Europe & Central Asia

2011

  
Charter 97 Editor-in-Chief Natalya Radina at CPJ's 2011 International Press Freedom Awards. (Muzaffar Suleymanov/CPJ)

Belarusian website Charter 97 attacked, shut down

It’s not unusual for Charter 97, a Belarusian pro-opposition news website, to be disrupted online. CPJ has documented intimidations, threats, and arrests against its staff members, the murder of its founder, and denial-of-service attacks against the website.

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Hundreds of Turkish journalists march to protest detentions and demand reforms to media laws in Ankara on March 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

Responding to Turkey’s appalling press freedom record

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would like to take credit for Turkey’s economic growth and increasing regional influence, but when challenged on his country’s abysmal  press freedom record he tends to blame others, including the media itself which, he says, exaggerates the problem. But the facts speak for themselves, as I noted in a letter…

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Journalists killed: Inside the numbers

CPJ today released its annual tally of the journalists killed around the world. This is always a somber occasion for us as we chronicle the grim toll, remember friends who have been lost, and recommit ourselves to justice. It’s also a time when we are asked questions about our research and why our numbers are…

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A signboard held outside an Interior Ministry building in Moscow in 2010 reads: 'Journalist Oleg Kashin is beaten. I demand perpetrators and masterminds be found.' (Reuters/Denis Sinyakov)

Impunity still reigns in beating of Oleg Kashin

A year ago, on a November night, two unidentified assailants awaited Oleg Kashin, a correspondent for the Russian business daily Kommersant, by his home on a central Moscow street, a 10-minute walk from the Kremlin. The two had hidden steel rods in bouquets of flowers.

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Several tallies, one conclusion on Turkish press freedom

Press freedom in Turkey is under assault. Thousands of criminal cases have been filed against reporters, the Criminal Code and Anti-Terrorism Act are used routinely to silence critical news coverage, and Kurdish journalists face constant persecution. Today CPJ released its annual prison census, which tracks cases of journalists jailed for their work globally. (The list…

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A police officer falls down as he tries to detain a demonstrator during protests against alleged vote rigging in Russia's parliamentary elections in Triumphal Square in Moscow Wednesday. (AP)

Protests not newsworthy to Kremlin-controlled media

Following Sunday’s elections to the Russian Duma, news reports abound of the wave of opposition protests that have hit Russia’s current and historic capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg. In demonstrations unprecedented in the past decade, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets chanting “Russia without Putin!” and calling for the vote to be annulled,…

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New President Almazbek Atambayev was sworn in Thursday in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. (AP)

Q & A: Khudaiberdiyev on Kyrgyz trial, press freedom

In late October, a regional court in Jalal-Abad, southern Kyrgyzstan, convicted and sentenced in absentia to hefty prison terms two ethnic Uzbek media owners, Dzhavlon Mirzakhodzhayev of Mezon TV and Khalil Khudaiberdiyev of Osh TV. Both men were tried in connection to the ethnic conflict that ravaged southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. Authorities accused both…

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CPJ
CPJ's annual International Press Freedom Awards dinner took place at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. (Michael Nagle/Getty Images for CPJ)

Awardees to their colleagues: Buck the system

The Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria might seem like an odd venue to stage a call for resistance. Nine hundred people in tuxedos and gowns. Champagne and cocktails. Bill Cunningham snapping photos. This combination is generally more likely to coax a boozy nostalgia than foment a revolution. But the journalists honored last night at…

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Ethnic Uzbek men look for their belongings at a destroyed house outside Osh on June 16, 2010. (AFP)

Q & A: Dzhavlon Mirzakhodzhayev on Kyrgyz ‘justice’

On October 28, a regional court in Jalal-Abad, southern Kyrgyzstan, announced its verdict in the trial of six men–all ethnic Uzbeks–charged in connection with violent ethnic conflict in June 2010. Among the defendants were owners of what was once the region’s most influential media–Khalil Khudaiberdiyev of Osh TV and Dzhavlon Mirzakhodzhayev of Mezon TV. The…

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Defending the middle ground of online journalism

It’s easy to use polarizing descriptions of online news-gathering. It’s the domain of citizen journalists, blogging without pay and institutional support, or it’s a sector filled with the digital works of “mainstream media” facing financial worries and struggling to offer employees the protection they once provided. But there is a growing middle ground: trained reporters…

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2011