Europe - Central Asia

A controversial article by writer Yilmaz Ozdil was within the "limits of press freedom", the Diyarbakir Public Prosecution in Turkey has decided. In the April 14 article, which was published in Hürriyet newspaper, Ozdil had defended a physical attack on Kurdish politician Ahmet Türk. The Press Council had previously reached a similar conclusion regarding Ozdil's column, IPS Communication...

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has censured the Daily Mail, The Sunday Telegraph and The Sun over “misleading” ads for reader offers, the Press Gazette has reported. A reader complained to the ASA over The Sun’s offer of a free USB wristband questioning if a charge for post and packaging represented the actual cost. The offer told readers they could claim “free” wristbands by...

Three Kurdish journalists were attacked while they were covering demonstrations by members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Istanbul and in Midyat, in the southeastern province of Mardin, on July 18, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The protests were prompted by reports that the bodies of several members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish armed...

Azerbaijan’s representative to the European Court of Human Rights, Chingiz Askerov, has said that the reason his government appealed against the court’s April 22 ruling, calling for the release of imprisoned journalist Eynulla Fatullayev, was that it was “contrary to international norms.” Even if the court’s Grand Chamber upholds the original decision, Fatullayev will not be released without a...

The provisional government in Kyrgyzstan has taken over all of the country’s TV stations and is busy nationalising them. Osh TV, an Uzbek language station based in Osh, the capital of southern Kyrgyzstan, is a case in point. The government has acquired a controlling interest in its shares and has arbitrarily fired its director, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. All of the country’s...

The 14th hearing in the trial of the men accused of the January 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, a journalist of Armenian origin, has been completed. During the latest hearing, held on July 12, the Dink family’s lawyers filed a request for the prosecution of several senior officials and leading nationalists, including: Ergun Güngör, former deputy governor of Istanbul Özer Yilmaz, former deputy chief of...

Sokratis Giolias, 37, director of the private radio station Thema 98.9 and contributor to the popular online news blog Troktiko was murdered Saturday in Athens. At least two men reportedly dressed in police or security uniforms shot Giolias, after luring him out of his apartment in the Ilioupolis suburb of Athens at around 5 a.m., claiming his car was being stolen, according to regional and...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to place Kazakhstan’s poor press freedom record on the agenda for its summit planned for later this year. Kazakhstan, the OSCE chair, is scheduled to host the summit in its capital, Astana. A meeting of the foreign ministers of the 56 OSCE member states at the Ak-Bulak resort...

Azerbaijan’s representative to the European Court of Human Rights has announced that his government appealed Friday against a ruling issued by the court in April ordering Azerbaijan to free Eynulla Fatullayev, an opposition newspaper editor who has been held since April 20, 2007. Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) over what will happen to Fatullayev and regards this announcement as...

For the first time in 19 years, the Turkmen government will allow the establishment of private newspapers, the BBC has reported. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was also quoted in the official media as saying new parties could also be formed, but that it should not happen too soon. The ex-Soviet state has seen some liberalising reforms in recent years. But critics say the changes are only...