Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in YUGOSLAVIA. New York, April 21, 2000 — Serbian ultranationalist leader and deputy prime minister Vojislav Seselj has insinuated that an independent journalist’s life may be in danger. Appearing April 12 on a government TV program called “Fifth Column,” about the anti-Milosevic opposition, Seselj named a…
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in KAZAKHSTAN. New York, April 20, 2000 — A TV news director in Kazakhstan was dismissed under official pressure after she covered the harassment of three opposition leaders, according to CPJ’s sources in Almaty. On March 31, Tatyana Deltsova was fired from her job as news…
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in KYRGYZSTAN. New York, April 4, 2000 — A Bishkek city court recently found the local independent weekly Res Publika liable in yet another defamation suit. The paper is currently banned from publishing until it pays a fine resulting from an earlier lawsuit.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the events of Saturday, March 25, when thirty-five journalists were among the hundreds detained in connection with a demonstration held in Minsk to protest your government’s ban on a march that was to have been part of opposition-staged festivities commemorating the 1918 founding of the Belarusian National Republic.
Click here to read CPJ’s protest letter. New York, March 27, 2000 — A total of thirty-five journalists were among the hundreds detained in connection with a demonstration held Saturday March 25 in the Belarus capital, Minsk. The demonstration was held to protest the official ban on a march that was to have been part…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the recent arrest of veteran journalist Aziza Abdrasulova and the continued legal harassment of her newspaper, the Bishkek weekly Res Publika. We believe the arrest is part of an intimidation campaign being mounted by your government against independent media during the run-up to parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan.
By Ann CooperAs a foreign correspondent covering the Soviet Union a decade ago, I was an eyewitness to a dramatic example of the press’ critical role in building democracy. Granted a bit of freedom by Mikhail Gorbachev’s mid-1980s glasnost policy, long-suppressed Soviet journalists set their own daring agenda: they probed forbidden history, investigated contemporary corruption,…
By Claudia McElroyAll over Africa, conflict continued to be the single biggest threat to journalists and to press freedom itself. Both civil and cross-border wars were effectively used as an excuse by governments (and rebel forces) to harass, intimidate, and censor the press–often in the name of “national security”–and in some cases to kill journalists…
By Chrystyna Lapychak Wars in Yugoslavia and Chechnya dominated regional and international headlines in 1999. The conflicts raised the journalists’ death toll in the region and prompted crackdowns, as governments blocked access to war zones and engaged in propaganda campaigns.