Europe - Central Asia

The coalition government in UK has unveiled plans for a major review of libel law in a bid to better protect freedom of speech and expression in the media and the research sector, and to cut down on "libel tourism", says a report in The Guardian. On July 9, the Ministry of Justice announced it is to publish a draft defamation bill that will be put out for consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has convicted Turkey of illegally restricting the freedom of expression of two journalists, according to delayed reports. The ruling was based on the Turkish government's decision in two separate trials against Aylin Guzel, the owner and editor-in-chief of Maya magazine, and Aziz Ozer, editor-in-chief of Yeni Dünya için Çağrı magazine. On July 6, the ECHR...

In the year since former journalist Natalia Estemirova’s abduction and murder on July 15, 2009 in the Russian Caucasus, little progress has been made in the investigation. The impunity that prevails in cases of violence against journalists and human rights activists in Russia seems to have triumphed again. No suspect has yet been identified and key questions remain unanswered. Estemirova’s

A raid was carried on the newsroom of the independent Uzbek-language broadcaster Osh TV in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh on Friday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The Kyrgyz security service (known as SNB) also temporarily detained director Khalil Khudaiberdiyev in the raid on the station. Osh TV is currently off the air, the Uzbek service of the US government-funded...

More than 20 years after the fall of the Wall, Berlin is taking a small step toward establishing itself as the media hub of Germany, as the country’s biggest news agency and a newly reinvigorated rival consolidate their operations in the city this summer, says a New York Times report. Yet in an echo of the Cold War divide, relations between the agencies — D.P.A, which was founded in postwar West...

Turkmen authorities have refused to allow husband-and-wife journalists Annamamed Myatiyev and Elena Myatiyeva to travel to the Netherlands, where Myatiyev needs to undergo an operation for a detached retina, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). They were prevented from flying on June 28. Myatiyev and his wife were told they were banned from leaving the country when they tried to fly from...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Russian authorities to disclose their progress in the investigation into the unsolved murder of Forbes Russia Editor Paul Klebnikov, left, who was gunned down outside his Moscow office six years ago on July 9 (2004). The case is with the federal Investigative Committee at the Prosecutor-General’s Office, which is responsible for conducting...

An upstart online news service has led the way in investigating France's latest political funding scandal, defying President Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to stamp his influence on the media, says a Reuters report. The Mediapart website has published a stream of embarrassing reports of alleged cash donations by France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, to conservative politicians, and meddling in...

Silvio Berlusconi is sending out a message as he and his allies fall victim to a string of embarrassing phone call leaks: Stop listening. The Italian premier is pressing a bill to limit the use of investigative wiretaps that have been the source of numerous scandals, but there is fierce opposition to curbing official eavesdropping in one of the world's most wiretapped nations. Magistrates warn the

Ramazan Yesergepov, the ailing imprisoned editor of the now-defunct independent newspaper Alma-Ata Info, is on a hunger-strike for the third consecutive day on Thursday in a penal colony in the southern Kazakh city of Taraz, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On June 25, Yesergepov announced his decision to go on hunger strike starting July 6 to protest his...