(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter addressed to the President of the Republic, Vladimir Putin, RSF protested the search carried out by police officers from the tax squad at the head office of the opposition Media-Most press group. “This is another act of intimidation against the opposition media, in an attempt led by the authorities to […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter addressed to the President of the Republic, Vladimir Putin, RSF protested the search carried out by police officers from the tax squad at the head office of the opposition Media-Most press group. “This is another act of intimidation against the opposition media, in an attempt led by the authorities to suffocate anti-establishment voices,” declared Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. RSF asked
President Putin to see to it that such searches do not happen again and to respect the commitments taken by Russia within the Council of Europe with respect to press freedom.
According to information obtained by RSF, on 11 May 2000 armed men searched the head office of the Media-Most press group in Moscow, as well as the offices of two companies, NTV Internet and Memonet, belonging to the same group. The authorities cited a pre-trial investigation which is currently underway concerning the activities of Media-Most’s security services.
Vladimir Gussinski, owner of the group, had called on people to vote for the reformer Grigori Yavlinski, an opponent of Putin in last March’s presidential election. The NTV television station and the Echoes of Moscow radio station, belonging to the group, have denounced corruption in the country many times and have put forward a different perspective on the conflict in Chechnya, notably by broadcasting testimonies of victims. NTV is also the only television station to broadcast a satirical show, “Kukli.” Furthermore, the daily “Sevodnia”, also owned by Media-Most, recently published a series of articles about the political rise of certain agents of the Federal Security Service
(FSB, ex-KGB).
NTV and Echoes of Moscow radio are regularly subject to pressure from the Russian authorities. Those in charge of NTV fear not obtaining the renewal of their licence which expires in a few months. In November 1999, the bank accounts of Media-Most were blocked by the courts in an affair involving credits that were not repaid. In March 2000, Putin, in response to a journalist from the daily “Kommersant” who was questioning him about press freedom in Russia, responded, “You and I do not give the same meaning to this term.”
