Zhanaozen

New York, April 19, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today's attack on a reporter in Kazakhstan and calls on authorities to immediately investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Unidentified assailants shot and stabbed Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a journalist with the independent newspaper Uralskaya Nedelya, in Uralsk, a city in western Kazakhstan, as he returned home from work at around 10:30 p.m., Akhmedyarov's chief editor, Tamara Eslyamova, told CPJ today. Eslyamova said the journalist was in surgery late today.

New York, January 24, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the detention by the Kazakh security service, or KNB, of Igor Vinyavsky, editor of the Almaty-based independent weekly Vzglyad, and calls for his immediate release. Vinyavsky was detained in an ongoing crackdown by the KNB on critical media and opposition activists, which also involved a raid on independent broadcaster Stan TV.

New York, December 20, 2011--Authorities in the Mangistau region of western Kazakhstan have attacked and detained independent journalists and blocked access to news outlets to suppress coverage of unrest there, news reports said. The Committee Protect today called on Kazakh authorities to allow the media unfettered access.