New York, June 23, 2003—The Russian Media Ministry issued a decree on Saturday, June 21, pulling the independent national television channel TVS off the air at midnight, replacing it with Sport TV, a state-run sports channel. TVS, the only channel in Russia that has remained highly critical of the Kremlin, was paralyzed for months due…
New York, June 20, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disappointed that the lower house of Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, passed a series of legal amendments on Wednesday, June 18, that would severely restrict the media’s ability to report on the December 2003 parliamentary elections and the February 2004 presidential elections. The bill,…
Dear Mr. Chairman: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, is very concerned about a bill, titled “On Amendments and Addendums Brought into Certain Legislative Acts,” currently under consideration in the Russian Parliament. The bill, which is scheduled for a second–and possibly final–reading in the lower house of the Duma on June 11, seeks to strengthen state regulation over independent media outlets, particularly their coverage of election campaigns.
New York, May 28, 2003—The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court yesterday overturned the June 2002 acquittal of six men accused of organizing the 1994 murder of Dmitry Kholodov, a popular journalist for the Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. The Supreme Court ruled that the Moscow Circuit Military Court had “failed to take all available evidence…
New York, May 19, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns today’s violent attack against Aleksandr Stetsun, a journalist with Ural Television Agency (TAU), an independent station in the city of Ekaterinburg, 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of the capital, Moscow, in the Ural Mountains. The attack occurred this morning while Stetsun was standing outside…
New York, May 7, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s police raid on the popular opposition radio station Krasnaya Armiya in the city of Noyabrsk, in Russia’s central Ural Region. The station was attacked after the City Election Committee annulled the results of Sunday, May 4, mayoral elections in four electoral districts, giving…
New York, May 5, 2003—CPJ mourns the death of four journalists killed on Saturday, May 3, when a large firefighting helicopter they were traveling in crashed in the Chita Region, some 3,000 miles east of the capital, Moscow, according to local and international press reports. Seven crewmen and a forest management official also died.
New York, May 1, 2003—Russian government officials have been pressing Estonian authorities to shut down the pro-independence Chechen Web site KavkazCenter (www.kavkazcenter.com) for more than a week, according to local and international press reports. Sergei Yastrezhembsky, an advisor to President Vladimir Putin, warned last week that, “Countries which aspire to partnership and mutually advantageous relations…
New York, April 18, 2003—Russian journalist Dmitry Shvets, head of the independent television station TV-21 Northwestern Broadcasting in the northern Russian city of Murmansk, was shot dead today outside of the station’s offices. The motive is unclear. Police have launched an investigation, but no details were available. CPJ will continue to monitor the case.
Anti-Terrorist Convention Source: Interfax news agency For purposes of supplying society with authentic information, the mass media have the right and duty of contributing to the open discussion of the problem of terrorism, informing society on the progress of counter-terrorist operations, carrying out investigations, and providing people with information on real problems and conflicts.