New York, January 23, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes today’s decision by a court in the city of Ussuriisk, in the Russian Far East, to grant parole to military journalist Grigory Pasko. The journalist was released immediately and traveled to his home in Vladivostok. Under Russian law, Pasko, who had served two-thirds of…
New York, January 2, 2003—A total of 19 journalists were killed worldwide for their work in 2002, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This number marks a sharp decrease from 2001 when 37 journalists were killed, eight of them while covering the war in Afghanistan. Of the 19 journalists killed in 2002, most…
New York, December 24, 2002—Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Russian military journalist Grigory Pasko’s four-year prison sentence. “The imprisonment of Grigory Pasko one year ago was a politicized effort by military and security officials to silence him for writing articles about environmental dangers that jeopardized the health of the Russian people,” said Ann Cooper,…
New York, November 25, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision today to veto restrictive amendments to the Law on the Struggle with Terrorism and the Law on Mass Media that were passed by Parliament earlier this month. Putin announced his decision during a meeting with media chiefs. He also…
New York, November 25, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that Irada Huseynova, a correspondent with the Azerbaijani weekly Bakinsky Bulvar who currently works for the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES), was detained today in Moscow and could be extradited. CJES director Oleg Panfilov told CPJ that Moscow police arrived…
New York, October 25, 2002—The hostage standoff in central Moscow has highlighted growing restrictions on the Russian media, including this week’s passage of legislation banning “propaganda of terrorism” in mass media. Although the legislation has not become law, the government is already using it to censor coverage of the hostage crisis. A large group of…
New York, September 26, 2002—Roddy Scott, 31, a British free-lance cameraman working for Britain’s Frontline, a television news agency, was killed in the Russian republic of Ingushetia. Russian soldiers found his body earlier today in Ingushetia’s Galashki region, near the border with Chechnya, following clashes between Russian forces and a group of Chechen fighters. The…