The following is a 29 February 2000 CPJ press release: CPJ is pleased to announce the Web publication of “Babitsky’s ‘Crime’ and Punishment,” an exclusive analysis of the Andrei Babitsky case by Robert Coalson, a Russian-media expert based in St. Petersburg. Coalson argues that the Putin government’s shameful treatment of Babitsky, who was freed in […]
The following is a 29 February 2000 CPJ press release:
CPJ is pleased to announce the Web publication of “Babitsky’s ‘Crime’ and Punishment,” an exclusive analysis of the Andrei Babitsky case by Robert Coalson, a Russian-media expert based in St. Petersburg. Coalson argues that the Putin government’s shameful treatment of Babitsky, who was freed in Moscow on February 29 after several mysterious weeks of captivity in Chechnya, is part of a worrying authoritarian trend in Russian politics.
EXCERPT:
“The Babitsky case demonstrates that Putin’s “dictatorship of law” is really a dictatorship of the executive branch. By detaining Babitsky without charging him with any crime, the security forces usurped the prerogatives of the legislative and judicial branches, continuing the dangerous pattern of executive-branch domination that characterized the administration of Boris Yeltsin. It is indicative of the under-developed state of democracy in Russia that the parliament has refused to hold hearings on the Babitsky case or any other aspect of the government’s information policy on Chechnya, although some individual deputies have expressed concern about the matter. Likewise, non-binding court decisions concerning the administration’s information policy in Chechnya have either been stonewalled or else simply ignored.”
You can read the full text of the article on CPJ’s Web site (www.cpj.org)
