New York, April 28, 2004—The independent television station Pyramida, based in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, was returned to the air yesterday after being prevented from broadcasting for 40 days, according to local and international reports. The station stopped broadcasting on March 17 because of a technical problem with the transmission equipment it shares with…
Once regarded as one of Central Asia’s more progressive countries, impoverished Kyrgyzstan has become highly repressive when it comes to the press. Despite having cast himself as a liberal when he took office in 1991, in recent years President Askar Akayev has tightened the government’s grip on the independent and opposition media.
December 11 Jonathan C. Randal, The Washington Post The U.N. International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY) ruled to limit compelled testimony from war correspondents. The decision, announced at the tribunal’s Appeals Chamber, came in response to the appeal by former Washington Post reporter Jonathan C. Randal, who had been…
Emboldened by the growing number of U.S. troops in the country, President Askar Akayev has used the threat of international terrorism as an excuse to curb political dissent and suppress the independent and opposition media in Kyrgyzstan. Compliant courts often issue exorbitant damage awards in politically motivated libel suits, driving even the country’s most prominent…
Press freedom is generally respected in the United Kingdom, but CPJ was alarmed by a legal case in which Interbrew, a Belgium-based brewing group, and the British Financial Services Authority (FSA), a banking and investment watchdog agency, demanded that several U.K. media outlets turn over documents that had been leaked to them. The case threatened…
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,…
Press freedom in Kyrgyzstan suffered major setbacks in 2001 as President Askar Akayev continued his increasingly repressive curtailment of dissent. Politically motivated civil libel suits resulted in exorbitant damage awards, driving some newsapers to the brink of bankruptcy.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by your government’s recent harassment of several new independent media outlets. And we heartily object to a recent presidential decree that will make it easier to imprison journalists who criticize the government.