(RSF/IFEX) – On 22 November 2002, RSF protested two attempts by the Russian authorities to censor foreign media coverage of the fighting in Chechnya and Russian “anti-terrorist operations.” “In the space of just a few weeks, Russia has sunk into outright censorship,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin. […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 22 November 2002, RSF protested two attempts by the Russian authorities to censor foreign media coverage of the fighting in Chechnya and Russian “anti-terrorist operations.”
“In the space of just a few weeks, Russia has sunk into outright censorship,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The Parliament adopted an anti-terrorist law that allows for the prosecution of any journalist who reports on the Chechnyan situation, several media have been penalised for their coverage of the recent Moscow theatre hostage-taking, and now the authorities are criticising and censoring the foreign media for reporting on Chechnya. We ask that you veto the amendments to the anti-terrorist law and put an end to the pressure being exerted on Russian and foreign media for their Chechnya coverage,” Ménard added.
At an airport in Ingushetia on 20 November, Russian security agents seized four cassettes of footage about Chechen refugees from Hans-Wilhelm Steinfeld, Moscow correspondent for the Norwegian public television station NRK. The film was later returned to him, but two of the cassettes had been partly erased.
In another incident, on 13 November, Russian embassy officials in Germany wrote to Fritz Pleitgen, head of the German public television station ARD, complaining about German media coverage of the Moscow hostage-taking, especially by ARD. Embassy officials described ARD’s reporting as “shocking, totally unacceptable and disgraceful for a public institution.”
“The biased editing” and “choice of disgusting words” in the reports raised doubts about Moscow’s determination to reach a political solution to the conflict, the officials said, suggesting that the Russian authorities might not cooperate with ARD in the future.
On 13 November, the Russian Parliament (Duma) passed an amendment to the anti-terrorist law on third reading (see IFEX alerts of 14 and 4 November and 28 October 2002). The law sharply curbs press freedom by banning the media from circulating news that “hinders anti-terrorist operations” or “constitutes propaganda against an operation or an attempt to justify such opposition”. The vague terms of the amendment give the government power to prosecute any journalist or media outlet reporting on terrorism or the war in Chechnya.
