Europe & Central Asia

  
Journalists broadcast from the Belsat TV studio in Warsaw, Poland, on January 31, 2011. The broadcaster's Minsk, Belarus, offices were recently raided by police in a slander case. (AFP/Janek Skarzynski)

Offices of independent Belarusian TV station Belsat raided in slander case

New York, April 11, 2019 — Belarusian authorities should immediately drop their criminal slander investigation of independent online television station Belsat and allow the broadcaster’s reporters and staff to work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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The front page of a March 20 newspaper shows President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who resigned the previous day. Kazakhstan's press was restricted and censored under his long rule. (Reuters/Pavel Mikheyev)

Nazarbayev’s long rule leaves toxic legacy for Kazakhstan’s media

In 2011, I observed an astonishing spectacle in the Respublika newspaper offices in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s financial capital. Journalists were putting a modern-day twist on samizdat, a practice in the Soviet Union whereby dissidents laboriously copied illicit material to circumvent censorship.

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An Italian police officer is seen on October 31, 2018. Police recently arrested seven men who assaulted a journalist in Vicenza. (AP/Andrew Medichini)

Italian journalist assaulted, robbed while reporting in park

On April 2, 2019, Valentino Gonzato, an Italian reporter with the daily newspaper Il Giornale di Vicenza, was assaulted by a group of seven people while reporting in Fornaci Park in Vicenza, a city in Northern Italy, according to his employer.

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A November 1, 1998, photo of Serbian journalist Slavko Curuvija at a press conference in Belgrade. A Serbian court on April 5, 2019, sentenced four former intelligence officers to decades in prison for the 1999 killing of Curuvija. (AFP/Andrej Isakovic)

CPJ welcomes convictions in murder of Serbian journalist Slavko Ćuruvija

New York, April 5, 2019–A Belgrade court today convicted four former Serbian state security officers of the 1999 murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija, owner of the mass-circulation Dnevni Telegraf, Serbia’s first private daily, and the weekly magazine Evropljanin, independent regional news website Balkan Insight reported. Ćuruvija, 51, was shot and killed on April 11, 1999,…

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Russian journalist Kirill Vyshinskiy listens to a lawyer in a court room in Kherson, Ukraine, on May 17, 2018. His trial, for treason, began yesterday. (AP/Victor Platov)

Treason trial of Russian state media journalist begins in Ukraine

New York, April 5, 2019 — The trial of Kirill Vyshynsky, Kiev bureau chief of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, started yesterday in the Podil district court in Kiev, according to Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform. The court heard the prosecutor’s indictment and will convene again on April 15, the news agency said.

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Russian lawmakers are seen in the State Duma on May 22, 2018. The Duma recently considered amendments that would restrict foreign print media in the country. (AP/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian draft legislation would ban distribution of foreign print media without government permission

New York, April 4, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Russian parliament to drop legislative amendments that would ban the distribution of foreign print media in the country without government permission.

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Fireworks are seen in Istanbul on April 1, during elections. A court in the city convicted eight individuals of anti-state charges for their role in a solidarity campaign with the pro-Kurdish newspaper, Özgür Gündem. (Reuters/Kemal Aslan)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 31, 2019

Eight sentenced over Özgür Gündem campaign An Istanbul court on April 3 sentenced seven guest editors who took part in a solidarity campaign with the now shuttered daily, Özgür Gündem, the television and news website Medyascope reported.

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Women rest on a ship run by the Maltese non-governmental group Moas and the Italian Red Cross after a rescue operation in the Mediterranean in November 2016. In Italy, journalists say they are regularly harassed and threatened online over their coverage of migration issues. (AFP/Andreas Solaro)

Italy’s migrant beat beset with smear campaigns, harassment

When Annalisa Camilli spent eight days on an Open Arms ship that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean, she knew her reporting for the Italian news magazine Internazionale may attract trolls. Camilli has covered the migrant beat for years and this was her second trip with the non-profit rescue operation. But, the reporter said, she was…

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A man reads on a bridge in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on October 6, 2018. A Sarajevo politician recently attacked a journalist in the city. (Amel Emric/AP)

Politician attacks journalist in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Berlin, April 2, 2019 – Authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina should quickly and thoroughly investigate the attack and harassment of journalist Adi Kebo by Sarajevo politician Huso Ćesir, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Slovakia's president-elect Zuzana Čaputová, pictured talking to the press outside a polling station in Pezinok on March 30. CPJ and other rights organizations are calling on the newly elected leader to ensure the safety of journalists. (AFP/Vladimir Simicek)

Calls for Slovakia’s new president to respect press freedom

CPJ and a coalition of eight other international press freedom groups today called on the newly elected president of Slovakia to respect press freedom and ensure the safety of journalists.

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