Turkey / Europe & Central Asia

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly protests the ongoing legal harassment of Hasan Ozgun, a journalist formerly working with the now defunct Ozgur Gundem, a pro-Kurdish daily.

The Arab world continues to lag behind the rest of the globe in civil and political rights, including press freedom. Despotic regimes of varying political shades regularly limit news that they think will undermine their power. Hopes that a new generation of leaders would tolerate criticism in the press have proved illusory, with many reforms…

While the press is largely free within Israel proper, the country’s military assault on the Occupied Territories fueled a sharp deterioration in press freedom in the West Bank and Gaza during much of 2002. Despite vocal international protest, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed an assortment of press freedom abuses, ranging from banning press access…

In November, the Islamist-oriented Justice and Development Party won parliamentary elections in Turkey. The new prime minister, Abdullah Gul, and influential party head Recep Tayyip Erdogan affirmed that joining the European Union would be a top government priority. To that end, they promised greater democratic reform, including an easing of long-standing restrictions on freedom of…

In the autocratic city-states that comprise the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), local media face both the promise of new technology and the burdens of long-standing state restrictions.

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New York, August 2, 2002—On July 31, Abdullah Keskin, a Turkish publisher charged with “separatist propaganda” for publishing a U.S. journalist’s book about Turkey’s Kurdish minority population, was convicted and sentenced to a six-month prison sentence, which the court converted to a fine of about US$500. An Istanbul State Security Court ruled on Wednesday that…

389 journalists killed between 1992 and 2001, most murdered with impunity New York, June 4, 2002–The majority of journalists killed in the line of duty during the last decade were murdered because of their reporting, concludes a study released today by the Committee to Protect Journalists. This comprehensive analysis of journalists killed between 1992 and…

New York, May 2, 2002—CPJ is deeply concerned about the draft Supreme Radio and Television Board Bill currently being debated by the Turkish Parliament. The bill was passed last year but vetoed by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in June 2001. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s government recently resubmitted the bill to Parliament. Under the new law,…