Azerbaijani journalist sentenced to 30 days in prison
New York, May 24, 2017–Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release freelance journalist Nijat Amiraslanov, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A district court in the northwestern Azerbaijani city of Gazakh yesterday sentenced the journalist to 30 days in prison on charges of resisting police.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 21, 2017
Two journalists arraigned, finance manager released A court in Istanbul arraigned Gökmen Ulu and Mediha Olgun, journalists for the secularist, nationalist daily Sözcü, one of the last remaining widely circulated newspapers to be consistently critical of the government, on charges of “committing a crime in the name of a [terrorist] organization without being a member,…
TV cameraman wounded in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region
Davit Atoyan, a cameraman for the independent Armenian television station Shant, was wounded in both legs on May 10, 2017 in Nagorno-Karabakh, when the Azerbaijani military opened fire on a vehicle he was in, according to media reports and his employer.
Ukraine bans Russian media outlets, websites
New York, May 17, 2017–Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko should immediately reverse his order obstructing at least 19 Russian media companies, four popular Russian websites, and banning at least 13 journalists from entering the country for a year, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The decree, published on the Ukrainian presidency’s website on May 15,…
Journalist and press freedom defender stabbed in Kazakhstan
New York, May 15, 2017–Kazakh authorities should swiftly and thoroughly investigate yesterday’s stabbing of journalist and press freedom defender Ramazan Yesergepov and should bring all those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesergepov, who spent three years in prison for his work as an editor and who now runs the press…
Ukraine expels Russian journalists trying to cover Eurovision contest
Ukraine’s state border service blocked Maria Remizova and Elena Boduen, correspondents of the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, and Ramil Sitdikov, a photojournalist of the Moscow-based pro-Kremlin broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today), from entering the country, according to reports. The journalists were traveling to Ukraine to cover the Eurovision song contest, which is being hosted in…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 7
Editor detained at courthouse Police in Istanbul’s Çağlayan Courthouse today detained Çağlar Özbilgin, an editor for the leftist news website sendika.org, his employer reported. Özbilgin was there to attend a hearing of his trial on charges of “insulting the president,” but police detained him for a separate criminal investigation into him on suspicion of “provoking…
Expanded surveillance powers could threaten work of journalists in UK
Brussels, May 5, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by news reports that the U.K. government wants to push telecommunication companies to introduce real-time surveillance and the removal of encryption. On Thursday, The Register published leaked draft regulations detailing how telecommunications operators would be required to grant real-time access to individuals under warrant within…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 30, 2017
Court overturns reporter’s terrorism conviction The Fourth Court of Appeals in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır today overturned its previous conviction of Bertitan Canözer, a former reporter for the shuttered JİNHA news agency, on charges of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization,” the news website Gazete Sujin reported. Police detained Canözer in December 2015…