Officials block news outlets amid massive protests
New York, May 13, 2005—Uzbek authorities shuttered several foreign and domestic media outlets today during massive anti-government protests in the northeastern city of Andijan, leaving citizens without access to independent news about the unrest, according to local and international press reports. Authorities blocked access to the foreign television channels CNN, BBC, and Moscow-based NTV at…
Latvian TV crew detained, harassed
New York, May 12, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the detention and harassment this week of a Latvian television crew by local police and federal agents in Pytalovo, a district on the Latvia-Russia border. Reporter Ivo Kirsblats, cameraman Maris Jurgensons, and driver Eriks Pakalns of the Riga-based Latvian public television LTV were detained for…
Information Ministry orders closure of opposition weekly
New York, May 10, 2005 – CPJ condemns the closure of the leading opposition weekly Respublika Delovoye Obozreniye (Republic Business Review) by The Kazakh Culture, Information, and Sports Ministry. Last Thursday in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s financial capital, Galina Dyrdina, the weekly’s deputy editor told a press conference that editorial staff will not publish the paper’s next…
Investigators name chief suspect in murder of opposition editor
New York, May 4, 2005—Investigators in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, said late yesterday that a 46-year-old Georgian citizen is the chief suspect in the March 2 murder of Elmar Huseynov, founder and editor of the opposition news magazine Monitor. The National Security Ministry (MNB), which is conducting the inquiry into Huseynov’s killing, identified the suspect as…
Russian journalists released from jail after being arrested at rally
New York, May 2, 2005—A Belarusian court granted early release Saturday to two Russian journalists arrested last week while covering an opposition demonstration in the capital, Minsk, that marked the anniversary of the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The journalists were freed along with 12 Russians who participated in the rally, according to local and…
BELARUS
APRIL 27, 2005 Posted: May 3, 2005 Aleksey Ametyov, Newsweek Mikhail Romanov, Moskovsky Komsomolets LEGAL ACTION, IMPRISONED A court in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, handed jail sentences to two Russian journalists arrested while covering an opposition rally, according to local and international press reports.