Attacks on the Press in 2006: Preface
By Anderson CooperSilence. When a journalist is killed, more often than not, there is silence. In Russia, someone followed Anna Politkovskaya home and quietly shot her to death in her apartment building. The killer muffled the sound of the gun with a silencer. Her murder made headlines around the world in October, but from the…
Attacks on the Press 2006: Europe and Central Asia Analysis
Getting away with murder in the former Soviet states By Nina Ognianova The assassin in a baseball cap who gunned down Anna Politkovskaya outside her Moscow apartment used a silencer. But reverberations from the contract-style slaying of Russia’s icon of investigative journalism were felt around the world.
Attacks on the Press 2006: Turkmenistan
TURKMENISTAN The December 21 death of Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-proclaimed president-for-life, ended a two-decade rule that plunged Turkmenistan into a dark abyss in which the state maintained absolute control over information. His sudden death from heart failure at age 66 left the nation with an indelible legacy of repression. Niyazov’s eccentric personality probably won’t be…
RFE/RL reporter dies in prison
New York, September 14, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores the death in prison of a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Turkmenistan. CPJ called for an inquiry into the death of Ogulsapar Muradova of RFE/RL’s Turkmen service whose body was released to her family today.
RFE/RL reporter sentenced to six years jail in secret trial
New York, August 25, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged by the six-year prison sentence handed down today to a radio reporter in Turkmenistan after a closed-door trial that lasted only a few minutes. Ogulsapar Muradova, a correspondent in the capital Ashgabat for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was tried without legal representation and…
CPJ alarmed by reports of abuse in journalist’s detention
New York, August 14, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the fate of Ogulsapar Muradova, Ashgabat correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), who has been in a Turkmen prison for almost two months. Officers from the Ashgabat Interior Ministry arrested Muradova on June 18 and have been holding her without charge…
Radio journalist arrested without charge or explanation
New York, June 21, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrests of Ogulsapar Muradova, an Ashgabat-based correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and her three children. Muradova, arrested on Sunday, is being held without charge at Ashgabat Interior Ministry (MVR) headquarters. Her three adult children—Maral, Berdy and Sona—were taken into custody on Monday,…
The world’s most censored countries
Could you pick out Equatorial Guinea on the world map? Or Turkmenistan, or Eritrea? Probably not at the first attempt. These countries are usually below the radar of the international media, and the autocrats who run them like it that way. It helps them crush press freedoms and keep their population in the dark. That is why the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom group, has drawn up a league table of the world’s 10 most censored countries. We hope that the list, issued on World Press Freedom Day, will shine a light into the dark corners of the world where governments and their political cronies decide what people will read, see, and hear.