2001

New York, September 26, 2001— Japanese free-lance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka has now been missing since late July, when he reportedly left Georgia for Chechnya to interview Chechen rebels. Tsuneoka, 32, last communicated with his family via e-mail at the end of July after arriving in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, the Japan Economic Newswire reported. He wrote…

New York, September 24, 2001—Eduard Markevich, editor and publisher of a local newspaper in the town of Reftinskiy, Sverdlovsk Region, was found dead last Tuesday night, according to press reports. He had been shot in the back. Markevich, 29, edited Novyy Reft, a paper that was often critical of local officials. The journalist’s colleagues told…

After the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., defending press freedom has become more important than ever before.

New York, July 27, 2001–Under strict new rules prescribed by the Russian military, journalists covering the ongoing conflict in Chechnya must be accompanied by an official from the press service of the Interior Ministry at all times.

Uzbekistan has one of the strictest censorship regimes in the world, as the author learned when she launched her journalism career in Tashkent.

New York, June 19, 2001 — The espionage trial of Russian military journalist Grigory Pasko has been postponed yet again, according to the Itar-Tass news agency and CPJ sources in Vladivostok. CPJ denounces these delays, which are clearly intended to exhaust Pasko’s legal defense. Military authorities have been pursuing the investigative reporter for nearly four…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by recent cases in which Vladivostok authorities have harassed media outlets and journalists for political reasons. Specifically, we wish to draw your attention to the confiscation of the newspaper Dalyokaya Okrayina by local police, and to an NTV news broadcast that showed Vladivostok mayor Yury Kopylov insulting NTV journalists and ordering his bodyguard to assault them.

Vladivostok, June 4, 2001 — The postponement Monday of a new trial against Russian environmental journalist Grigory Pasko was denounced by his defense team and CPJ representatives in front of the Vladivostok courthouse and at a later press conference. Defense lawyer Anatoly Pishkin said the delay was an attempt by Pacific Ocean Fleet prosecutors “to…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization dedicated to the defense of press freedom around the world, protests the violent persecution of provincial journalist Olga Kitova by officials in the southern city of Belgorod.