From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Jul 03 2003 - 09:53:40 EDT
Weekly report on events in CIS mass media
Issue no. 26 (76), June 23 - 29, 2003
I. Attacks and Threats
Georgia
Three unidentified men attacked ITAR-TASS news agency correspondent
Tengiz Pachkoriya and Nezavisimaya Gazeta's correspondent Besik Pipiya
were attacked in the center of Tbilisi in the evening of June 23. They
approached the two journalists from behind, delivered a heavy blow on
Pachkoriya's head, seized his bag and tried to escape. Pipiya called the
police nearby who fired shots into the air, following which the
assailants left the bag on the scene and made away.
II. Judicial and Legal Persecution
Armenia
The Economic Court chaired by Judge Karen Matevosian decided on June 25
not to take up the case of five TV companies against the National TV and
Radio Commission because the plaintiff was not represented at the court
session. In effect, the earlier court ruling rejecting the suit remains
in force. The plaintiff has three days to ask the court chairman to
revise the ruling. Dar 21, Yerevan, EV, ArmenAKob and TV5 want the
commission to send them back for amendment the files they had sent for a
contest and accept the amended files
Kazakhstan
Vesti Pavlodara went off the press for the last time on June 28. The
regional court had ruled on June 24 that the newspaper had to pay
damages equal to 500,000 tenge to the regional Interior Department. The
paper owes a total of 3 million tenge under various court rulings.
Because it does not have that kind of money, the paper has to end its
activities.
Kyrgyzstan
The Batken Tany (Batken Dawn) regional newspaper was reported on June 24
not to have been published for 20 days due to of a lack of paper that it
cannot purchase because the Batken regional court had frozen the paper's
banking account. The paper's last reserve, 44,000 soms, had been seized
as damages paid to Dastan Berdiyev, the chief of staff of the Osh
region's administrations. The man was offended by the paper's article
headlined Dastan's Piratization during a parliamentary election race.
***
The faculty and students of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek university were reported on
June 24 to threaten Manzurokhan Matkasymova with opening a 200,000 som
($5,000) court case against her for an article headlined Keep Away from
Other People's Business accusing the faculty of bribe taking.
Matkasymova is employed in the regional Ush sadosi (Osh's Echo)
newspaper.
III. Other Kinds of Pressure Brought to Bear on Editorial Boards and
Journalists. Conflicts with the Authorities and NGOs
Azerbaijan
The Baku City Hall did not authorize a picket that the Association of
Leading Media Editors planned to stage outside the headquarters of the
ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party on June 25. The City Hall sent the
association a response to an application for a permission to picket the
building, saying that the party is not responsible for the problems in
the distribution of periodicals. The association has repeatedly applied
for permission to picket the building in protest against the authorities
and the ruling party obstructing the distribution of opposition
newspapers and magazines.
IV. Restricting Access to Information
Azerbaijan/Armenia/Karabakh
Signals from Azerbaijan cause problems for the citizens of the Nagorno
Karabakh Republic trying to watch republican and Armenian TV programs,
Gazarian, an official of the Karabakh authorities, said on June 24.
Event Quantity
Attacks on journalists 1 - Georgia
2 - Ukraine
Journalists killed
Journalists detained and arrested
Legal and judicial persecution 1 - Armenia
3 - Belarus
3 - Kyrgyzstan
1 - Ukraine
Other kinds of harassing editorial boards and journalists 2 -
Azerbaijan
1 - Belarus
1 - Belarus/Russia
2 - Kyrgyzstan
3 - Moldova
1 - Uzbekistan
3 - Ukraine
Restriction of access to information 1 - Azerbaijan/Armenia/Karabakh
1 - Kazakhstan
1 - Uzbekistan
Disappeared journalists
Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations
4 Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow 119021, Russia
phone: (+ 7 095) 201-7626; 201-3550 comm. 124
fax: (+ 7 095) 201-7626
e-mail: center@cjes.ru
Web site: www.cjes.ru
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