the Spanish freelance journalists Antonio Pampliega and Ángel Sastre from entering the country for three years over their reporting on the conflict in the east, according to news reports.
Ukrainian journalist in custody on anti-state charges
New York, August 25, 2017–Ukrainian authorities should immediately release freelance journalist Vasily Muravitsky and drop all charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Muravitsky, a reporter and columnist based in Zhytomyr, has been detained since August 1 on anti-state charges brought by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), according to news reports.
Azerbaijan detains head of Turan news agency
New York, August 24, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Azerbaijani authorities today to immediately release Mehman Aliyev, head of the country’s only independent news agency, Turan. Azerbaijan’s Tax Ministry today ordered Aliyev to be detained as part of an investigation launched against Turan last week into allegations of tax evasion, according to media…