Europe & Central Asia

Your Excellency,

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by a campaign of harassment and intimidation against Stanislav Dmitriyevsky in retaliation for his newspaper's reporting on the war in Chechnya. The persecution of Dmitriyevsky is part of a broader government campaign to obstruct the work of independent media reporting on Chechnya.

Dmitriyevsky is the director of the human rights organization Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), and editor-in-chief of its newspaper, Pravo-Zashchita (Rights Defense). The newspaper, which is based in Nizhny Novgorod, is viewed by Russian journalists as one of the few remaining sources of independent news about Chechnya. Pravo-Zashchita, a monthly with a circulation of 5,000, is distributed in the North Caucasus and several Russian cities.

CPJ Update October 17, 2005 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

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New York, October 14, 2005—Croatian authorities released Josip Jovic from prison on Thursday after he agreed to respond to contempt charges at the Hague-based United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, according to local and international press reports.

Jovic, former editor-in-chief of the Split daily Slobodna Dalmacija, traveled to Holland today and pleaded not guilty to defying Tribunal gag orders against publishing the identity and testimony of a protected witness. He was allowed to return to Croatia after the hearing.

Editor's note: The original text of this alert has been corrected to accurately characterize Minbar i Halq.

New York, October 12, 2005—The Supreme Court on Tuesday partially overturned the July 28 conviction of independent journalist Jumaboy Tolibov and ordered his immediate release, according to local press reports. Tolibov's six-month imprisonment was seen as retaliation for criticizing a prosecutor, and it came amid an ongoing government crackdown on the media.

New York, October 12, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the conviction of a Turkish-Armenian journalist on a charge of "insulting and weakening Turkish identity through the media" An Istanbul court on Friday sentenced Hrant Dink, 52, editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, to a six-month suspended term. Dink and his lawyer, Fethiye Cetin, plan to appeal.

The charges stemmed from a series of articles Dink wrote in early 2004 dealing with the collective memory of the Armenian massacres of 1915-1917 under the Ottoman Empire. He called on Armenians to move beyond historical anger toward Turks and "turn to the new blood of independent Armenia."

OCTOBER 7, 2005
Posted October 18, 2005

Hrant Dink, Agos
LEGAL ACTION

A Turkish-Armenian journalist was convicted of "insulting and weakening Turkish identity through the media" An Istanbul court sentenced Dink, 52, editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, to a six-month suspended term. Dink and his lawyer, Fethiye Cetin, said they appeal.

New York, October 7, 2005—A Croatian journalist was arrested Thursday and faces extradition to the Hague-based United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after being accused of identifying a protected witness and failing to appear at a hearing on a contempt of court charge.

Croatian police in the southern city of Split arrested Josip Jovic, the former editor-in-chief of the Split daily Slobodna Dalmacija, acting on a September 28 arrest warrant issued by the Tribunal, according to local press reports.

New York, October 7, 2005 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned an attack on a Ukrainian television reporter by an unidentified assailant who warned her to stop investigating the political party headed by former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko. Reporter Natalya Vlasova of 34 Kanal, a television station in the eastern industrial city of Dnepropetrovsk, was attacked on Tuesday in a downtown street, and repeatedly hit in the head and chest, her editor Ruslan Uralov told CPJ. She is in hospital with concussion and bruising.

OCTOBER 4, 2005
Posted October 11, 2005

Natalya Vlasova, 34 Kanal
ATTACKED

Reporter Natalya Vlasova of 34 Kanal, a television station in the eastern industrial city of Dnepropetrovsk, was attacked in a downtown street by an unidentified assailant who warned her to stop investigating the political party headed by former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko. Vlasova was hit repeatedly in the head and chest, her editor Ruslan Uralov told CPJ. She was hospitalized with concussion and bruising.

New York, September 28, 2005 – Eduard Abrosimov was released from prison two weeks early on Wednesday after a court in the southern Russian city of Saratov upheld his criminal libel conviction and reduced his sentence from seven months to time served.

Abrosimov, a journalist and adviser to former regional governor Dmitry Ayatskov, was convicted by a Saratov arbitration court of criminal defamation on June 22 for libeling public officials in two articles published last year in national and local newspapers, according to local press reports. One count of defamation was based on draft material that had not been published.