Russia / Europe & Central Asia

  
Letters

CPJ calls on Poroshenko to hold press conference on staged murder

CPJ calls on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to hold a press conference as soon as possible to address the many outstanding questions about the staging of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko’s murder.

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Features & Analysis
Vasily Gritsak, head of the Ukrainian Security Service, left, speaks to the media as Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, center, and Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko attend a news conference at the Ukrainian Security Service on May 30, 2018. Babchenko turned up at a news conference in the Ukrainian capital Wednesday less than 24 hours after police reported he had been shot and killed in Kiev. (AP/Efrem Lukatsky)

The many questions about Arkady Babchenko’s staged murder in Ukraine

Minutes after news broke that prominent Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko had been murdered in Ukraine, social media exploded with messages mourning the loss of a bright, sometimes-too-outspoken journalist. Friends and colleagues wrote moving obituaries, and groups including CPJ condemned the killing. Impromptu memorials in both Kiev and Moscow sprouted, as they all too often do,…

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Press Releases

CPJ welcomes FIFA’s complaints mechanism for journalists covering World Cup

New York, May 29, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the launch of a complaints mechanism for media representatives and human rights defenders ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, which will enable journalists covering the World Cup and other official events to report press freedom violations directly to FIFA. In a press…

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Features & Analysis
A demonstration calling for LGBT rights in Trinidad and Tobago on April 12. Journalists covering LGBTQ issues say they often face retaliation for their work. (Reuters/Andrea de Silva)

Covering LGBTQ issues brings risk of threats and retaliation for journalists and their sources

To mark the annual International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, CPJ spoke with journalists and news outlets based in Argentina, Iran, Indonesia, the U.S., Uganda, and Russia, about the challenges they face reporting on LGBTQ issues.

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Alerts
Russian President Vladimir Putin gives an interview at a May 15, 2018, ceremony opening a bridge that will connect the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine authorities accused the director of Russian state news agency RIA Novosti's Kiev office of propaganda supporting the annexing of Crimea. (Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters)

Ukraine authorities search Russian news agency, detain director

New York, May 15, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over the Ukraine Security Service’s (SBU) search of the Kiev office of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti and detention of the office director, Kirill Vyshynsky.

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Features & Analysis
A poster of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is carried at a protest against government corruption revealed by the Daphne Project, in Valletta, Malta, on April 29. Reporting on corruption can be a dangerous assignment. (Reuters/Darrin Zammit Lupi)

Make solving journalist murders a priority, CPJ tells US Helsinki Commission

“Being a reporter in much of the world is dangerous work. Being an investigative reporter can be deadly,” CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney told the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Commission, at a briefing in Washington, D.C. today.

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Features & Analysis
Protesters at an opposition rally in Moscow on April 30 demand internet freedom in Russia amid a crackdown on the app, Telegram. (AFP/Alexander Nemenov)

CPJ joins call for Russia to revoke order banning Telegram

A coalition of 26 international human rights, media and internet freedom organizations, including CPJ, today called on Russian authorities to revoke a court order that blocks access to the Telegram messaging app.

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Case
The center of Yekaterinburg, Russia in August 2017. Unknown assailants on April 12, 2018 attacked Dmitry Polyanin, editor-in-chief of the regional pro-government newspaper Oblastnaya Gazeta, according to reports. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)

Local editor beaten in Yekaterinburg, Russia

Unknown assailants on April 12, 2018 attacked Dmitry Polyanin, editor-in-chief of the regional pro-government newspaper Oblastnaya Gazeta, which had recently published articles about irregularities in the local housing market and related violence, according to the paper and media reports.

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Alerts
A view of the center of Yekaterinburg from the stands of the new the World Cup stadium in March 2018. Russian investigative journalist Maksim Borodin died after falling on April 12, 2018, from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment, according to reports. (AP/Anton Basanaev)

CPJ calls for investigation into death of Russian journalist Maksim Borodin

New York, April 16, 2018–Russian authorities must conduct a thorough investigation into the death of journalist Maksim Borodin and consider the possibility that he was killed in retribution for his reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Features & Analysis
A screen shot of the new label on RT's YouTube channel. (CPJ)

YouTube labels on public broadcasters draw ire in US, Russia

With claims to more than one billion users consuming content in 76 languages, Google’s YouTube has become a core part of most media outlets’ dissemination strategy. And although there are 88 localized versions of the service, YouTube.com remains the largest and most influential platform for reaching a global audience. Which is why, when the site…

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