Attacks on the Press in 2010 - Committee to Protect Journalists

Europe and Central Asia: Country Summariesstop working. The two had produced detailed eyewitness reports that werein sharp contrast to the government-approved reports carried in mostdomestic media.Azimjon Askarov, director of the local rights group Vozdukh andcontributor to the regional news site Voice of Freedom, and UlugbekAbdusalomov, editor of the independent weekly Diydor, were arrested inJune on charges of inciting ethnic unrest. Askarov was also charged withcomplicity in the murder of a police officer.Askarov’s colleagues told CPJ he was prosecuted in retaliation forreporting on police abuse and beatings of detainees. Defense attorneyNurbek Toktakunov told CPJ that the prosecution failed to produce anyevidence or independent eyewitness testimony at the trial. Askarov wasbeaten in custody, while his lawyer and relatives were threatened, but aJalal-Abad court imposed a life prison term against the journalist inSeptember.The investigation of Abdusalomov was marred as well, CPJ researchshowed. The journalist was not present at the protests that authorities saidhe had allegedly led. Documents show that at the time the editor was inBishkek, working on the text of the new constitution as a member of a governmentcommittee. The article in Diydor that officials alleged had incitedethnic hatred had simply quoted local residents who complained aboutinequities in southern Kyrgyzstan. The case was pending in late year.Local and international human rights and press freedom groups, includingCPJ, urged Otunbayeva to intervene in the politicized prosecutions.Otunbayeva worked for years in Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Service, serving asan ambassador to the United States among other nations, and later headedthe Foreign Ministry under both Akayev and Bakiyev.RussiaThe nation’s top investigative agency reopened a series of unsolvedjournalist murders and reported progress on several fronts. But withconvictions elusive, impunity in anti-press attacks continued to stain thenation’s international image. Russia ranked eighth on CPJ’s 2010 ImpunityIndex, reflecting one of the worst records in the world, as all but one of19 press murders since 2000 went unsolved. While no journalists weremurdered in 2010, at least one reporter was brutally beaten in retaliationfor his work. And that assailant, like nearly all attackers in anti-press cases,remained at large.201