Europe - Central Asia

Press freedom groups have urged Serbian authorities to thoroughly investigate the brutal attack on Teofil Pancic, a reporter for the independent weekly Vreme. Two masked assailants followed Pancic aboard a Belgrade bus at around 11 p.m. on Saturday, attacked him with metal rods, and quickly fled. Pancic, briefly hospitalised after the attack, suffered a concussion and arm injuries. Pancic told the...

Teofil Pancic, a journalist for the independent weekly Vreme and a columnist with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was attacked by unknown assailants who beat him with a metal bar on a Belgrade bus late on July 24, RFE/RL's Balkan Service reported. He was diagnosed with concussion and arm injuries. Pancic, who was recovering following the assault, told RFE/RL that he suspects the two...

Referans newspaper writer Cengiz Çandar is facing a prison sentence of between one and three years in Turkey over an allegation of "insulting a public servant in the commission of his duty". The charges are based on Çandar's criticism of the fact that a secret witness in the Hrant Dink murder case was not brought to the court in an February 8, 2010 hearing, according to IPS Communication...

Presidential Administration guards in Azerbaijan on Tuesday detained photographers covering a demonstration over flood relief measures, according to Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS). IRFS and Turan Information Agency employees Javid Gurbanov and Mehman Huseynov, Radio Liberty correspondent Abbas Atilay and "Bizim Yol" newspaper correspondent Haji Zeynalov were detained by the...

A regional press company in the UK is to digitise newspapers dating back more than 150 years after being awarded a £49,700 heritage lottery grant, says holdthefrontpage.com. The KM Group is to make 26,000 pages of newspapers published between 1859 and 1919 available on a free-to-view website. The digital archive project will preserve historic newspapers and open what the family-owned group calls...

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition backed down on a controversial wiretaps bill Thursday as its deputies approved a watered-down version in a parliamentary committee vote, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. The initial bill would have banned the publication of transcripts in the media and called for up to two years in jail and fines of up to 464,700 euros (600...

Thirty jobs have been cut at the Press Association as part of cost-reduction measures by the UK news agency, according to journalism.co.uk. Twenty of those jobs are reported to have already been cut in what a company spokesperson called a combination of "natural wastage and voluntary redundancy". A further nine posts are under consultation for "possible" compulsory redundancy. The company says...

The Times of UK has lost almost 90 per cent of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show. Unregistered users of thetimes.co.uk are now "bounced" to a Times+ membership page where they have to register if they want to view Times content. Data from the web metrics company Experian Hitwise shows that only 25.6% of such...

Serbian national security and police forces have been given the power to view the contents of citizens' personal email accounts without permission as a result of a new law adopted by parliament on June 19, the International Press Institute (IPI) has reported. The legal system has also left journalists vulnerable to attacks with a recent court decision to reject charges against six people who...

Caslav Milisavljevic, Editor-in-Chief of Radio Kosovska Mitrovica, was attacked in the Kosovo municipality of Zvecan, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) has reported. According to information received by SEEMO, during the early morning hours of July 20, an explosive device was thrown in the courtyard of Milisavljevic's home. The device exploded, causing damage to three automobiles...