overview of Central Europe and the Republics of the
Former Soviet Unionby Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Six years after the failed coup in the former Soviet Union, and eight years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution, these historic events no longer serve as benchmarks by which to measure press freedom in the region that encompasses the republics of the former Soviet Union, the Baltic states, the Balkans, and Central and Eastern Europe. Significant privatization of the media throughout the region and the appearance of an independent and increasingly professional press even in the harshest climates mean that comparisons with the communist past are misleading.
While many of the region's societies have become freer, and some have even shrugged off repressive communist rulers they returned to power in post-revolutionary democratic elections, the problems of the defense of journalists and the protection and expansion of the media's freedoms remain paramount. Because the press has become so much stronger, it has attracted more enemies, and violence has become a method of persuasion.
While virtually every post-communist country heavily regulates the media with press laws, a growing number have foregone exclusive state ownership of electronic media, and the use of prior censorship or anti-state laws to punish dissident writings. Brutal and long-term shut-downs of independent news outlets to maintain authoritarian control are still common in the Russian Federation, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, but less so in Central and Eastern Europe.
Government officials in the region and media scholars abroad generally feel that conditions are freer than they have ever been, with some important exceptions, such as Belarus, or Turkmenistan. But the effects of this growing press freedom on working journalists' safety are often paradoxical. Yes, conditions are far freer. The rule of law is better rooted than in the Soviet era; privatization of the media has meant less dependence on government; and many more emboldened and better-trained journalists in their twenties, who were teenagers during the revolutions, have appeared. Yet, a journalist's work has become more dangerous than it has been in decades. The threat of physical harm is considered part of the job description in many areas. The region's treacherous conflict zones, the explosion of mafia-style organizations, the unraveling of the old security and intelligence apparatuses, and the disintegration and corruption of the military-industrial complexes have all contributed to making journalism a most hazardous profession (see "Russia's Harsh Press Climate," ).
The stakes are higher when the monolithic communist bureaucracies are no longer the known enemy and threats come from their rogue remnants as well as many other quarters. Killings, beatings, anonymous threats, and bankrupting libel lawsuits are unanticipated consequences of more freedom. The greater the free flow of information, the harder it is to stop it, and those who would try to suppress the news must either resort to brute violence or to increasingly devious and subtle methods (arcane tax inspections, well-timed electricity outages, induced paper shortages, sudden broadcast frequency auctions). These gambits require more painstaking monitoring and intervention from the international community; the press freedom battle has moved to a higher, more sophisticated plane.
Of the 10 killings of journalists in the region last year, nine are unsolved assassinations (in Russia, Ukraine, and Tajikistan), by and large following the pattern of the previous two years (11 in 1995 and 14 in 1994) in which organized crime or paramilitary figures are suspected in the deaths but only one case has come to trial. (The Moscow-based Glasnost Defense Foundation, the region's most reputable press freedom organization, reports 74 journalists killed in the former Soviet Union since 1993. CPJ's total is 56 because it does not include military journalists, nonjournalist media workers, and victims of crimes apparently unrelated to journalism, although some of the unsolved murders occur along the shifting borders between commerce and journalism in the newly privatized media.)
In past years, as the Balkan and Chechen wars and other conflicts raged, the number of reporters killed in crossfire was far greater. Last year brought a still fragile cease-fire to Chechnya, and an uneasy peace reigned in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but restriction of movement and hazardous working conditions persist in these heavily guarded zones. Four journalists were declared missing in Chechnya in 1996, bringing to 10 the total of those who have disappeared in the secessionist republic from December 1994 through January 1997.
Many reporters suffered serious injuries this year in police assaults, particularly in Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Russia, and the republic of Serbia in Yugoslavia-the result of covering mass public rallies where demonstrators were attacked by baton-wielding riot squads. Not all of these beatings resulted from indiscriminately violent crowd control: Security forces often deliberately targeted journalists, sometimes after a rally, or far from the action, with accompanying confiscation of film or destruction of equipment.
Currently, not a single journalist in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe is in prison for his or her work. Reporters were held for only short periods, or, as in Russia and Kazakhstan, served some months in pretrial detention but were released after international campaigns in which CPJ played a prominent part. If there are a few journalists left imprisoned in the region, it is due to political activism or local statutes criminalizing "incitement to ethnic hatred," especially anti-Semitic or virulent nationalist expression. Such laws make CPJ uneasy, because they are all too readily used against journalists to punish the legitimate practice of their profession-such is the case of radical magazine commentator Valeriya Novodvorskaya of Moscow, still caught up in a judicial prosecution for calling Russians "lazy" on Estonian television. In the Gorbachev era, prosecutors failed to pin charges on her of insulting the president.
Even when democratically elected, presidents-who in some ways wield more power than the previous era's communist general secretaries-are among the greatest threats to press freedom in the region. The rulers of Russia and the regions Bashkortistan and Tatarstan in Russia, as well as the leaders of Belarus Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Serbia, all became personally involved in either verbal or legal threats to noncompliant media, situations in which CPJ intervened. The presidents shamelessly hogged the airwaves, particularly at election time, firing controversial editors in electronic broadcasting and closing critical independent stations and other news outlets through a variety of means. Many presidents enjoy their "own" television stations, with those of Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus or Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia or Saparmurad Niyazov in Turkmenistan at the extreme end of the spectrum of obsessive coverage of the Great Leader's every move and utterance, blackouts on the opposition's activities, and enormous pressure exerted on alternative broadcasters.
