Reporters who dig up carefully buried facts about those in power can easily find themselves in danger. In countries where a tradition of watchdog journalism has not yet taken hold, the risks of practicing investigative reporting can be real and physical for those reporters that take it on.
New York, March 10, 2009–Vadim Rogozhin, managing director of the independent media holding company Vzglyad in the southern city of Saratov, was hospitalized in serious condition today after surviving a brutal attack last week, his company said in an official statement.
New York, March 5, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Belarusian authorities to renew work credentials for Andrzej Poczobut, a local correspondent for Poland’s largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, and to investigate recent harassment of him and his family in the western city of Hrodno. Poczobut’s credentials were pulled after he reported on the policies…
New York, February 24, 2009–A journalist who went to interview the minister of the Ministry of National Security (MNB) in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic on February 20 was blindfolded and interrogated for hours, according to local news reports. The Committee to Project Journalists called today for an immediate investigation into the incident by the central…
New York, February 19, 2009–Three defendants in the October 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya walked free out of the Moscow District Military Court today after a jury unanimously acquitted them of helping to organize the crime, according to local news reports. The state prosecution said it will appeal the verdict.
We issued this statement today after the Russian press reported the brief detention and harassment by Khimki police of two people handing out copies of the independent newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda, whose editor, Mikhail Beketov, remains hospitalized two months after unknown attackers beat him nearly to death…
New York, February 11, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists called today for Russian authorities to immediately investigate a death threat that was sent to a human rights research center. In an e-mail, a neo-Nazi group threatened to murder a number of journalists and intellectuals in the next year, according to the recipient of the threat.