Osman Arifmemetov
Osman Arifmemetov, an ethnic Crimean Tatar freelance journalist, is serving a 14-year prison sentence after being convicted on charges of terrorism and of “preparation for a violent seizure of power,” in connection with his reporting on alleged human rights abuses by Russian authorities in Crimea. Russian authorities detained him in March 2019 in the southern…
Nariman Memedeminov
Russian authorities detained Crimean Tatar freelance journalist Nariman Memedeminov in March 2018 after raiding his home in Crimea. In October 2019, a military court in Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don sentenced Memedeminov to two years and six months in prison after he was convicted of public calls for terrorism online. Memedeminov reported on the activities…
Kirill Vyshynsky
On May 15, 2018, the Ukraine Security Service (SBU) searched the Kiev office of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti and detained the office director, Kirill Vyshynsky. Vyshynsky’s colleagues at RIA Novosti-Ukraine said he was detained near his home in Kiev, according to a report by the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty…
Vasily Muravitsky
Ukraine’s state security service (SBU) on August 1, 2017 detained Vasily Muravitsky, a reporter and columnist based in Ukraine’s west-central city of Zhytomyr, on anti-state charges, according to news reports. The general prosecutor’s press secretary wrote on Facebook that Muravistsky was arrested on charges of state treason, infringement of territorial integrity of Ukraine, incitement of…
Roman Sushchenko
Russian security officers detained Sushchenko, a correspondent for Ukraine’s state news agency Ukrinform, on September 30, 2016, when he arrived in Moscow from Paris, the Russian weekly Argumenty i fakty reported. He had travelled to Russia on vacation to visit relatives, according to his employer. His arrest on espionage charges was not disclosed until the Public Monitoring Commission, a Russian…
Vladimir Ivanov
Ivanov, editor-in-chief of the Sevastopol local daily The Glory of Sevastopol, was fatally injured when a bomb, triggered by remote control, exploded in a garbage can outside his home on April 14. He was taken to a local hospital where he underwent three operations and had his legs amputated. He died four days after the…
COVID-19 lockdowns pose challenges for imprisoned journalists observing Ramadan
This year, the Islamic month of Ramadan, which started on April 24 and will continue through May 23, is particularly challenging for Muslim journalists in jail to observe safely, their family members and friends told CPJ.
China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt are world’s worst jailers of journalists
For the fourth consecutive year, at least 250 journalists are imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammed bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser