RUSSIA

SEPTEMBER 3, 2005
Posted September 8, 2005

Bert Sundstrom, SVT television, Sweden
Legal Action

Sundstrom, a correspondent for Swedish public broadcaster SVT in Moscow for the past three years, was forced to leave on September 3 after the government refused to extend his visa.

The authorities gave no reason for their action, according to local and international press reports.

Sundstrom covered the war in Chechnya and the Beslan school hostage crisis of September 2004 but SVT news editor Jan Axelsson said the Russian authorities had never complained about his work, the Moscow Times reported.

Axelsson compared Russia’s treatment of Sundstrom to the Soviet Union’s expulsion in the 1970’s of an SVT correspondent for interviewing Nobel Peace Prize Winner Andrei Sakharov, the newspaper said.