Chechnya: Door slammed shutBy Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.
This is an abbreviated version of Oleg Panfilov's article published by Nezavisimaya gazeta on November 5, 2002. Prague Watchdog received the author's consent to translate it and publish in English.
The press almost did not report on the government's resolution "About the approval of a list of territories, organizations and buildings for admission to which foreign citizens need a special permission", which was adopted on October 11. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov approved the document in agreement with the Federal Act of the Russian Federation "On the legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation". In this document there is point 6 which states that one may visit a zone where “counter-terrorist operations" are being carried out only with a special permission.
There is only one such zone in Russia at the moment - Chechnya. This means that foreigners wishing to visit this part of the Russian Federation need - besides visa and/or accreditation (for journalists) - to apply for some mysterious special permission. However, in the resolution it is not clearly stated what form the permission must have, who is responsible for issuing it, for how long it can be obtained and what is necessary for obtaining it.
Who are the personae non gratae "in the zone of counter-terrorist operations" to which the document can be applied? First of all, they are journalists. Russian journalists do not queue to get to Chechnya because they are afraid of persecution by the military. Only those very determined ones, such as Anna Politkovskaya, want to speak about Chechnya, about what is carefully hidden by the press centre of the Russian Unified Military Group in the North Caucasus. And those who still work in Chechnya mostly tour the republic accompanied by Russian officers and write their reports far from the "frontline". It was made clear to the Russian journalists long time ago that it is more advantageous to side with the government.
So we have to suppose that they are foreign journalists who represent the biggest danger to the Russian military. Foreign journalists try to penetrate into Chechnya keeping in mind their legal right to work freely and showing no regard towards the office of the Russian Presidential adviser on Chechnya Sergei Yastrzhembski. Foreign journalists know Russian laws and they know how to use them, however, they got lost when the military accuse them of not having a sufficient number of accreditations.
All foreign journalists have been going through a vicious circle of accreditations since October 1999. They were also offered chargeable flights in military helicopters over Chechnya to the accompaniment of Russian officers, and all the time suggested that if they perceive the service as unnecessary, they could loose their accreditation altogether.
Besides, over the past two years the Russian Foreign Ministry has refused visas to twenty foreign journalists. They all worked in Chechnya during the first war and they include, for example, Petra Procházková from the Czech Republic, Atis Klimovics from Latvia, Kristina Szatori from Hungary, Frank Hefling from Germany, Nadya Vankovenberg from France, Carlotta Gall from the USA, Iva Zímová from Canada. Now Russians are taking revenge by not giving them any explanation for the refusal.
Besides, the Russian Foreign Ministry turned down also requests made by human rights activists, among them well-known names - André Glucksman from France, Eckhardt Maas from Germany and buddhist monk Junsei Terasawa. The ministry also refused a visit of Alexander Ginsburg, who recently died in Paris. All of them are interested in the problems of Chechnya, write and tell stories about the war, which Russian officials call only "a zone of counter-terrorist operations".
I think that they are precisely these foreigners for whom the point about the "zone" in point 6 was designed.
Last but not least, the Moscow hostage crisis could become one more reason for hardening the conditions of Journalists' work in Chechnya. The Russian Parliament adopted amendments to the Media Law, which comprise a number of legal nonsenses. Now a journalist cannot publish an article with an analysis of the sources of "Chechen" terrorism because one of the amendments forbids the dissemination of information in the media which "serves the propaganda or justification of extremist activities, including … statements of persons aimed to prevent the conduction of counter-terrorist operations".
Foreign journalists are bound to follow Russian laws, which – like the position of the government - will become severely limiting. If the fighting in Chechnya is a war on terrorism, then any foreigner who does not follow these regulations could become a "henchmen" of terrorists.
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