Attacks on the Press in 2010 - Committee to Protect Journalists

CPJ International Press Freedom AwardsNadira Isayeva, RussiaIsayeva, 31, has incurred the wrath of security servicesin Russia’s volatile North Caucasus for her relentlessreporting on their handling of violence and militantIslam in the region. As editor-in-chief of the independentweekly Chernovik (Rough Draft) in the southern republicof Dagestan, she has criticized as counterproductivethe heavy-handed tactics of state agencies charged withfighting terrorism.In 2008, authorities brought a criminal case againsther under anti-extremist legislation after she publishedcpjan interview with a former guerrilla leader whoaccused local authorities of corruption and of being in thrall to the Kremlin.Isayeva sees the case as retaliation for Chernovik’s work. If convicted,she faces up to eight years in prison.She and the newspaper are regularly harassed with official summonses,financial audits, and state-commissioned “linguistic analyses” that labelcontent as extremist. Investigators have searched Isayeva’s home, seizing acomputer, books, and files. A local prosecutor has sent her notice that shemust undergo a psychological examination. Since June 2009, the main statemedia regulator has been trying to close the paper for “hostile attitudestoward law enforcement officers and other extremist statements.”Dawit Kebede, EthiopiaKebede, 30, was one of the first journalists to be jailedfor independent reporting on Ethiopia’s 2005 electionviolence, and he was among the last to be released undera presidential pardon nearly two years later. Unlike manyof his colleagues who went into exile, Kebede chose tostay in Ethiopia after he walked free from Addis Ababa’sKality Prison, where he had been crammed into a communalcell with 350 political prisoners.The government rebuffed his attempts to get a publishinglicense after his release, but relented in the face ofcpjpublic pressure. Kebede launched the Awramba Times in2008, and today it is the country’s only Amharic-language newspaper thatdares to question authorities.411