Europe & Central Asia

When it comes to silencing critics, Azerbaijani authorities have been industrious and methodical. Ahead of snap presidential elections scheduled for April 11, potential opposition candidates have been either jailed or barred from running, and the political landscape has been cleansed of virtually all formal avenues of expressing dissent.

Journalists sentenced An Istanbul court convicted in a retrial Hasan Cemal, a veteran journalist and a columnist for the news website T24, on charges of “making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization,” and issued a suspended sentence of 18 months and 22 days, according to an April 3 report from the daily Cumhuriyet.

Pro-Kurdish newspaper seized A government-affiliated insurer and fund manager took over one of Turkey’s last remaining pro-Kurdish dailies, Özgürlükçü Düşünce, on March 28, and Istanbul police detained at least 27 of its staff members, according to news reports.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, along with seven other press freedom organizations, today sent a joint letter urging EU diplomats in Malta to monitor the ongoing trial of three suspects arrested in relation to the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Media sales Doğan Holding, one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates, on March 21 announced that it would sell its media assets to the pro-government Demirören Holding, according to news reports.

The assassinations of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in October and of Ján Kuciak in Slovakia last month have elicited an outpouring of support from journalists determined to honor the memory of their colleagues by fighting back with the weapon they wield best: journalism.

With claims to more than one billion users consuming content in 76 languages, Google’s YouTube has become a core part of most media outlets’ dissemination strategy. And although there are 88 localized versions of the service, YouTube.com remains the largest and most influential platform for reaching a global audience. Which is why, when the site…

Supreme Court says Can Dündar should face retrial Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals on March 9 ruled that Can Dündar, former chief editor of the daily, Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gül, the paper’s Ankara representative, should face a retrial on charges of “obtaining secret information with means of espionage,” Euronews reported.

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined a coalition of 28 other international press freedom organizations to call on Kyrgyz authorities to drop defamation lawsuits and to end the practice of using disproportionate fines, travel bans and other harsh penalties to punish critical media outlets and journalists.

Entering the historic site of the Gdansk shipyard, one cannot miss the wooden boards hanging over the famous gate No. 2. Handwritten in 1980, they display the list of demands of the strikers led by Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity, the independent trade union movement that pushed for social change in communist Poland. Number…