Europe & Central Asia

New York, January 30, 2025—Ukrainian military officers detained three journalists for eight hours on accusations of “illegal border crossing” on January 6 in Sudzha, a Ukrainian-controlled town in Russia’s Kursk region. The journalists — Ukrainian freelance reporter Petro Chumakov, Kurt Pelda, correspondent with Swiss media group CH Media, and freelance camera operator Josef Zehnder — had army…

Istanbul, January 28, 2025—A court in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır on Tuesday found journalist Safiye Alagaş guilty of membership in a terrorist organization and sentenced her to six years and three months in prison. Alagaş, who spent a year behind bars in pretrial arrest, remains free pending appeal.  “The evidence brought against Kurdish journalist…

Istanbul, January 23, 2025–The 25th Istanbul Court of Serious Crimes came to a guilty verdict on Thursday in the retrial of five journalists arrested on terrorism charges in 2016, found guilty in 2018, and released on appeal in 2020. The court acquitted one other journalist. The defendants were charged for alleged ties to the recently…

New York, January 21, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a decision by Azerbaijani authorities to bring six new charges against four Toplum TV journalists and the Friday arrest of the independent news outlet’s reporter Farid Ismayilov, who was remanded into pretrial custody.  “The new charges against Toplum TV underscores an unprecedented media crackdown waged by Azerbaijani authorities,” said…

On January 21, CPJ joined nine other organizations in calling on the Council of Europe’s parliament, when it meets at the end of the month, to challenge Azerbaijan’s escalating repression, including against the media. The Azerbaijani delegation is currently suspended from participating in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) because the country…

New York, January 17, 2025–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Georgian authorities to release reporter Guram Murvanidze and to investigate whether Mzia Amaghlobeli is facing retaliatory charges because of her journalism.    Amaghlobeli, founder and director of independent news outlets Batumelebi and Netgazeti, and Murvanidze, also from Batumelebi, were arrested in the western city of Batumi on January 11 during protests calling for a re-run…

Istanbul, January 15, 2025—Turkish authorities should not stop their efforts to find those behind the conspiracy to murder Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On January 9, an Istanbul court reached a verdict in the latest of many trials over Dink’s 2007 fatal shooting in Istanbul. Dink, managing editor of…

New York, January 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Turkmen authorities’ decision to place a travel ban on Nurgeldi Halykov, a freelance correspondent for the independent Netherlands-based news website Turkmen.news, who was released from prison in June 2024 after serving a four-year sentence on retaliatory charges. On January 12, border guards at Ashgabat International…

Berlin, January 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Russian authorities to stop persecuting the regional news site Komi Daily and the independent media outlet Asians of Russia, which the Federal Security Service (FSB) added to its list of “terrorist organizations.” This marks the first time media publications have been labeled as such in Russia, according…

New York, January 13, 2025—A court in Tajikistan’s southern city of Kulob on January 10 sentenced Ahmad Ibrohim, chief editor of the independent weekly newspaper Payk, to 10 years in prison on charges of bribery, extortion, and extremism. The closed-door trial was held in the city’s pretrial detention center, with authorities reportedly classifying the case…