(RSF/IFEX) – In a 13 December 2001 letter to the Supreme Military Court in session in Vladivostok, RSF condemned the prosecution’s request for a new nine-year prison sentence against journalist Grigory Pasko. “Grigory Pasko has already spent twenty months in prison, solely because he sought to inform. The only purpose of the judicial harassment to […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 13 December 2001 letter to the Supreme Military Court in session in Vladivostok, RSF condemned the prosecution’s request for a new nine-year prison sentence against journalist Grigory Pasko.
“Grigory Pasko has already spent twenty months in prison, solely because he sought to inform. The only purpose of the judicial harassment to which he is being subjected is to intimidate the Russian press and stop it from reporting on the most important and sensitive topics,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. “We demand that the proceedings against Grigory Pasko be definitively abandoned and that he be rehabilitated,” added Ménard.
According to information gathered by RSF, on 13 December, the Vladivostok Military Court’s prosecutor demanded that Pasko be sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment in a high security jail and that his title of second rank captain and awards for military service be stripped. A journalist for the navy daily “Boevaya Vakhta”, Pasko was jailed on 20 November 1997 and detained for almost twenty months. The journalist was accused by the FSB (former KGB) of “having collected state secrets with the intention of transmitting them to foreign organisations”. Then correspondent for “Boevaya Vakhta” aboard the Russian oil tanker TNT 27, Pasko had filmed scenes of liquid radioactive waste being poured into the Sea of Japan. These images, which were broadcast by the Japanese television channel NHK without the journalist’s consent, caused an outcry in Japan. Pasko also wrote articles about the pollution caused by the Russian army’s neglected nuclear submarines and the FSB’s involvement in the trafficking of nuclear waste.
On 14 October 1999, Pasko’s in camera trial opened before the Vladivostok Military Court. His attorneys were not allowed to inform the press. They were warned that they would be removed from the case otherwise. Pasko was released after serving two-thirds of his three-month prison sentence, owing to an amnesty law. Both parties appealed the first ruling and the case was brought before the Moscow Supreme Court. On 21 November 2000, the court announced its decision to return Pasko before the Vladivostok Military Court. His new trial, during which the FSB is likely to attempt to obtain another sentence against the journalist, has already been postponed three times.
RSF believes that the information that Pasko disclosed in 1997 was common knowledge and could not constitute “state secrets”. Article 47 of the Russian media law stipulates that “any journalist has the right to search, ask, receive and circulate information”. Furthermore, according to Articles 41 and 42 of the Russian constitution, it is a punishable crime to withhold information about the environment or catastrophes that are likely to endanger human lives.
