Ukraine / Europe & Central Asia

  

Press in Ukraine still suffering one year after attacks on journalists

A year ago today, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on the first mass assaults on press freedom in Ukraine, after police were ordered to disperse protesters in the capital, Kiev, and other cities. At least 51 journalists–including local and international reporters–were attacked by police and protesters while covering the early days of the standoff…

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Mission Journal: Attacks on journalists in Ukraine lead to information vacuum

“There are no [independent] Ukrainian journalists left in Donetsk,” said Aleksei Matsuka, chief editor of the regional news website Novosti Donbassa (News of Donbass). “They have fled the region since pro-Russia separatists started targeting and kidnapping reporters,” Matsuka told CPJ during our brief meeting in Kiev.

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In Ukraine, some updates on this week’s abducted and missing journalist(s)

On Wednesday, we reported that in Ukraine this week, at least two journalists had gone missing, while pro-Russia separatists abducted a fixer and briefly detained a reporter. Also, the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic said it was banning journalists from the conflict area. We noted that press freedom violations “are happening at dizzying speed in eastern…

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Slideshow: Covering protests in Ukraine

Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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Slideshow: Covering protests in Crimea

Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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Protesters take cover amid clashes with police in Kiev on February 20. (AFP/Sergei Supinsky)

Body armor must match threat in Venezuela and Ukraine

Covering street violence is one thing. Covering gunfire is another. This week, firearms were unexpectedly introduced into ongoing clashes between protesters and police in two parts of the world, raising the threat level faced by journalists trying to cover events.

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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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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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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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CPJ
Judges hear a case in the European Court of Human Rights. More than 60,000 people sought the court's help in 2011. (AFP/Frederick Florin)

Defending the European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights is a victim of its success. In 2011, more than 60,000 people sought its help after exhausting all judicial remedies before national courts. But now, some member states of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe are pushing for reforms of the prestigious institution and are pointing at the number of…

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