KYRGYZSTAN In a dramatic turnaround, public outrage over fraudulent parliamentary elections forced President Askar Akayev out of office after 14 years of authoritarian rule in this Central Asian nation. The Akayev administration’s aggressively repressive media policies gave way in midyear to a more tolerant press freedom climate under Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his new government. A…
RUSSIA President Vladimir Putin and his allies continued to expand control over the media, using methods that critics called reminiscent of the Soviet era. Journalists who took on powerful political or business interests sometimes paid with their lives. Two journalists were killed in 2005 for their reporting. In the five years since Putin took power,…
TAJIKISTAN Popular uprisings elsewhere in Central Asia spurred Tajikistan to further crack down on already-limited dissent. Repressive actions flowed from four domestic and regional events: a February 27 parliamentary vote; the Tulip Revolution in neighboring Kyrgyzstan in March; violent unrest in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan in May; and the prospect of presidential elections…
TURKMENISTAN Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-proclaimed president for life, steered his nation farther down the path of international isolation, barring foreign publications as well as libraries, and keeping so tight a grip on the news media that vital issues went unreported. The state owns all domestic news media, and the Niyazov administration controls them closely, appointing…
UKRAINE Expectations were high that new President Viktor Yushchenko would sweep away the legacy of repression left by Leonid Kuchma’s authoritarian regime. Yushchenko won a December 26, 2004, presidential runoff held after hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the capital, Kyiv, to denounce an earlier, rigged vote in which Kuchma protégé Viktor…
UNITED STATES An investigation into the leak of a CIA officer’s identity erupted, with one reporter compelled to testify about his confidential source, another jailed for 85 days before she testified, and a high-level White House aide indicted on federal charges of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. Confidentiality of sources was under attack…
UZBEKISTAN President Islam Karimov engaged in a full-fledged offensive against the independent press. Unrelenting government persecution drove out more than a dozen foreign correspondents and local reporters working for foreign media; continual harassment forced at least two news agencies and a media training organization to close their offices. Karimov and his allies used trumped-up charges…
New York, February 15, 2006—A new judge in the trial of Chechens charged with killing Forbes-Russia Editor Paul Klebnikov rejected a defense appeal today to open the hearing to the public. A spokesman for the Klebnikov family told The Associated Press that the judge at the Moscow City Court ruled the decision to close the…
New York, February 10, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a Moscow court’s decision to impose hefty property taxes on the Russian branch of International PEN, an association of writers that promotes artistic exchange and defends free expression. The ruling against PEN comes against the backdrop of a government crackdown on nongovernmental organizations…