UKRAINE: New York, March 17, 2008—An appeals court in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, convicted on Saturday three suspects in the 2000 abduction and murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze. The court sentenced a former police officer, Nikolai Protasov, to 13 years in prison; his fellow officers, Valery Kostenko and Aleksandr Popovych, were given 12-year terms.…
New York, March 14, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces yesterday’s brutal attack on Agil Khalil, a reporter with the opposition daily Azadlyg (Freedom). Four unidentified assailants encircled Khalil as he was leaving his office in the evening; one stabbed him in the chest, according to the Baku-based Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS).…
New York, March 7, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is appalled by the four-year prison term given today to Genimet Zakhidov, editor of the opposition daily Azadlyg (Freedom). Zakhidov was charged with hooliganism and inflicting minor bodily harm in November. He has been in custody ever since. Zakhidov was secretly brought to the Yasamal District…
Your Excellency, As an independent, nonpartisan organization defending press freedom worldwide, the Committee to Protect Journalists would like to draw to your attention your government’s selective use of politically motivated civil libel lawsuits against critics. Intolerant officials punish what remains of Belarus’ independent media with lawsuits that result in exorbitant fines, further debilitating the outlets. Since 1999, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented such targeted attacks against at least five independent and oppositions newspapers.
Dear Mr. President, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the recent attacks on the Belgrade-based independent broadcaster B92 and its founder, Veran Matic. The attacks started in the wake of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on February 17–culminating in the siege of the station by angry protesters on February 21–and have continued since.
Restrictions imposed as president declares emergency New York, March 3, 2008—Armenian authorities should immediately lift restrictions on independent news reporting and the censorship of independent news Web sites, steps imposed when President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Kocharian declared a 20-day state of emergency…
New York, February 27, 2008—Authorities at Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport denied re-entry today to Natalya Morar, an investigative reporter with the independent newsweekly The New Times, the journalist told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Morar, speaking to CPJ by telephone from the airport, said guards stopped her at a passport checkpoint, confiscated her travel documents,…
BELARUS: New York, February 25, 2008—The Belarusian Supreme Court has ordered the early release of Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, former deputy editor of the now-shuttered independent newspaper Zgoda, who was sentenced in January to three years in a high-security prison for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006.
Dear Mr. President, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the lack of progress in the investigation into the October assassination of Alisher Saipov, editor of the independent Uzbek-language weekly Siyosat (Politics). Four months after this brazen crime, Kyrgyz officials in charge of the probe announced–amid conflicting press reports–that the investigation was suspended. The Saipov family was not informed of the suspension in time to seek reconsideration.