New York, March 24, 2004—Rakhim Esenov and Ashyrguly Bayryev, freelancers for the Turkmen Service of the Prague-based, U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), who were detained in late February and early March by agents from the National Security Service (MNB) in the capital, Ashgabat, have been released. However, the charges against them are still pending.…
New York, March 23, 2004—The prison sentence of a journalist convicted of libeling a local official has been postponed after a large group of journalists protested the imprisonment. Andrzej Marek, editor-in-chief of the weekly Wiesci Polickie (Police News) in the western Polish town of Police, was convicted in November 2003 of libeling Piotr Misilo, then…
March 18, 2004, New York—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has learned that Ruslan Soltakhanov, a fixer and driver working for Atlanta-based Cox Newspapers, was released from captivity on March 12 after being abducted in February. On February 13, several unidentified men abducted Soltakhanov from his home in Mozdok, just west of Chechnya in North…
March 17, 2004, New York—Uzbek authorities have allowed imprisoned journalist Ruslan Sharipov, who has been jailed since May 2003, to complete his sentence under house arrest. On Friday, March 12, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry announced that Sharipov would be moved from Tavaksay Prison in Tashkent Region to a low-security prison near Kibray District, also in…
There were 138 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2003 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is the same as last year. An analysis of the reasons behind this is contained in the introduction on page 10. At the beginning of 2004, CPJ sent letters of inquiry to…
By Ted KoppelThis is not a good day. As I write, pop star Michael Jackson has been arrested for allegedly engaging in sexual misconduct with a minor. His residence cum theme park, “Neverland,” has been invaded by police, sheriff’s deputies, and a team of forensic specialists. I am not empathizing with Michael Jackson, although this…
By Ann CooperIn real-time images, the war in Iraq splashed across television screens worldwide in March, with thousands of journalists covering the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein and his regime. The conflict and its aftermath had a far-reaching impact on the press and its ability to report the news, with the reverberations felt in some…
Although the number of journalists in prison in Africa at the end of 2003 was lower than the previous year, African journalists still faced a multitude of difficulties, including government harassment and physical assaults. Many countries in Africa retain harsh press laws. In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, some…
While integration into NATO and the European Union has had a positive effect on press freedom conditions in most of Central Europe and the Baltic states, the situation for journalists in Russia and the former Soviet republics has worsened steadily, with governments relying on authoritarian tactics to silence the media. Even reformist governments in the…
Albania’s contentious political environment and economic underdevelopment continued to make the country a relatively chaotic and difficult place for the independent press in 2003. Journalists faced government pressure, criminal libel lawsuits, arbitrary dismissal by politicized owners, and limited access to basic government information, particularly when investigating official corruption and organized crime. Furthermore, low professional standards,…