Europe - Central Asia

The International Press Institute (IPI) has expressed grave concern for the state of media freedom in Ukraine after a court ruling forced one TV station off the air and limited the licences of another. At a hearing in Kiev on Monday, August 30, the two privately-run TV channels, TVi and 5 Kanal, were told their broadcast frequencies would be cancelled after the court found in favour of allegations...

It was the phrase "with opprobrious underworld connotations" that Viktor Biryukov, chief press spokesman for the Moscow police, used to explain the reasons for a business reputation protection claim lodged against the newspaper Noviye Izvestia (NI). The claim filing followed a January 2010 series of NI articles citing complaints by residents of the (now partially destroyed) village of Rechnik, on...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has convicted Turkey in the case of Hrant Dink. The Turkish-Armenian journalist was assassinated on January 19, 2007 in Istanbul. According to news obtained by IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET), the ECHR chamber decided that there had been a violation of the right to life because Turkey did not prevent the murder of the journalist and did not carry out...

The judge for the Specialized Interdistrict Economic Court of Almaty, Gulnar Meyrzhanova, has dismissed the charges in a lawsuit filed against the independent Kazakh newspaper Central Asia Monitor for "protection of honour, dignity and business reputation". The judge on August 23 also ordered the release of the newspaper's seized property, Almaty-based press freedom group Adil Soz has reported. On...

The head of a news agency and his deputy have been missing for a week in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a republic in the Russian Caucasus. Khuda-Media director Abubark Rizvanov and his deputy, Timur Kurbanmagomedov, went missing after leaving their office at 4 p.m. on August 20 to buy a printer cartridge. After they failed to return, their colleagues tried to call them on their mobile...

Magomedvagif Sultanmagomedov, a Muslim scholar who was the head of Makhachkala TV and the Nurul Irshad (Light of Truth) publishing house in Dagestan in the Russian Caucasus was murdered on August 11, according to delayed reports. Sultanmagomedov was fatally injured when unidentified gunmen fired on him as he was driving his car in the centre of Makhachkala, Dagestan’s capital, and died a few hours...

Authorities in Azerbaijan have refused to investigate an attack on two newspaper journalists, Yeni Musavat reporter Elmin Badalov and Milli Yol deputy editor Anar Gerayly, by a wealthy businessman’s private security guards. The two journalists were photographing luxury homes in the Baku neighbourhood of Shuvlan on July 28 when they were attacked and beaten by security guards. The guards held them...

Latvian authorities are pursuing a criminal investigation into netizen Ilmārs Poikāns and journalist Ilze Nagla of the state TV station LTV1 for exposing a serious security flaw in the national tax office’s data storage system, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Using the pseudonym of Neo and portraying himself a member of a fictitious hacker group called...

The Turkish interior ministry has deported US journalist Jake Hess and ban him from re-entering the country. Arrested by anti-terrorist police in the mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Diyarbakir on August 11, Hess was deported on August 20 after being held for nine days. In its release in response to Hess' arrest, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) had demanded...

President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine is taking control of the case of an investigative journalist who has gone missing. In that role, Yanukovych ordered top law enforcement officials on Friday to "make every possible and impossible effort" to find Vasyl Klymentyev, the editor of a newspaper in the eastern city of Kharkiv. Klymentyev, chief editor and reporter for the Kharkiv-based weekly...