Europe & Central Asia

New York, November 27, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about an ongoing government investigation of two independent Belgrade publications, the weekly magazine Reporter and the daily Blic. The police investigators invoked two Milosovic-era laws.

The TV-6 case is strikingly similar to the recent hostile takeover of the independent television network NTV. New York, November 26, 2001—CPJ expressed grave concern over today’s ruling by a Moscow appellate court upholding the liquidation of the private Russian channel TV-6. The appeal was lodged following a September 27 ruling to liquidate TV-6’s parent…

Russian war correspondent Anna Politkovskaya fled Moscow in early October after receiving death threats in connection with her coverage of the war in Chechnya. She has settled in Vienna, Austria, where she spoke with CPJ Europe consultant Emma Gray. Until last month, Politkovskaya reported on the two-year-old war in Chechnya for the Moscow-based independent twice-weekly…

New York, November 13, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) denounced a Belarusian High Economic Court decision to shut down the Hrodno-based independent weekly Pahonya. Yesterday the court found Pahonya guilty of insulting President Aleksandr Lukashenko and publishing the statements of an unregistered civic organization, according to local and international press reports. The newspaper had…

The prosecution plans to call more than 50 witnesses. Perhaps five of them have any real connection to the case, Pasko says. New York, July 11, 2001—The second trial of Russian military journalist Grigory Pasko finally began today in Vladivostok, nearly four years after his arrest on charges of espionage and revealing state secrets.

Research by Edith Tsouri. Illustrations by Béatrice Coron.

Understanding the players and institutions involved in the struggle for press freedom in Iran

New York, October 31, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists today denounced a government raid on the independent Georgian television station Rustavi-2. On October 30, some 30 agents from Georgia’s National Security Ministry raided Rustavi-2’s headquarters in the capital, Tbilisi, in an effort to obtain the station’s financial records. Rustavi-2 is Georgia’s most influential and respected…

The fact that the trial is being conducted in a secret military court calls into question the impartiality of the entire proceeding.

New York, October 24, 2001–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced Prime Minister Milos Zeman for threatening to bankrupt the independent Prague-based weekly Respekt with a series of debilitating lawsuits in retaliation for its criticism of his government. Zeman announced on October 22 that his government was planning to file the suits against Respekt…