The OSCE representative on media freedom has called for the release of Uzbek journalist and human rights activist Umida Niyazova, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reported.

Activists with the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have given a bleak assessment of the state of the media in most of the former Soviet Union. But they added there are reasons for optimism.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says 55 journalists were killed last year in direct connection with their work. This finding is highlighted in the group's just-released annual report, called Attacks on the Press in 2006.

The Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) says Russian President Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez represent a new model of government control of the press.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says 2006 was the deadliest year for journalists in more than decade. The death toll was the highest since 1994, a year of conflicts in Rwanda, Algeria, and the former Yugoslavia.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has voiced concern over the imprisonment of two journalists in Azerbaijan this week.

Turkish prosecutors say the teenager suspected of murdering Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has confessed. Ogun Samast was arrested after he was identified by his father from CCTV images taken near the scene of Friday's killing in Istanbul.

The Turkish-Armenian writer and journalist Hrant Dink has been shot dead in Istanbul, Turkey, reports the BBC referring to Turkish media.

Dink, the high-profile editor of newspaper Agos, was shot three times outside its offices in Istanbul.