History
From 1990-2001 Tajikistan was one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. Estimates for the number of journalists killed number from fifty to eighty. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, journalism in Tajikistan underwent a transformation as the Soviet Union liberalized under glasnost and perestroika. Journalists in both private and state-run media were permitted greater editorial and investigative freedoms to report on issues and to challenge government propaganda. But journalists ran into danger when they publicly confronted powerful interests or reported on violent events. The first journalistic death in Tajikistan occurred on 12 February 1990 when a sniper in a government building opened fire on demonstrators in Dushanbe, killing a number of individuals, including a Lenfilm employee filming the events from his hotel. Following the events of February 1990, the government placed pressure on editors to fire dozens of journalists working for local television stations, radio stations and newspapers.
Journalists continued to face official harassment through the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of Tajikistan in 1991. In mid-1992 the Civil War in Tajikistan began, and journalists became targets for killings. During the war, forces of the opposition and the government both massacred civilians from certain regions because of their perceived political alignments. Thousands of Gharmis and Pamiris were selectively killed by pro-government forces for killings in the first year of the war. In December 1992 alone, four journalists of Pamiri origin were killed. There were also instances of journalists who were killed for their criticism of Islamic groups allied with the opposition. By 1995 at least 37 journalists had been killed in Tajikistan.
By the late 1990s, the number of killings of journalists in Tajikistan began to fall. This was not due to greater press freedoms in the republic, but rather to the fact that a large number of journalists had fled the country and journalistic freedom of expression inside of Tajikistan had come to a halt. The non-governmental organization Freedom House rated press freedoms in Tajikistan as "Not Free" beginning in 1992. Other NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Glasnost Defense Foundation, have issued reports condemning the lack of press freedoms in Tajikistan. By 2007 the murder of journalists had ceased, but that year Human Rights Watch criticized the government of Tajikistan for its move to “tighten control over independent media activities” and the fact that journalists critical of the government are “routinely threatened with prosecution.” In nearly every case of the killing of a journalist in Tajikistan, no suspects have been arrested or brought to trial.
Read more about this topic: List Of Journalists Killed In Tajikistan
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