Europe - Central Asia

Two Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondents are being continually harassed in Turkmenistan. Dovletmurat Yazguliev and Osman Hallyev, who report for RFE/RL’s Turkmen service from the provinces, have both been subjected to threats and intimidation by local intelligence officers in the last two weeks, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “Similar situations in the past have ended...

Albanian authorities on Friday blocked the offices of the daily Tema, which recently published stories alleging official corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Police in capital Tirana surrounded the premises, barring journalists from entering the building, the daily's publisher, Mero Baze, said in a statement posted on Tema's website. Baze said he called Tirana's...

Police in the southern Tajik city of Kulob have detained two people for attacking Abdumumin Sherkhonov, the editor in chief of the newspaper "Pazhvok" and an RFE/RL freelancer. Both suspects have confessed to their participation in the attack. A third man sought for involvement in the crime has not yet been arrested. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported: [ Link] Sherkhonov says he was...

Adnan Demir, editor of liberal Turkish daily Taraf is facing trial for publishing confidential military information. The prosecutor at the Istanbul higher court on January 6 called for a sentence of 3-5 years against Demir, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The newspaper in October 2008 had carried a series of articles on an attack on October 4, carried out and claimed by...

Ramazan Yesergepov, ailing editor of independent weekly Alma-Ata Info, was seized from an Almaty hospital on Tuesday by government agents, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The Kazakh National Security Committee (KNB), whose agents seized Yesergepov, said in a statement that the editor was being investigated for allegedly disclosing state secrets, a crime...

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has welcomed the decision of Belgian prosecutors to dismiss a complaint of bribery brought by the European Anti-Fraud Office against a Brussels-based journalist. After five years Belgium has finally cleared journalist Hans-Martin Tillack, a reporter for Stern magazine, over a complaint against him launched from within the European Union (EU) hierarchy....

Press freedom groups have condemned the bombing of Basque public broadcaster EiTB by Basque armed separatist group ETA in the northern city of Bilbao on December 31 last. A large explosive charge left in a truck parked outside the EiTB building went off at 11:05 a.m., shattering windows but causing no injuries. An anonymous caller identifying himself as an ETA member warned the authorities in...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed disappointment at Azerbaijan's National Television and Radio Council’s decision to ban foreign radio stations from broadcasting on local FM and medium wave frequencies from January 1. The December 30 decision withdraws the licences of foreign radio stations to broadcast on local frequencies. As well as RFE/RL, Voice of America and BBC, the measure...

Russian authorities should promptly investigate the attack on Zhanna Akbasheva, a correspondent for the Regnum news agency in the republic of Karachai-Cherkessia, in Russia's North Caucasus, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Akbasheva told CPJ that two men attacked her at around 5 p.m. on December 22 when she was walking toward the office of a state-funded Cherkess-language...

Kazakh authorities must launch a thorough investigation into the stabbing of Artyom Miusov, a reporter with the opposition weekly Taszhargan, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Miusov suffered serious internal injuries on December 30 last after an assailant approached him outside an Almaty supermarket, asked his name, and then stabbed him three times in the abdomen...