CPJ condemns attempts to close independent weekly
New York, April 19, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned an attempt by authorities in the Belarusian capital Minsk to close the weekly Nasha Niva, one of the country’s last independent newspapers. Local and international media reported that city officials informed Editor-in-chief Andrei Dynko that they did not want his paper based in Minsk…
Crime journalist’s imprisonment raises alarm
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending the rights of journalists worldwide, is deeply concerned about the fate of Mario Spezi, a veteran crime journalist imprisoned in the central Italian city of Perugia.
Journalist shot two weeks ago in Diyarbakir riots dies
New York, April 17, 2006—Journalist Ilyas Aktas died on April 14 in an Ankara hospital two weeks after he was shot in the head during protests in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, in southeast Turkey, local and international media reported. The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the shooting and is still…
Protests against Kremlin control of broadcast media
New York, April 17, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed solidarity today with the more than 1000 Russian journalists and activists who protested the Kremlin’s control of television news reporting. The demonstrators rallied in downtown Moscow Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of the hostile takeover by state gas monopoly Gazprom of the leading independent…
Prosecutor files criminal libel charges against editor
New York, April 14, 2006—Prosecutors in the western city of Kaliningrad have filed criminal libel charges against Arseny Makhlov, publisher of the weekly Dvornik, the Moscow-based news agency Regnum reported today. The charges relate to three articles in Dvornik during 2004 and 2005 which criticized a local prosecutor for accepting money to close a fraud…
Charges dropped against 4 of 5 columnists
New York, April 11, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes a Turkish court ruling today to drop charges against four prominent newspaper columnists but deplores the decision to continue with the trial of a fifth. All five writers were charged over comments they made about an Istanbul conference last September on the killing of Armenians…
Russian reporters death prompts questions among family, colleagues
New York, April 11, 2006—Family and colleagues of Russian journalist Vagif Kochetkov, a 31-year-old who died in January from injuries suffered in an attack the month before, are raising questions about the motive for the assault and local prosecutors’ conclusion that it stemmed from a robbery, according to local press reports. Kochetkov, who died on…
Editor beaten in Kyiv
New York, April 10, 2006—Unidentified men beat Vladimir Katsman, the editor-in-chief of the Stolichniye Novosti (Capital News) publishing house, as he returned home in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on April 8, local and international press reported. “I definitely believe the attack was linked to my work,” Katsman told the online newspaper Gazeta Po-Kyivsky from his…
In Bulgaria, bomb explodes at home of investigative journalist
New York, April 6, 2006—An early morning explosion today rocked the Sofia apartment of Vasil Ivanov, a Nova Television investigative reporter who recently uncovered abuse of inmates in Sofia Central Prison, local and international press reports said. No injuries were reported, but the bomb caused extensive damage.