Europe & Central Asia

Galima Bukharbaeva | Beatrice Mtetwa | Shi Tao | Lúico Flávio Pinto

Colombia may be unique in the extent to which its press censors itself in fear of physical reprisals. Powerful economic factors, though hardly exceptional, add yet more pressure.

The Committee to Protect Journalists interviewed three dozen journalists around the country. Here is a sample of topics they said they’d investigate if not for fear of reprisals.

OCTOBER 26, 2005 Posted: December 2, 2005 BBC Deutsche Welle The Associated Press Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty HARASSED The BBC World Service closed its Tashkent office and withdrew staff because of continued harassment by authorities because of its reporting on the May 13 massacre in the northeast city of Andijan. Other local and foreign media…

New York, October 26, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the government harassment of foreign media in Uzbekistan, which today prompted the BBC to close its Tashkent bureau. The BBC World Service said it would immediately close its office and withdraw staff because of continued harassment since its reporting of the May 13 massacre in…

An Uzbek reporter risked her life to tell the world of Andijan assault.

New York, October 20, 2005—Vasily Grodnikov, a freelancer who wrote for the Minsk opposition newspaper Narodnaya Volya, was found dead with a head wound in his apartment outside Minsk on Monday, local and international news agencies reported. CPJ is seeking to determine whether Grodnikov, 66, was murdered in retaliation for his journalistic work. Authorities have…

New York, October 19, 2005—The Prosecutor General’s Office in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, is blocking the release of independent journalist Jumaboy Tolibov despite a Supreme Court ruling on October 11 setting him free, a local press freedom group said. The National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT), a Dushanbe-based press freedom group which has…

Since 1995, when the first independent news agencies emerged in Cuba, dozens of journalists have fled the country to escape harassment, threats, detention, or jail. Many have settled in the United States or Spain, where some continue to work as journalists. Manuel Vázquez Portal, who won CPJ’s 2003 International Press Freedom Award, settled in Miami…

Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by a campaign of harassment and intimidation against Stanislav Dmitriyevsky in retaliation for his newspaper’s reporting on the war in Chechnya. The persecution of Dmitriyevsky is part of a broader government campaign to obstruct the work of independent media reporting on Chechnya.