Europe - Central Asia

An Azerbaijani court convicted Ali Hasanov, editor-in-chief of the pro-government daily Ideal, on defamation charges and sentenced him to six months in jail, according to the head of the Baku-based Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), Emin Huseynov. The journalist was taken immediately into custody in court on Friday. His lawyer plans to appeal the ruling, according to Huseynov...

Dublin-based Independent News & Media (INM) will cut jobs at its London-based Independent newspaper and Sunday sister title in a bid to slash costs as a global downturn hits advertising revenue, Reuters reported on Tuesday. "It is anticipated that the final number of redundancies will number around 90, of which a sizeable number will be voluntary, and the total savings will be in excess of 10...

Four men went on trial Monday in connection with the murder of Russian journalist and outspoken Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, despite the failure of the authorities to catch the masterminds. The four have been charged with helping organise the October 2006 shooting of Politovskaya at her apartment block in central Moscow. In a victory for Politkovskaya's lawyers who had feared the process...

A district court in russia has ordered a newspaper to refute information, apologise and pay moral damages in defamation case, the Moscow-based Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES) has said, quoting delayed reports. On October 10, the Ufa Oktyabrsky District Court issued a ruling in the defamation lawsuit filed by Justice Rosa Gilyazitdinova against newspaper Chas Pik. Na Magistrali...

The editor-in-chief of a small and vocal opposition newspaper in the Moscow suburbs, who fought a campaign to protect a forest from destruction by real-estate developers, is in critical condition after being assaulted and beaten outside his home. Mikhail Beketov, editor-in-chief of the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper, was found unconscious after being badly beaten on Thursday near his home in the...

The trial of Baris Pehlivan, producer of the programme “I am a witness” on the 24-hour TV news channel CNN Türk, and Nurettin Yilmaz, a former Kurdish politician and parliamentarian and author of “Witness of the recent past,” will begin in the Istanbul district of Bakirkoy on November 18. Charged with “inciting hatred and hostility” under articles 216 and 218 of the criminal code, they could get...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed dismay at former Bulgarian interior minister Rumen Petkov's public insult of journalist Jurgen Roth and call for violence against him less than a month after Ognyan Stefanov, the editor of the news website Frognews, was seriously injured in a murder attempt. “We are outraged by Rumen Petkov’s irresponsible comments,” Paris-based RSF said. “His call for...

Russian newspaper Arsenyevskiye Vesti has received an official warning from the prosecutor's office of the Vladivostok Frunzensky district, which accused it of disseminating materials containing elements of extremism. The warning was issued over an article titled 'One Nation - One Constitution' published in the 3-9 September 2008 edition of Arsenyevskiye Vesti. The article dealt with the killing...

A Spanish prosecutor has recommended five-month prison sentences for two journalists— reporter Asier Velez de Mendizábal of the daily Gara and photographer Lánder Fernández de Arroyabe of the Argazki Press agency—who covered a demonstration by a radical Basque nationalist group in Pamplona, in the northern region of Navarre. The sentences were requested on November 3 by prosecutor Edilberto...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned a Brussels court ruling on November 4 ordering weekly Humo to immediately withdraw all copies of its latest issue from sale on penalty of paying a fine of 250 euros for each copy left on sale. The summary judgment was issued in response to an action brought by the federal police chief about a satirical photo-montage showing his head, and that of his...