Watchdog

The Committee to Protect Journalists says it will release next week a report on the Ukrainian investigation into last year’s death of Pavel Sheremet, a Belarusian-born Russian journalist.

The New York-based group said it will release its report on July 12, nearly a year after Sheremet was killed by a car bomb in the Ukrainian capital.

No one has been arrested or prosecuted yet.

The CPJ report finds that Ukrainian authorities “offer no clear evidence to back their primary line of investigation of Russian involvement” in the killing, a statement said.

“This, coupled with errors including security footage being destroyed and delays in identifying and interviewing potential witnesses, suggests the need for an independent probe,” it added.

Sheremet was often critical of top political leaders and other government officials in his reporting.

In his last blog post before his assassination, Sheremet wrote that Ukrainian politicians who were former members of volunteer battalions that had fought separatists in Ukraine’s east could carry out a coup in Kyiv.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the bombing.

Opposition activists in Belarus staged an antigovernment protest in Minsk on July 3, a rally that coincided with Independence Day celebrations in the ex-Soviet republic.

Some 150 people took to the streets of the capital to protest against the government of authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and military exercises Belarus is set to hold with Russia in September.

The protest, organized by opposition leader Mikalay Statkevich, concluded without incident, and there were no immediate reports of arrests or detentions.

Belarusian authorities in the past have cracked down on antigovernment rallies, often detaining protest leaders prior to the rallies.

Statkevich ran against Lukashenka in the 2010 election. Lukashenka, in office since 1994, was reelected in the vote that his critics say was rigged.

Statkevich was arrested after a large demonstration protesting the election results. He spent five years in prison.

The Independence Day protest came two days before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's planned annual session in Minsk.