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The exhilarating prospect of broad press freedoms that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago has faded dramatically in much of the post-communist world. A considerable decline in press freedom conditions in Russia during the last year, along with the stranglehold authoritarian leaders have imposed on media in Central Asia, the Caucasus,…
Legal harassment, violence, and death continued to stalk Ukrainian journalists in 2001. Two murders underscored the continuing dangers, as did the stalled investigation into the murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze. More than a year after Gongadze’s headless corpse was discovered in November 2000, and after months of allegations about possible presidential involvement in his…
New York, September 18, 2001—One year after the disappearance of Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze, CPJ joins Gongadze’s widow in calling for an international investigation into the unsolved case. “President Kuchma and other cabinet officials have spent an entire year obstructing this inquiry,” said CPJ executive director Ann Cooper. “Journalists in Ukraine will not feel safe…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization dedicated to the defense of press freedom around the world, strongly protests the recent conviction of Oleg Liachko, editor of the independent Kyiv weekly Svoboda, on defamation charges.
POLITICAL REFORMS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, along with the advent of democratic governments in Croatia and Serbia, brightened the security prospects for journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. In contrast, Russian’s new government imposed press restrictions, and authoritarian regimes entrenched themselves in other countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Central Asia, further threatening…
LAST YEAR, PRESIDENT LEONID KUCHMA RAMPED UP his habitual censorship of anti-government newspapers and his attacks and threats against independent journalists. Late in the year, the abduction and presumed murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze brought the plight of Ukrainian journalists into sharp relief, while allegations that Kuchma may have directed the killing sparked a…
New York, January 4, 2001 — Of the 24 journalists killed for their work in 2000, according to CPJ research, at least 16 were murdered, most of those in countries where assassins have learned they can kill journalists with impunity. This figure is down from 1999, when CPJ found that 34 journalists were killed for…
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in UKRAINE New York, December 15, 2000 — In the wake of allegations linking President Leonid Kuchma and two top aides to the September 16 disappearance of independent journalist Georgy Gongadze, CPJ urges President Kuchma and his government to avoid the appearance of impropriety by appointing…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the recent disappearance of Georgy Gongadze, the 31-year-old editor of the news Web site Ukrainska Pravda. This event has alarmed the journalistic community in Ukraine and further eroded your government’s already limited credibility on press-freedom issues.