His attackers said, “We are sick of you!” Police are treating the assault as a robbery. New York, July 17, 2001–Oleh Velichko, the head of the Avers media corporation in western Ukraine, was brutally beaten by two unknown assailants outside his home in the late evening hours of Wednesday, July 11, according to CPJ sources…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization dedicated to the defense of press freedom around the world, strongly protests the recent conviction of Oleg Liachko, editor of the independent Kyiv weekly Svoboda, on defamation charges.
By Ann CooperIN THE COMMUNITY OF JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE CHRONICLED the past decade’s worst wars, the news last May was devastating. Two of the world’s most dedicated war correspondents, Kurt Schork of Reuters and Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora of The Associated Press, were killed in a rebel ambush in Sierra Leone, a country where…
POLITICAL REFORMS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, along with the advent of democratic governments in Croatia and Serbia, brightened the security prospects for journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. In contrast, Russian’s new government imposed press restrictions, and authoritarian regimes entrenched themselves in other countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Central Asia, further threatening…
LAST YEAR, PRESIDENT LEONID KUCHMA RAMPED UP his habitual censorship of anti-government newspapers and his attacks and threats against independent journalists. Late in the year, the abduction and presumed murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze brought the plight of Ukrainian journalists into sharp relief, while allegations that Kuchma may have directed the killing sparked a…
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in UKRAINE New York, December 15, 2000 — In the wake of allegations linking President Leonid Kuchma and two top aides to the September 16 disappearance of independent journalist Georgy Gongadze, CPJ urges President Kuchma and his government to avoid the appearance of impropriety by appointing…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent beating of Oleg Liachko, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Svoboda. We demand that the attack be investigated immediately and that the assailant — a prominent public official–be held accountable for his actions.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the recent disappearance of Georgy Gongadze, the 31-year-old editor of the news Web site Ukrainska Pravda. This event has alarmed the journalistic community in Ukraine and further eroded your government’s already limited credibility on press-freedom issues.