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Harassed
February 12
NTV, HARASSED, CENSORED
Executives of NTV, Russia's only independent television news network, received a call from the presidential press service saying that NTV correspondents henceforth would not be allowed to cover events at the Kremlin. The call came after NTV's Feb. 11 broadcast of the second of two interviews with President Boris Yelstin's former press secretary Vyacheslav Kostikov, in which Kostikov spoke very critically of Yeltsin. CPJ urged President Yeltsin to lift the ban immediately. After much publicity, Yeltsin's press secretary Sergei Medvedov denied banning the station from covering events and allowed NTV correspondents access to Kremlin events the following day.
June 23
Valery Yerofeyev, Vremya-Iks, HARASSED, LEGAL ACTION
Yerofeyev, a former editor in chief of the Samara city newspaper Vremya-Iks, went on trial in Samara. He was charged with "pandering," or procuring the services of prostitutes, and with "producing pornography" under Article 226 of the Russian Penal Code. Yerofeyev had been in prison since Sept. 25, 1995, when he was arrested on vacation in the Ukrainian city of Simferopol. On July 29, 1996, a Samara judge released Yerofeyev after sentencing him to 10 months in prison, the same amount of time he had already served in pretrial detention. The case began in the spring of 1995, when Yerofeyev published a series called "People on Sidewalks" in Vremya-Iks. The series claimed that high-ranking police officers were accepting bribes from owners of so-called massage parlors, allegedly fronts for brothels. Yerofeyev was first arrested on June 7, 1995, and detained for three days on suspicion of "procuring a prostitute." He was beaten while in police custody and warned by police officers to discontinue the series of articles. He proceeded with the series, however, and in September 1995, a special Samara police squad was sent to Simferopol to extradite him. His attorney and the Samara chapter of the Journalists' Union filed petitions with the prosecutor's office to have Yerofeyev released on bail, but those petitions were denied. In June 1996, and again in July, CPJ wrote to local and federal officials in Russia, including President Boris Yeltsin, urging them to release Yerofeyev and calling for an investigation of his prosecution and the conduct of police officers involved in the case. The Interior Ministry told CPJ it was looking into the matter.
July 9
Yulia Kalinina, Moskovsky Komsomolets, THREATENED, HARASSED, LEGAL ACTION
Kalinina, a reporter for the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, received a summons to the Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes regarding allegations that she had libeled officials in the Ministry of Construction. The charges stem from a free-lance article Kalinina had written for the Russian weekly Itogi, alleging that state construction officials had accepted bribes to rebuild homes in Chechnya. The Judicial Chamber found her allegations to be unsupported and sent her case to the prosecutor's office, recommending that she be investigated. Kalinina has stood by her story and refused to reveal her sources. Kalinina has received anonymous, threatening letters and phone calls since she began covering the war in Chechnya and corruption in the Russian military. In the letters and phone calls Kalinina has been accused of supporting the Chechen rebels, and has been threatened with rape and other violent assaults. After Kalinina published a free-lance story on military corruption in the Russian weekly Obshchaya Gazeta, on May 13, the calls and letters became more frequent. Kalinina's apartment was broken into and searched on May 24. She went into hiding for two weeks after the break-in.
August 6
Abrek Baikov, Russian State Television (RTR), HARASSED
Yaroslav Malishev, RTR, HARASSED
Vladimir Seltsov, RTR, HARASSED
Andrei Klimov, ITAR-TASS, HARASSED
Andrei Khemelyanin, ITAR-TASS, HARASSED
Sergei Trofimov, ITAR-TASS, HARASSED
Mikhail Sotnikov, Russian Public Television (ORT), HARASSED
Konstantin Tochilin, ORT, HARASSED
Oleg Nikifirov, ORT, HARASSED
Vladimir Trushkovsky, Radio Rossiya, HARASSED
Anatoly Shushevich, Radio Rossiya, HARASSED
Vasily Dyachkov, RIA-Novosti, HARASSED
Correspondent Baikov, cameraman Malishev, and sound engineer Seltsov of RTR; Klimov, Khemelyanin, and Trofimov, correspondents for the Russian government news agency ITAR-TASS; correspondents Sotnikov, Tochilin, and Nikifirov of ORT; correspondent Trushkovsky and sound engineer Shushevich of Radio Rossiya; and Dyachkov of RIA-Novosti were trapped in a hostel inside a government compound in the center of Grozny. The journalists, along with civilians, had taken refuge in the hostel when the compound, which includes the Chechen Interior Ministry, was surrounded by Chechen rebels fighting Russian federal troops. They were trapped for six days. ITAR-TASS on Aug. 9 quoted a Russian official as saying that the journalists had been freed, and Interfax later reported the same news. But the journalists themselves, sending messages by satellite telephone, contradicted those reports. On Aug. 10, CPJ sent an alert urging both Russian and Chechen forces to ensure the journalists' safe release. The group was freed by Russian forces the night of Aug. 11 and was taken to the airport at Khankala, in Chechnya, then flown to Moscow. CPJ confirmed with Radio Rossiya on Aug. 13 that the reporters were unharmed.
For more information contact europeweb@cpj.org