While the independent broadcasters faced formidable obstacles, some relatives of people in high places got their own television or radio stations, including the Kazakhstani president's daughter, Daraga Nazarbayeva, and the accused Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic's daughter, who runs an international press center and a Serbian Orthodox radio station in Pale. Other family members, cronies from various ministries, and communications officials have managed to parlay their proximity to power into actual possession of the means of communication. "We have a private radio station," a journalist from a former Soviet republic told CPJ. "It belongs to [a certain minister] who made his own personal investment in the station." A network of such television and radio stations controlled personally by presidents, ministers, and governors could stretch from the Adriatic Sea to the Bering Sea with few interruptions.
"Insult" laws (seditious or anti-government libel), usually deployed when presidents take umbrage, caused some of the region's worst legal threats to journalists, as when Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman threatened an editor and correspondent from Feral Tribune with prison for satirizing him; when two reporters from Romania's Zuia received prison sentences for making scandalous claims about then-President Ion Iliescu; or when the entire Slovak Cabinet of Ministers slapped the independent daily Sme with a comical but crippling lawsuit demanding a graduated table of fines, depending on the cabinet members' rank, for their "pain and suffering" caused by a reporter's critical comment.
Despite such obstacles by censorious rulers, 1996 was the year the Internet began to revolutionize the flow of information in Eastern Europe. A journalist in New York could talk to colleagues through Sarajevo On Line, run by the radio station Studio 99 and the news agency Oslobodjenje, or through other sites; monitor the Balkans; and swiftly discover what aired on the ruling parties' television stations in the ethnic enclaves of Bosnia. A reporter researching a story could tap into a search engine the names involved in Russia's "Kremlingate" scandals, and a dozen well-written articles by investigative journalists would spring up-in English or Russian-from many Web sites established by publishers of newspapers or news agencies in Russia. CPJ's and other supporters' Web pages helped defendants such as the Russian scientist Alexei Nikitin or the journalists from Croatia's Feral Tribune involved in precedent-setting cases of free speech and freedom of information obtain their release.
When Yugoslavia was swept up in mass rallies protesting annulment of democratic elections, Belgrade's brave Radio B92 provided a vital news link defying government blackouts. Although President Milosevic shut down the independent station for a few days, B92 stayed on the air in RealAudio, a sound program on the Internet, publishing daily press releases on its Web site. B92's icon, an umbrella under the falling snow, was linked to other Internet sites around the world. It reminded viewers of a B92 reporter covering the demonstrations with wet shoes, a crumpled notebook, and an umbrella raised against the freezing elements, who became the symbol of the hardiness of Eastern European journalism.
Despite President Lukashenka's gagging of the media on the eve of a controversial referendum, journalists in Belarus kept a steady flow of pictures of beaten demonstrators and alternative information on several Web sites, but fared less well than B92 when unidentified hackers destroyed one site. Still, Webmeisters can circumvent the governments' nefarious use of the new technologies with mirrored pages on other servers abroad, re-posting of information to Internet discussion groups, and regular e-mail. In some cases this year, CPJ received its first tips about troublesome situations via e-mail, and responded with e-mail protest letters to governments or official news agencies.
Internet traffic mainly flows between these countries and the outside world. Within nations undergoing painful economic transformation, most people are increasingly unable to afford newspapers, let alone Internet access, and rely on state-dominated television to get their news. Foreign broadcasting, sponsored by the U. S. and Western European governments, continues to provide a valuable supplement for news-starved populations. The American-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Russian public and private television are still vital to the free media mix in the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe, although RFE/RL correspondents continue to suffer attacks, and Russian television has been reduced or discontinued in some states. The battle for possession of broadcasting frequencies is likely to pose the greatest risk to media freedom in the coming years.
Journalists' self-defense societies or associations of correspondents
are beginning to emerge, but are still weak, and the structures
based on the communist-era journalists' unions are often dormant,
corrupt, or actively hostile to press freedom in some areas. Nevertheless,
very encouraging signs of an increasing willingness and ability
to advocate press freedom issues from an independent perspective
can be seen in the work of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, Globus
Press Syndicate, and the St. Petersburg League of Journalists
in Russia; the Association of Independent Journalists in Croatia;
the Free Press Association in Georgia; the Young Generation journalists'
group in Azerbaijan; the Association of Professional Journalists
of Albania; many other local committees with which CPJ cooperates;
and the Western organizations Internews and Open Media Research
Institute. We are grateful to all of them for information used
in this report.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, the program coordinator for Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, has worked as a consultant to non-governmental organizations and foundations on civil society programs and for nine years directed research in the former Soviet Union department of Helsinki Watch. She is fluent in Russian and has published a dozen translations of the works of prominent Russian political figures and journalists as well as articles on politics, human rights, and the media in the region.
Amanda Onion, former CPJ research associate for Central and Eastern Europe, provided extensive assistance for this section and prepared many of the country summaries for Eastern Europe. Fluent in Russian, she has worked as a free-lance journalist in Moscow and New York.
CPJ's work in Central Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union in 1996 was funded in part by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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