Europe - Central Asia

A Turkish appellate court should overturn the unjust convictions of publisher and editor Haci Bogatekin, who faces several years in prison on various “insult” charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Bogatekin, owner of the biweekly Gerger Firat and editor of the news website Gergerfirat, was convicted March 2 on charges of “insulting” state prosecutors and “offending the...

Azerbaijani editor Genimet Zakhidov, who served more than half of a four-year term on fabricated “hooliganism” charges, was released from prison on Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. “We're relieved Azerbaijani officials released our colleague Genimet Zakhidov, who served 28 long months in prison in retaliation for his critical journalism,” CPJ Europe and Central...

A Tashkent appeal court Wednesday upheld photographer and documentary filmmaker Umida Akhmedova’s conviction on charges of slandering and insulting the Uzbek people, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Her lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, tried without success for three hours to convince the court that her conviction by a lower court on February 10 was illegal. They said after the hearing that...

Latvian media owner Grigorijs Ņemcovs was the victim of an apparent contract killing on April 16 in Daugavpils, the largest city in the southeastern region of Latgale, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Publisher of the regional newspaper Million and owner of a local TV station of the same name, Ņemcovs was shot twice in the head at close range when he went to a meeting in a café. He...

A death threat has been made against imprisoned editor Eynulla Fatullayev, a 2009 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award, and his family, according to CPJ. An anonymous male caller telephoned Emin Fatullayev, the editor’s father, at his Baku home at around 12:30 p.m. today and said he and his son must “shut up once and for all” or “the entire family will be destroyed,” the elder...

The Kyrgyz government has pressured several radio and television stations to stop carrying programming from the Kyrgyz service of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Four private radio stations and one television channel in northern Kyrgyzstan—including two outlets in the capital, Bishkek—halted RFE/RL programming...

The Minsk police on Tuesday raided the offices of the independent news website Charter 97, the independent newspaper Narodnaya Volya, and the home office of freelance reporter Irina Khalip, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Masked officers with the Leninsky District Police Department in Minsk confiscated computers, equipment, and electronic documents at the three locations as...

There have been three separate cases of threats against investigative journalists in Kosovo during the past month, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. The target in the most recent case was Vehbi Kajtazi, who wrote a story for the February 18 issue of the daily Koha Ditore about internal wrangling and divisions resulting from recent decisions by President Fatmir Sejdiu and the judicial...

Kazakh authorities have banned the distribution of the independent weekly Respublika-Delovoye Obozreniye, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Tuesday. On March 1, the Medeu District Court in Almaty denied the weekly’s appeal and left in place a ban on the paper’s distribution that had been imposed in mid-February. The ban will remain in place until the newspaper pays 60 million Kazakh...

The board of governors of the state-owned broadcaster RAI has decided to suspend all political discussion programmes on its three TV stations during the one-month run-up to regional elections scheduled for March 28 and 29, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The reason given was the difficulty of ensuring “equality of treatment.” It is extraordinary that RAI should be backing away from...