New York, June 18, 2010—We issued the following statement after police in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan released independent Uzbek reporter Aleksei Volosevich after holding him without charge for three days; Volosevich was filming refugees from the unrest in Kyrgyzstan. Police confiscated his phone, footage, and audio recorder, Volosevich told CPJ.
“The authorities in Uzbekistan must stop harassing independent journalists and preventing coverage of the unrest and the humanitarian crisis in the Fergana Valley,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova. “The government in Tashkent must ensure that those who detained Aleksei Volosevich are held accountable and that journalists in the region are allowed to work freely.”