(CJES/IFEX) – On 31 May 2005, Shagen Ogadzhianian, a correspondent for “Noviye Izvestiya” newspaper, was beaten at the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square in Moscow, when an unauthorised demonstration by the “Vanguard of Red Youth” movement was dispersed. The correspondent, together with Irina Gordienko of “Novaya Gazeta” and Aydar Buribaev of “Gazeta”, were observing the start of […]
(CJES/IFEX) – On 31 May 2005, Shagen Ogadzhianian, a correspondent for “Noviye Izvestiya” newspaper, was beaten at the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square in Moscow, when an unauthorised demonstration by the “Vanguard of Red Youth” movement was dispersed.
The correspondent, together with Irina Gordienko of “Novaya Gazeta” and Aydar Buribaev of “Gazeta”, were observing the start of the demonstration. When the demonstration organisers unfurled banners reading, “Putin, It’s Time to Leave!” and began chanting, “Down with Putin!”, several men in plainclothes ran up to them and began to hit the protesters. The journalists believe the assailants were Federal Security Service agents.
When Gordienko tried to speak with the men in plainclothes, they grabbed her. Ogadzhianian and Buribaev came to their colleague’s aid. Then the assailants started to beat Ogadzhianian, despite the fact that he informed him he was a journalist. According to reports in the 1 June issue of “Noviye Izvestiya”, the men in plainclothes took away the correspondents’ press IDs and demanded they switch off their mobile phones. They subsequently forced the journalists into a car and took them to the Kitay-Gorod police department.
At the police department, the journalists met with a security service employee who refused to identify himself. The police told the journalists that they had been beaten by passers-by who disagreed with the protest. The police then released the journalists, informing them that, in future, neither “Novaya Gazeta”, nor “Noviye Izvestiya” would receive accreditation to cover Kremlin or presidential events.
The same day, “Noviye Izvestiya” editors submitted a request for a thorough investigation of the incident to the head of the Russian Federation’s Federal Security Service.
