Committee to Protect Journalists - Kosovo

Attacks on the Press 2009: Europe and Central Asia Developments

2010-02-16T05:00:20Z

Kosovo must probe death threats against BIRN staff

2009-06-17T18:32:02Z

Dear Prime Minister Thaci: As an independent, nonpartisan organization defending press freedom worldwide, the Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to publicly condemn and thoroughly investigate a recent wave of threats against Jeta Xharra, head of the Kosovo office of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), and her colleagues.

Attacks on the Press in 2008: Europe and Central Asia Developments

2009-02-10T05:35:00Z

Attacks on the Press 2007: Europe and Central Asia Snapshots

2008-02-05T16:24:50Z

Attacks and developments throughout the region

Attacks on the Press 2005: Europe & Central Asia Snapshots

2006-02-16T16:33:58Z

Attacks and developments throughout the region

Attacks on the Press 2004: Europe and Central Asia Analysis

2005-03-14T16:54:00Z

Overview
by Alex Lupis

Authoriatarian rulers strengthened their hold on power in many former Soviet republics in 2004. Their secretive, centralized governments aggressively suppressed all forms of independent activity, from journalism and human rights monitoring to religious activism and political opposition.

Attacks on the Press 2001: Europe & Central Asia

2002-03-26T17:11:50Z

The exhilarating prospect of broad press freedoms that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago has faded dramatically in much of the post-communist world. A considerable decline in press freedom conditions in Russia during the last year, along with the stranglehold authoritarian leaders have imposed on media in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, has put journalists on the defensive across the region.

Journalist murdered in drive-by shooting

2001-10-22T16:00:00Z

New York, October 22, 2001—An ethnic Albanian journalist in Kosovo was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting last Friday, according to local and international reports.

Bekim Kastrati, a journalist for the Albanian-language daily Bota Sot, was shot on October 19 at around 8 p.m. in the village of Lausa, west of the provincial capital, Pristina, along with two other men who were riding in his car at the time. One of the men was killed, and the other was wounded.

Attacks on the Press 2000: Introduction

2001-03-19T17:10:50Z

By Ann Cooper

IN THE COMMUNITY OF JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE CHRONICLED the past decade's worst wars, the news last May was devastating. Two of the world's most dedicated war correspondents, Kurt Schork of Reuters and Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora of The Associated Press, were killed in a rebel ambush in Sierra Leone, a country where civil strife has claimed the lives of 15 local journalists and foreign correspondents since 1997. The haunting image on the cover of this book is Gil Moreno, whose camera took television viewers into the bloody heart of late 20th century conflict.

Attacks on the Press 2000: Europe & Central Asia Analysis

2001-03-19T17:10:25Z

POLITICAL REFORMS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, along with the advent of democratic governments in Croatia and Serbia, brightened the security prospects for journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. In contrast, Russian's new government imposed press restrictions, and authoritarian regimes entrenched themselves in other countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Central Asia, further threatening the independent press.

CPJ confirmed that in 2000, five journalists were killed as a result of their reporting in Europe and Central Asia. In Russia, two journalists were killed in Chechnya, and one in Moscow. (CPJ could not confirm the motives for the killings of four other journalists in Russia during the year.) In Ukraine, the disappearance and murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze highlighted the extreme vulnerability of independent journalists in that country. And in a rare Western European case, a Spanish journalist was killed in response to his coverage of the Basque separatist group ETA.

Attacks on the Press 1999: Introduction

2000-03-22T17:11:05Z

By Ann Cooper

As a foreign correspondent covering the Soviet Union a decade ago, I was an eyewitness to a dramatic example of the press' critical role in building democracy. Granted a bit of freedom by Mikhail Gorbachev's mid-1980s glasnost policy, long-suppressed Soviet journalists set their own daring agenda: they probed forbidden history, investigated contemporary corruption, and encouraged fellow citizens to voice opinions that had been ruthlessly stifled for decades under Communist Party rule.

Attacks on the Press 1999: Europe & Central Asia Analysis

2000-03-22T17:10:35Z

By Chrystyna Lapychak

Wars in Yugoslavia and Chechnya dominated regional and international headlines in 1999. The conflicts raised the journalists' death toll in the region and prompted crackdowns, as governments blocked access to war zones and engaged in propaganda campaigns.

Attacks on the Press 1999: 1999 Death Toll: Listed by Country

2000-03-22T17:10:15Z

[Click here for full list of documented cases]

At its most fundamental level, the job of a journalist is to bear witness. In 1999, journalists in Sierra Leone witnessed rebels' atrocities against civilians in the streets of Freetown. In the Balkans, journalists watched ethnic Albanians fleeing the deadly menace of Serbian police and paramilitaries. In Indonesia, they recorded the violence of Indonesian-backed militias against supporters of political independence. Some who wrote about what they witnessed ended up dying because of the stories they told.

118 Journalists Imprisoned in 25 Countries

1999-03-25T17:00:00Z

Washington, D.C., March 25 -- The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported today in its annual worldwide study of press freedom that at least 118 journalists were in prison in 25 countries at the end of 1998, and 24 journalists in 17 countries were murdered during the year in reprisal for their reporting.