Europe & Central Asia

By Carl Bernstein When the Committee to Protect Journalists was founded in 1981, the prevailing threats to freedom of the press around the world were still from juntas, dictators, authoritarian regimes, and social systems determined to dominate the media as a means of maintaining control over citizens, usually within the boundaries of the nation-state. Toward…

By Joel Simon In 2008, the numbers of journalists killed and jailed both dropped for the first time since the war on terror was launched in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. This is welcome news, but it is tempered by harsh realities. The war on terror had a devastating effect on journalists, and…

Mikhail Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin used strikingly similar tactics to create uncritical television media. The one-sided, one-dimensional coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia was the product of their efforts By Nina Ognianova

Harassment of journalists and self-censorship among the news media intensified before and after a flawed February 2008 presidential election. The countryís authoritarian president, Robert Kocharian, imposed a state of emergency after the balloting to suppress demonstrations and block independent news reporting, a move that allowed him to deliver the presidency to a hand-picked successor, Prime…

The Georgia-Russia crisis in August diverted international attention from another strategically important Caucasus country–oil-rich Azerbaijan. The authoritarian president, Ilham Aliyev, gained a new term in a flawed October 15 vote. Aliyev, who effectively inherited the presidency from his father, Heydar, in 2003, defeated six virtual unknowns after top opposition parties boycotted the October vote to…

In a February visit to Belarusian State University, President Aleksandr Lukashenko bluntly outlined his regime’s press policy. “Media hold a weapon of a most destructive power,” Lukashenko told journalism students, “and they must be controlled by the state.”

BULGARIA | CROATIA | FRANCE | KOSOVO | ROMANIA | SLOVAKIA | TAJIKISTAN | UNITED KINGDOM | UKRAINE BULGARIA • Two unidentified gunmen killed Georgi Stoev, a popular writer and author of a series of books on the origins and rise of Bulgaria’s criminal underworld. Stoev, 35, was walking on a busy street near the…

Three journalists were killed and at least 10 were wounded during a brief but bloody conflict in the disputed region of South Ossetia that pitted Georgian troops against local and Russian forces. South Ossetian separatists strengthened their position after the conflict–gaining full recognition from Moscow and the active support of Russian troops–although Georgian President Mikhail…

The administration drafted a bill that would take limited steps in loosening criminal defamation and weeding out some of the bureaucratic thicket that regulators have used to obstruct news media. Parliament was due to consider the measure in early 2009. The bill was intended to fulfill government promises to liberalize media laws in return for…

Three years after a popular uprising inspired hope for reform, press conditions stagnated and, in many respects, deteriorated. A high-profile murder remained unsolved, with no evident progress in the investigation. Two editors faced criminal prosecution, and their newspapers were shuttered in the wake of a defamation case. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed into law a restrictive…