Ukraine / Europe & Central Asia

  
Journalists in Kiev protest police officers' failure to intervene in an assault against two reporters. A demonstrator holds a photo of a man said to have been among the assailants. (Reuters/Gleb Garanich)

Journalists attacked at Kiev rally; police fail to intervene

New York, May 20, 2013–Several assailants beat two reporters covering an opposition protest outside Ukrainian Interior Ministry headquarters in Kiev on Saturday in view of police officers who failed to intervene, according to local and international press reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the beating and the inaction of police, and it calls on…

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The wife of Philippines journalist Gerardo Ortega looks at his picture. (AFP/Noel Celis)

News of convictions in journalist murders sadly infrequent

We received an unusual email last week. Michaella Ortega wrote to tell us that Marlon Recamata, who confessed to shooting her father, Philippine journalist Gerardo Ortega, in 2011, had been convicted and sentenced to life for the crime.

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Ukrainian journalists attacked in event in Kiev

Ukrainian nationalist activists disrupted a book presentation in Kiev on March 14, 2013, and attacked journalists and other individuals present, according to news reports.

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In Ukraine, editor brutally assaulted by unknown assailants

New York, March 6, 2013–Ukrainian authorities must apprehend the assailants who brutally attacked an independent editor on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Years after Georgy Gongadze was killed, justice is still evasive. The journalist is seen here standing next to his wife, Myroslava, in a photo from 1995. (AP/Gongadze family)

Despite official comments, no progress in Gongadze case

More than 12 years after several police officers strangled and beheaded muckraking online reporter Georgy Gongadze in a forest outside Kiev, justice in the case is still evasive and riddled with, well, riddles.

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Attacks on the Press in 2012: Ukraine

As Ukraine prepared to assume the 2013 chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the nation’s leaders undermined one of the organization’s core values: freedom of the press. Censorship, denial of public information, physical attacks against reporters, and politicized lawsuits against news outlets marred the nation’s press freedom climate, the Kiev-based Institute…

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In Gongadze case, a milestone toward justice

New York, January 29, 2013–The conviction today of a former high-ranking Ukrainian police official in the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze is a long-overdue step, but justice will not be fully served until all of the perpetrators are held responsible, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Gongadze, founder and editor of the critical news…

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A still from the November 7 video. (YouTube)

Video emerges of Ukrainian journalist captive in Syria

New York, November 14, 2012–A Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped in Syria in mid-October appeared in a short video last week pleading for her embassy to meet the demands of her captors, according to news reports. At least two other international journalists are believed to be held captive in Syria and the whereabouts of a…

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One journalist killed, another reported missing in Syria

New York, October 16, 2012–The heavy toll on news media covering the conflict in Syria has grown yet again over the past week as a journalist for a pro-government TV station was killed and a Ukrainian journalist working for Russian news outlets is believed to be kidnapped.

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Georgy Gongadze, shown here the summer of 2000, was the first online journalist killed in retaliation for his work. (AFP/Dima Gavrish)

Finding common cause from first online journalist murder

The first online journalist killed for his work disappeared one night 12 years ago in the Ukraine. Georgy Gongadze, 31, left a colleague’s house to return home to his wife and two young children. He never arrived. Seven weeks later, a farmer, a few hours’ drive away, discovered the journalist’s headless corpse. Gongadze edited the website Ukrainska…

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