(CJES/IFEX) – Seventy thousand copies of “Vechernyaya Perm” newspaper were seized by law enforcement officials in the town of Berezniki, Perm region on 21 September 2006. At first, the car carrying the papers, which were intended for circulation in Berezniki, was blocked by security guards from the private security firm Sherif. It is not known […]
(CJES/IFEX) – Seventy thousand copies of “Vechernyaya Perm” newspaper were seized by law enforcement officials in the town of Berezniki, Perm region on 21 September 2006.
At first, the car carrying the papers, which were intended for circulation in Berezniki, was blocked by security guards from the private security firm Sherif. It is not known on what grounds they took such action and who authorized this because they did not speak to the driver, nor did they provide him with any documentation. The security guards called the police, who escorted the car with the newspapers to the Berezniki interior affairs department to check the driver’s documents and the cargo. These actions were considered especially unusual since the founder of the newspaper also works for the administration of Perm, a regional centre.
“The ‘Vechernyaya Perm’ newspaper is freely disseminated in Perm and in other cities in the region. Of course, the police did not find any violations in the papers they had seized. At 6:00 p.m. (local time), the head of the city’s interior affairs department returned all the documents to the driver and allowed him to leave the police station,” the paper’s editor-in-chief, Yury Rudnev, told CJES.
However, the conflict did not end there, said Rudnev. The car was not allowed to leave the police station premises since the policemen had not received an appropriate order from their superiors. Rudnev believes that was done on purpose to prevent the paper from reaching its readership in a timely manner. “The police were putting pressure on us in such a way because the paper frequently publishes materials criticizing the Perm Territory’s Governor Oleg Chirkunov,” said Rudnev.
The papers were only released just before midnight, after Vyacheslav Vakhrin, a member of Perm region’s Legislative Assembly, intervened in the situation.
Vakhrin told CJES the territory’s administration had played a role in the seizure of the papers. “Ordinarily, the defense, security and law enforcement agencies use their administrative resources to treat the mass media very badly, especially opposition newspapers,” he said.
Vakhrin also said the law enforcement agencies in the Perm region are involved in politics and that the department for the prevention of organized crime (UBOP) is controlled by Governor Oleg Chirkunov, which helps him fight his opponents.
Vakhrin said what has happened to “Vechernyaya Perm” occurred because the local authorities are practicing how to fight the opposition press.
“Elections to the legislative assembly were scheduled to take place in the Perm region on 3 December. Governor Oleg Chirkunov represents the ruling party, United Russia, and therefore will do everything to prevent the other parties from mounting their campaigns. This was the reason for this pressure on the mass media,” said Vakhrin.
