Europe - Central Asia

The editor of an Odessa newspaper has been found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred in Ukraine for writing an anti-Semitic article, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) has reported. Ihor Volin-Danilov, an editor of Nashe Dyelo, received a suspended 18-month sentence for a 2007 article titled 'Kill the best of the goyim'. Volin-Danilov concluded in the story that the Jewish religion is “criminal and...

A bomb was exploded at around 1 a.m. on January 16 at the foot of a television transmitter in the Basque country causing limited damage but no injuries, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The transmitter was located in the Santa Barbara hills near the city of Hernani, in Guipúzcoa province. No group claimed responsibility for the bombing, but police found a message inside the...

A charge has been brought at the behest at interior minister Tomislav Karamarko against a journalist who writes about war crimes in the 1990s. Zeljko Peratovic is accused of “disseminating information likely to upset the population” under article 322/1 KZA of the criminal code, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison as well as a possible fine, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has...

A Russian oligarch and former KGB agent is expected to strike a deal to buy a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard, the Guardian has reported. Alexander Lebedev is to buy 76 per cent of the newspaper with the Associated Newspapers group retaining 24 per cent. In May last year Forbes ranked Lebedev the world's 358th richest billionaire, with a fortune of 3.1 billion US dollars. His...

The decision by troubled media company Mecom to sell its prize German assets is a golden opportunity to abandon reckless cutbacks and put quality journalism back on the media agenda, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has said. Mecom, a transnational giant based in Britain and funded by investment bankers, has bought up hundreds of newspaper titles across Europe over the past few years...

Ramazan Esergepov, editor in chief of the "Alma-Ata Info" newspaper, is continuing his hunger-strike in National Security Committee (KNB) custody and refusing to be interrogated, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has reported. The report said: [ Link] His wife, Raushan Esergepova, told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service that her husband is insisting that a security service other than the KNB conduct...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on authorities in the northern Russian city of Murmansk to thoroughly investigate the death of Shafig Amrakhov, editor of the online regional news agency RIA 51. Amrakhov died in a Murmansk hospital on January 5, having slipped into a coma after at least one unidentified assailant shot him in the head several times a week earlier. The type of...

A murderer and sex offender has won a permanent ban against his picture appearing in the media in a landmark press freedom case in Northern Ireland, the Independent has reported. The High Court in Belfast ruled the Belfast Sunday Life, a sister paper of the Independent, could not publish unpixelated photos of Kenneth Callaghan. The paper had argued publishing the pictures would help the public...

UK-based European newspaper owner, Mecom, has sold its titles in Germany to one of that country's oldest publishers for €152m ($204m), Financial Times has reported. The company, which is chaired by David Montgomery, former chief executive of the Mirror Group, is burdened with net debt of about €650m and has been in danger of breaching its banking covenants. It should, however, scrape through the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed recommendations released by the French government in its Green Paper on press reforms in France. The Green Paper, published on January 8, contains 90 recommendations to reform the current functioning of the press in France. An important proposal concerns existing authors' rights to remuneration for multiple-use of a journalistic work...