Europe - Central Asia

The editor-in-chief of independent news website Ingushetiya has fled Russia and is seeking asylum in Europe, daily the Moscow Times reported Thursday. Ingushetiya's lawyer, Kaloy Akhilgov, told CPJ that Roza Malsagova left Russia two weeks ago after being harassed, threatened, and beaten by Ingush authorities. She also faces criminal prosecution. Earlier this year, regional prosecutors opened...

President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a restrictive new media law which will allow authorities to further restrict press freedom in Belarus. The Belarusian parliament - before its adjournment in late June - rushed the bill through in three consecutive readings and passed it to the Constitutional Court for review. According to the local press, the court rubberstamped the bill in July and...

The police in the western Uzbek city of Nukus have brought another charge against an independent journalist to justify his arrest and detention, after initially bringing charges of drug use, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On August 2, investigators in Nukus acknowledged that Salidzhon Abdurakhmonov's blood test results revealed no sign of drug use but...

Rinat Kazakbaev, accused of murdering journalist Yury Aleksandrov and his wife, was sentenced to a life imprisonment according to the Article 97 of the Kyrgyz Criminal Code for the “atrocious murder of two or more persons”. According to 24.kg website, the high-profile case ended with the guilty verdict of the Alamudun district court judge Tolomush Asylov on august 4. The court has also decided to...

Tajikistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday sentenced two men found guilty of killing a Russian journalist earlier this year to 21 years each in a high-security prison, RIA-Novosti has reported. Ilyas Shurpayev, a reporter for Russia's state-run Channel One, was found dead in his rented apartment in Moscow on March 21. Reading out the verdict, the presiding judge said the defendants were guilty of a...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned Friday's vicious attack on Zurab Tsechoyev, editor of Mashr, a human rights website based in the volatile North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. At least 50 armed, masked men in camouflage gear raided Tsechoyev's home, shoved him into an armoured personnel carrier, drove him to an unknown location, and interrogated and beat him for five...

A UK-based Arabic newspaper has apologised to the prime minister of Qatar after it admitted printing three "wholly untrue" articles about him secretly visiting Israel, the Guardian has reported. Some details: The daily Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat made the apology to Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani on July 21 at the high court in London after admitting it should not have published the articles in...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has criticised Turkish authorities over censorship of Hayat TV, a Turkish satellite television network supporting workers' rights. The network was suspended from broadcasting last week on the orders of the High Council for Turkish Broadcasting (RTUK) for allegedly providing film of the Kurdish New Year celebrations to Roj TV, a station based in...

The Supreme Court of Tajikistan has postponed a trial of two suspects in the murder of Russian TV reporter Ilyas Shurpayev until July 22, a defence lawyer said on Friday, according to a RIA-Novosti report. Shurpayev, a reporter from Russia's volatile North Caucasus republic of Daghestan, who worked for Russia's state-run Channel One, was found stabbed and strangled in his rented Moscow apartment...

A French magistrate placed a journalist under formal investigation on Thursday over the unauthorised publication of pictures of a new model of car, drawing protests from press freedom campaigners, says a Reuters report. Prosecutors raided the offices of specialist magazine Auto Plus on Tuesday, seizing computers and documents and arresting journalist Bruno Thomas, the author of the scoop last year...