Europe & Central Asia

New York, January 17, 2025–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Georgian authorities to release reporter Guram Murvanidze and to investigate whether Mzia Amaghlobeli is facing retaliatory charges because of her journalism.    Amaghlobeli, founder and director of independent news outlets Batumelebi and Netgazeti, and Murvanidze, also from Batumelebi, were arrested in the western city of Batumi on January 11 during protests calling for a re-run…

Istanbul, January 15, 2025—Turkish authorities should not stop their efforts to find those behind the conspiracy to murder Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On January 9, an Istanbul court reached a verdict in the latest of many trials over Dink’s 2007 fatal shooting in Istanbul. Dink, managing editor of…

New York, January 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Turkmen authorities’ decision to place a travel ban on Nurgeldi Halykov, a freelance correspondent for the independent Netherlands-based news website Turkmen.news, who was released from prison in June 2024 after serving a four-year sentence on retaliatory charges. On January 12, border guards at Ashgabat International…

Berlin, January 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Russian authorities to stop persecuting the regional news site Komi Daily and the independent media outlet Asians of Russia, which the Federal Security Service (FSB) added to its list of “terrorist organizations.” This marks the first time media publications have been labeled as such in Russia, according…

New York, January 13, 2025—A court in Tajikistan’s southern city of Kulob on January 10 sentenced Ahmad Ibrohim, chief editor of the independent weekly newspaper Payk, to 10 years in prison on charges of bribery, extortion, and extremism. The closed-door trial was held in the city’s pretrial detention center, with authorities reportedly classifying the case…

Haitian journalist Jean Marc Jean was covering an anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince in February 2024 when he was struck in the face by a gas canister fired by police into the crowd. One of at least five journalists injured while covering civil unrest in the country that month, Jean arrived at the hospital with a…

Editor’s note: Cecilia Sala was freed on January 8, 2025. Press freedom organizations and the organizers of the International Journalism Festival (IJF) called on Iran on Tuesday to release Italian journalist Cecilia Sala with immediate effect. Sala was arrested in Iran on December 19 and is being held in the notorious Evin prison. Iran confirmed…

Istanbul, December 23, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Turkish authorities to release journalists who were jailed in Istanbul on Sunday and allow the media to report freely. On Saturday, Turkish authorities detained several dozen people, including journalists, at a protest against the December 20 killing of Kurdish journalists Jihan Belkin and Nazim Dashdan, who…

The Committee to Protect Journalists, in a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on December 19, 2024, asked him to ensure that journalists and media outlets can work freely in Ukraine and that no one responsible for intimidating journalists goes unpunished, following a year marked by several incidents of pressure, intimidation, and surveillance, as well…

New York, December 19, 2024—A Belarusian court convicted journalist Yauhen Nikalayevich of “organizing or participating in gross violations of public order” and sentenced him to 1½ years imprisonment on October 3 in the southwestern city of Pinsk. The sentence length was only made public on December 19 after a court upheld his conviction earlier this…