Russia jails blogger for 10 days after sharing video online
New York, January 15, 2019 – Russian authorities should immediately release blogger Viktor Toroptsev from jail, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A court in the city of Amursk, in the Far Eastern region of Khabarovsk, handed a 10-day sentence to Toroptsev yesterday, ostensibly for a traffic violation, after he shared a video on…
Syrian journalist killed in airstrike in western Aleppo province
Beirut, August 13, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the killing of Syrian cameraperson and photojournalist Ahmed Azize and urged all parties in the ongoing Syrian conflict to guarantee the safety of civilians, including journalists.
How Turkey silences journalists online, one removal request at a time
On June 19, Abdülhamit Bilici, the last editor-in-chief of the now-shuttered Turkish paper Zaman, tweeted about the decline of press freedom in his home country. If you can see his tweet, you are probably not in Turkey because it is among the over 1.5 million tweets belonging to journalists and media outlets censored there under…
Russian Duma committee OKs legislation to label individual journalists ‘foreign agents’
New York, July 3, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Russian authorities to refrain from labeling individual bloggers and journalists as foreign agents. The State Duma’s information and communication committee today approved legislation that would allow authorities to label private persons as foreign agents if they work for organizations the Justice Ministry labels…
UPDATE: Russian journalist Babchenko’s assassination was staged
New York, May 30, 2018– Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who had been reported shot and killed in the Ukrainian capital yesterday, has appeared alive at a televised news conference in Kiev. Vasily Gritsak, head of the Ukrainian Security Service, said the agency faked Babchenko’s death to catch those who were trying to kill him. “We…
Local editor beaten in Yekaterinburg, Russia
Unknown assailants on April 12, 2018 attacked Dmitry Polyanin, editor-in-chief of the regional pro-government newspaper Oblastnaya Gazeta, which had recently published articles about irregularities in the local housing market and related violence, according to the paper and media reports.
CPJ calls for investigation into death of Russian journalist Maksim Borodin
New York, April 16, 2018–Russian authorities must conduct a thorough investigation into the death of journalist Maksim Borodin and consider the possibility that he was killed in retribution for his reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Three Russian journalists injured by gunfire in eastern Ghouta, Syria
Three journalists were injured when a bus carrying Russian media came under fire from unknown assailants in the Syrian city of Douma, 16 kilometers (10 miles) away from Damascus, in the eastern Ghouta region on April 11, 2018, according to news reports and the journalists’ employers.
Russian journalist questioned, apartment searched, equipment seized
Kiev, February 1, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Russian authorities today to return all confiscated property to independent journalist Pavel Nikulin, and stop harassing him in retaliation for his reporting. The Federal Security Service (FSB) yesterday morning raided Nikulin’s Moscow apartment, and brought the journalist to agency headquarters where he was questioned for…
Local journalist shot in southern Russia
New York, December 21, 2017–Russian authorities should investigate today’s violent attack on independent journalist Vyacheslav Prudnikov, and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Prudnikov, who contributes to the independent regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel from the town of Krasny Sulin in Russia’s southern Rostov region, was shot with a weapon…