Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the recent violent attack on Igor Domnikov, a reporter for the twice-weekly paper Novaya Gazeta in Moscow, and by your government’s recent announcement that it plans to interrogate reporters from both Novaya Gazeta and the Moscow daily Kommersant for publishing interviews with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.
New York, May 11, 2000 — Up to forty investigators and police commandos raided the Moscow offices of a media company that has often criticized Kremlin policies, according to local and international news reports. While Russian authorities claim the raid was connected to an investigation of so-called economic crimes, company representatives say they are convinced…
By Ann CooperAs a foreign correspondent covering the Soviet Union a decade ago, I was an eyewitness to a dramatic example of the press’ critical role in building democracy. Granted a bit of freedom by Mikhail Gorbachev’s mid-1980s glasnost policy, long-suppressed Soviet journalists set their own daring agenda: they probed forbidden history, investigated contemporary corruption,…
By Chrystyna Lapychak Wars in Yugoslavia and Chechnya dominated regional and international headlines in 1999. The conflicts raised the journalists’ death toll in the region and prompted crackdowns, as governments blocked access to war zones and engaged in propaganda campaigns.
[Click here for full list of documented cases] At its most fundamental level, the job of a journalist is to bear witness. In 1999, journalists in Sierra Leone witnessed rebels’ atrocities against civilians in the streets of Freetown. In the Balkans, journalists watched ethnic Albanians fleeing the deadly menace of Serbian police and paramilitaries. In…
“We have to protect the state from the media,” said Mikhail Lesin, the head of Russia’s new Ministry for the Press, Radio and Television Broadcasting, and Media Affairs, shortly after taking office in July. Coming in advance of the country’s legislative and presidential elections, it was a stunning statement of Kremlin intent. Lesin’s demonization of…
New York, March 10, 2000 — Artyom Borovik, a legendary figure in Russian journalism, died in an air accident yesterday. He was one of four passengers and five crew members who were killed when their private plane crashed during takeoff from Moscow on a flight bound for the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Officials are looking into…