Europe - Central Asia

Andis Hadjicostis, chief executive officer of Dias Media Group, was gunned down Monday in the Cypriot city of Nicosia, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP). Hadjicostis, 42, was shot dead at around 9 p.m. outside his home in Nicosia’s diplomatic neighbourhood of Engomi. Citing witnesses, Cypriot police told journalists Tuesdat that...

Five journalists were summoned to the prosecutor’s office in Tashkent on Thursday for a grilling about their media activities and their sources of income. It has emerged that two other journalists received similar summonses Friday, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The five journalist who were “invited” to the office of assistant prosecutor Bakhrom Nurmatov were Marina Kozlova, Sid...

Bulgarian prosecutors must thoroughly investigate Tuesday's murder in Sofia of Bobi Tsankov, author of a new book and a series of newspaper articles detailing the activities of reputed crime figures, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Two gunmen opened fire on Tsankov, 30, and two other men on busy Aleksandur Stamboliiski Boulevard in downtown Sofia at around 12:30 p.m. Tsankov...

A new defamation law has been enacted in Ireland that establishes blasphemy as an offence punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros. The law took effect on January 1. Article 36 defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering “matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that...

Unidentified intruders broke into the offices of the Riga-based daily Neatkariga Rita Avize and its publishing house SIA Mediju Nams on the night of January 1 in which windows were broken, the offices of editors and leading reporters were badly damaged, and many files were destroyed or defaced, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “They tried to make us think it was an ordinary burglary...

A Somali Islamist attempted on Saturday to murder Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons that caused such a controversy in 2005. Westergaard escaped unhurt but the attack could have been fatal. “Some Muslims may have been shocked by Westergaard’s cartoons, but there is no justification for such violence and intolerance,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said....

A new criminal charge has been filed against imprisoned Azerbaijani editor Eynulla Fatullayev, a 2009 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award. Based on Fatullayev’s account and the government’s long record of persecuting the editor, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) believes the charge to be fabricated. On Tuesday, guards at Prison Colony No 12 in Baku claimed...

Police in Kazakhstan said Monday that they have identified several suspects in this month’s murder of prominent Kyrgyz editor Gennady Pavlyuk, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Police did not identify the suspects or describe their alleged roles, other than to say the suspects are citizens of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. In a statement Tuesday, the Kyrgyz...

Kyrgyzstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk, who was thrown from a sixth floor window in Almaty, Kazakhstan on December 16, died Tuesdayin hospital, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “Ten days ahead of taking over the presidency of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Kazakh authorities cannot allow a murder like this to go unpunished and the Kyrgyz side must...

Tuesday morning after falling from an upper-story window of an apartment building in Kazakhstan’s economic capital, Almaty, last week, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Pavlyuk, 40, described by colleagues as one of Kyrgyzstan’s most prominent journalists, had travelled to Almaty from Bishkek on business on Wednesday; the exact purpose of the trip remains...