Europe & Central Asia

2016

  
Can Dündar, left, and Erdem Gül speak to reporters before standing trial in Istanbul, March 25, 2016. (AP)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 20

Istanbul court rules trial for journalists facing life sentences to be closed to public The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned an Istanbul court’s decision today to bar the public from the trial of Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, journalists for the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. Representatives from CPJ and other free-speech groups attended the first…

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Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 13

Prosecutors preparing charges against media owner, pro-government newspaper says Turkish prosecutors are preparing a case against media owner Aydın Doğan and his daughter, Hanzade Doğan Boyner, claiming they ran a fuel-smuggling ring, the pro-government daily newspaper Akşam said in a front-page story yesterday. Akşam said prosecutors were seeking a 23-year sentence against the businessman, whose…

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Syrians protest the killing and torture of women by President Assad's regime in 2011. The blogger Tal al-Mallohi remains in jail in Syria despite a court ordering her release. (AP/Mohammad Hannon)

On International Women’s Day, CPJ recognizes nine female journalists jailed for their work

Coverage of protests and riots. Revelations of official corruption and graft. Major natural disasters. Investigations into deplorable living conditions. These are some of the important issues journalists cover in their role as the Fourth Estate.

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Hungarian police try to stop a young migrant with a baby in September 2015. Journalists covering the refugee story report being harassed, blocked and sometimes attacked. (Reuters/Marko Diurica)

Journalists not welcome: Across Europe, press and migrants increasingly barred

“The press is not allowed in refugee centers.” The message from the Greek government could not have been clearer. “No permission will be given to television crews and reporters to enter such premises that hosts refugees,” Yannis Mouzalas, the minister in charge of immigration policy, said in a February 29 statement. In protest the Pan-Hellenic…

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Pictures of filmmaker Naji Jerf are held up at his funeral in Gaziantep in December. Syrian media activists based in Turkey say the murder of Jerf and two other journalists makes the country feels less secure. (STR/AFP)

For journalists fleeing Islamic State, Turkey ‘is as dangerous as Syria’

For the past two years, activists and journalists seeking refuge from Islamic State repression in Raqqa would take sanctuary across the border in southern Turkey, setting up safe houses and offices, and darting back to Syria regularly with camera equipment and other vital supplies. But that sanctuary is now under threat.

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The headquarters of TVP in Warsaw. Poland's new media law moves toward giving the government greater powers over the public broadcaster. (Reuters/Slawomir Kaminski)

Will the EU’s actions speak louder than its words on Poland’s new media law?

On January 13, the European Commission–the so-called guardian of EU treaties–will meet in Brussels to debate a troubling law passed in Poland today that, according to reports, paves the way for the government to take control of public service TV and radio.

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Satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo releases an anniversary edition to mark the deadly attack on its staff last January. Government responses to the killings have threatened press freedom. (Jacques Demarthon/AFP)

One year after Charlie Hebdo, will press freedom become victim of war on terror?

Who would have thought that France would top the list of most deadly countries for the press in 2015, second only to Syria? The massacre of eight cartoonists and journalists by Islamic militants at the Paris office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last January was one of the deadliest attacks against the press since…

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From Charlie Hebdo in Paris to bloggers in Bangladesh, extremists target press

Thursday marks one year since two gunmen burst into the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and opened fire. Over the following year, CPJ documented the deaths of 28 journalists who were killed for their work by Islamic militant groups such as Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. This StoryMap charts the deadly attacks that took…

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2016