The U.S. government took aggressive measures in 2002 to shield some of its activities from press scrutiny. These steps not only reduced access for U.S. reporters but had a global ripple effect, with autocratic leaders citing U.S. government actions to justify repressive policies.
New York, March 19, 2003- The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s violent attack on Olga Kobzeva, a journalist with GTRK Don-TR television, a local branch of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. According to Russian sources, an unknown assailant wielding a broken bottle slashed…
New York, March 17, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the violent attack against Aleksandr Krutov, a journalist with the independent weekly newspaper Bogatei in the city of Saratov, in southern Russia. According to Russian news reports, three unknown assailants attacked the journalist on the evening of Thursday, March 13, outside his home. One…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is extremely concerned about an official warning issued by the Russian Media Ministry on Wednesday, February 26, to the Moscow-based communist, ultra-nationalist weekly Zavtra. This warning, which followed the publication of an interview with exiled Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev, is the latest in the Russian government’s…
New York, March 5, 2003—A suspect accused of issuing death threats against Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent with the Moscow-based twice weekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was cleared of the criminal charge against him yesterday. Politkovskaya is well known in Russia for her investigative reports on human rights abuses committed by the Russian military in Chechnya. The…
New York, February 28, 2003—Zamid Ayubov, a 40-year-old Chechen journalist for the local pro-Russian administration’s thrice-weekly Vozrozhdeniye Chechni, was beaten and detained by Interior Ministry forces in the Chechen capitol of Grozny on the evening of February 16. Ayubov was assaulted when he approached an Interior Ministry unit and identified himself as a journalist researching…
New York, January 23, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes today’s decision by a court in the city of Ussuriisk, in the Russian Far East, to grant parole to military journalist Grigory Pasko. The journalist was released immediately and traveled to his home in Vladivostok. Under Russian law, Pasko, who had served two-thirds of…
New York, January 2, 2003—A total of 19 journalists were killed worldwide for their work in 2002, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This number marks a sharp decrease from 2001 when 37 journalists were killed, eight of them while covering the war in Afghanistan. Of the 19 journalists killed in 2002, most…