(GDF/IFEX) – The following is a 27 October 1999 GDF press release: Moscow, October 27, 1999 Journalists covering the Chechen events harassed 1. On October 25, in the territory of Ingushetia near the administrative border with Chechnya, a Russian officer who had not introduced himself deprived Oleg Kusov, a correspondent with Radio Liberty, of his […]
(GDF/IFEX) – The following is a 27 October 1999 GDF press release:
Moscow, October 27, 1999
Journalists covering the Chechen events harassed
1. On October 25, in the territory of Ingushetia near the administrative
border with Chechnya, a Russian officer who had not introduced himself
deprived Oleg Kusov, a correspondent with Radio Liberty, of his dictaphone.
After the journalist demanded explanations from the officer, one of the
soldiers accompanying their superior hit the reporter with the butt of an
automatic rifle.
2. On October 26, Petra Prokhazkova, a correspondent with the Czech agency
Epicentrum, was invited to the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation,
where Alexei Ritchenko, chief of the department controlling the activities
of foreign media outlets, told her that her further accreditation with the
Foreign Ministry became problematic after the newspaper Ludove Noviny had
published interviews with the Chechen separatists Shamil Basayev and
Khattab. In addition, A. Ritchenko cited a letter of the Russian ambassador
to Slovakia telling of the “anti-Russian mood” allegedly provoked by P.
Prokhazkova’s reports from Chechnya. Finally, the journalist was advised to
prepare a report with one of the chiefs of press centers established
recently under alignments of the Federal forces in the Northern Caucasus.
