Tajikistan President Imomali Rakhmonov consolidated his authoritarian rule in 2004, arresting political opponents and cracking down on opposition newspapers. Authorities employed bureaucratic and legal harassment in a broad campaign to silence criticism of the president and his allies ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for February 2005.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is extremely concerned about an escalating campaign of intimidation and harassment against independent and opposition journalists in Tajikistan. The actions are further eroding press conditions at the very moment your citizens most need a free press–for the run-up to parliamentary elections in early 2005.
The Tajik media continued to be haunted in 2003 by the devastating legacy of the 1992-1997 civil war, which pitted the People’s Front, a paramilitary organization led by the current president, Imomali Rakhmonov, against a coalition of Islamic and nationalist groups. Because of widespread poverty–a result of the war, geographic isolation, and a string of…
Dear Mr. Ubaydulloyev: Joel Simon, Josh Friedman, and I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you on July 22 to discuss press freedom conditions in Tajikistan. We also appreciate your willingness to review a letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) outlining our specific concerns about the country’s criminal defamation laws and problems regarding journalists’ access to government information.
New York, August 27, 2003— Following a two-week mission to Tajikistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists sent letters today to Azizmat Imomov, Tajikistan’s deputy prosecutor general, and Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev, parliamentary chairman and mayor of the capital, Dushanbe. The letters were based on three-days of intensive meetings with government officials in which the CPJ delegation expressed…
New York, July 29, 2003—Tajikistan’s Supreme Court today convicted two suspects in the murders of Muhiddin Olimpur, head of the BBC’s Persian Service bureau, and Viktor Nikulin, a correspondent with the Russian television network ORT, both of whom were killed during the country’s civil war in the mid-1990s. Narzibek Davlatov and Akhtam Toirov were sentenced…
Dushanbe, July 24, 2003—A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the government of Tajikistan to combat the culture of fear and self-censorship lingering from its bloody 1992-1997 civil war by investigating and prosecuting those responsible for the murders of dozens of journalists during that period. The delegation also called on the…
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…