Europe & Central Asia

With the world gripped in a historic wave of unrest, journalists in no fewer than 65 countries – about a third of the world – have been attacked covering protests since 2015, according to a report I authored for a U.N. agency that was published today. One thing that stood out during my research for the report Safety…

The images coming out of Belarus look like scenes from a blockbuster film: A president clinging to power striding out of a helicopter holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle, while his gun-toting teenage son and heir apparent walks alongside him in a helmet and military vest; the protesters calling for the president’s removal singing songs, playing music, and taking off their…

As anti-government protests continue to engulf Belarus after the August 9, 2020 election, there’s a revolt brewing inside some state media outlets, where journalists are striking and quitting over what they see as their employers’ failure to accurately cover the protest movement and the government’s harsh response. Thousands of people have been detained at the demonstrations including…

Alena Scharbinskaya, a correspondent with the independent satellite broadcaster Belsat TV, was among dozens of journalists detained last week in Belarus when protests erupted after the re-election of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, whose victory has been contested by many voters and the opposition. She was kept for three days in the now-infamous detention center known among locals…

Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, religion section editor of the independent newspaper Chernovik, has been in pre-trial detention in Makhachkala, in the Russian republic of Dagestan, since his June 14, 2019, arrest on terrorism charges, according to CPJ research. On March 27, 2020, authorities filed new charges against Gadzhiev, accusing him of participation in an extremist organization, as…

In March, 2020, Turkey’s Constitutional Court issued an unexpected decision, overruling a local court that blocked a news website in 2015, according to news reports. But the editor who filed the appeal with the court remains unhappy, he told CPJ via WhatsApp, because the original website remains inaccessible in Turkey — along with the 62 replacements…

Twitter announced last week that it would start labeling some accounts run by media outlets and their top editors as “state-affiliated,” a descriptor intended to improve transparency about the source of information being shared on the platform.  Since disinformation became a flash point in the debate over content moderation on social media, distinguishing propaganda from…

Vladimir Sevrinovsky is a Moscow-based freelance journalist and documentary photographer who has covered social and cultural issues in Russia for independent news site Meduza, independent weekly Russkii Reporter, and Kavkaz.Realii, a regional service of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others. Sevrinovsky’s most recent assignment was to report from Russia’s North Caucasus…

The European Union is reviewing the legal framework for digital information, goods and services—a process with the potential to change the course of internet history for journalists and everybody else.  In June, the European Commission launched public consultations about the upcoming Digital Services Act (DSA), an initiative to review and expand rules established 20 years…

Nearly three dozen media and press freedom organizations, as well as 10 major human rights organizations and experts, have signed on to amicus briefs in support of CPJ’s appeal in its lawsuit seeking documents on whether U.S. intelligence agencies knew of threats to Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi before his murder by the Saudi government….