Violations of journalists' rights in Chechnya - October 2002Monitoring of violations of rights of journalists, the press and conflicts connected with media coverage of the events in the territory of the Chechen Republic in October 2002 Compiled by the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. Translated by Prague Watchdog.
October
In October the interregional civil organisation Society of the Russian-Chechen Friendship released a report “Human Rights in the Regions of the Russian Federation”, covering the events of the year 2001. In the section dedicated to Chechnya it states that the flow of independent information from Chechnya is seriously hindered. In contrast to the first war (1994-96), the federal side devoted unprecedented effort to enforce an information blockade in the zones of military operations and so-called “liberated” territories. In order to be able to officially work in the Chechen Republic journalists must obtain special accreditation through a very difficult procedure. Journalists whose positions differ from those of the federal command may be turned down. October 2 – November 4 Referring to Russian official sources, The Guardian reported that the footage taken by British journalist Roderick Scott shortly before his death provides evidence that Chechen rebels utilise Georgian territory for launching attacks against Russia. In particular, his recordings include a group of Chechen fighters moving from the territory of Georgia to Ingushetia. According to The Guardian, the Chechen rebel group with which Scott ended up in the territory of Ingushetia clashed with Russian servicemen. His tape presents the most significant proof that might precipitate a military conflict between Russia and Georgia. The head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Russian Duma Dmitriy Rogozin stated: “The film footage proves that fighters can move freely on the Georgian territory.” On November 2 the Russian Prosecutor General’s North Caucasus Office announced that the burial of Roderick John Scott, who was killed in the village of Galashki, would take place at the cemetery of the Ingush settlement Ordzhonikidzevskaya. According to the Office, the journalist would be buried in the territory of Russia because the relatives of the deceased refused to take over his corpse. Moreover, they refused not only to come to identify the deceased but also to attend the funeral. On November 4 the funeral of the British television journalist was cancelled at the last moment when his friends and colleagues had already arrived to attend it in Ordzhonikidzevskaya. The administration of Ingushetia refused to bury the journalist, claiming he was one of the terrorists. October 3 Based on an initiative of the Kamchatka region administration, the editors of leading Kamchatka newspapers will start sending copies of their latest issues to units on military assignment in Chechnya. Each week fifteen copies of the latest issues of “Vesti”, “Novaya kamchatskaya pravda”, “Rybak Kamchatki”, “Kamchatskoye vremya”, “AiF-Kamchatka”, “Komsomolskaya pravda na Kamchatke”, “Edinomyshlennik” and “Aborigen Kamchatki” will be transported straight from the printing company as a special shippment to Grozny. October 7 The first issue of the Chechen teachers’ journal “Pedagogicheskiy vestnik” was released in Chechnya. The journal is published by the Chechen Institute for Qualification Development of Employees in Education, whose head Adam Dalatov said that the journal would publish methodological analyses and reports on pedagogical skills of employees in education in Chechnya. October 18 In one of the halls of the Tokyo artists’ theatre complex, the Japanese branch of Amnesty International organized a public outreach action under the heading “Learning the truth about the Chechen crisis: An evening of lectures and slides”. One of the speakers was Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka, who visited Chechnya repeatedly and was held several months hostage in the Pankisi gorge of Georgia. He showed slides he had taken before the beginning of the second Chechen campaign as well as slides from villages in the Pankisi gorge in Georgia in 2000 and the second half of 2001. Tsuneoka presented rare pictures documenting the operation of Ruslan Gelayev’s unit in Abkhazia. October 21 The President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze refuted reports in certain media about his possible meeting with Aslan Maskhadov. He called such published news “fabrications”. October 23 – 31 On October 23 a terrorist act was carried out in Moscow at the Dubrovka Theatre Centre, when field commander Movsar Barayev’s group took hostage the spectators of the musical “Nord-Ost”. Olga Chernyak, reporter of the Interfax news agency who was among the hostages, was the first to report the terrorist act to the outside world using her mobile phone. Correspondents of the “Moskovskaya pravda” newspaper who were also among the hostages reported that snipers of the federal forces were firing at the windows and that there were many dead and wounded among the hostages. However, these reports were neither confirmed nor refuted by official sources. The hostages included also employees of the television company NTV. Starting from the first day the media worked in a situation of information shortage. The newspaper “Vechernyaya Moskva” reported on the information embargo regarding the unfolding events from the side of official authorities. The official newspaper “Rossiyskaya gazeta” remarked that all information flow was controlled by the press services of so called power ministries. The Russian Ministry of Press, Broadcasting and Mass Media demonstrated maximum activity during the days of the terrorist act and after the rescue of hostages. Right on the first day the Ministry informed all Russian mass media about the obligation to follow legislation on the fight against terrorism and extremist activities while commenting on the events. The Ministry announced that publishers of all mass media must meticulously avoid disseminating any information that might disclose any special technical approaches or tactics of the counter-terrorist operation. To this effect the Ministry announced it is ready to revoke the license of any mass medium that might provide the terrorists with access to the airwaves. In particular, the television company NTV was forbidden to broadcast an interview with Movsar Barayev. The footage was aired only with the video image of the terrorist without broadcasting his words. At the same time the Ministry announced it was impermissible for the radio station “Ekho Moskvy” to provide airtime to terrorist group members. The first sanctions against this radio station soon followed. In the evening on October 24 one of the terrorists had the opportunity to speak about his demands for nearly half an hour of airtime. The other participants to the discussion, Matvey Ganapolskiy, Sergey Buntman, and Sergey Markov, explained to the listeners during the interview that it was not their aim to promote the opinions of the hostage-takers; they were merely trying to help save the lives of children within the building. The transcript of the discussion was posted on the “Ekho Moskvy” website. This led to the sanctions from the side of the Ministry of Press, which sent a motion to the Ministry of Telecommunications to shut down the website. Shortly afterwards the transcript of the discussion was removed from the radio station’s online version and the Ministry lifted its ban. The Ministry of Press also accused the state-run radio station “Mayak” of violating anti-terrorist regulations. Sanctions were imposed also on another state-run mass medium – the “Rossiyskaya gazeta” newspaper. The Ministry found it unethical to publish a photograph of the body of a woman hostage-taker on the title page of an issue. The most resolute action the Ministry of Press took was to suspend the broadcast of the “Moskoviya” television channel. The ground for this measure was the airing of a recording from the “Al-Jazeera” television station with a statement by the terrorists who took the hostages. However, according to the Ministry of Press this was not Moskoviya’s only transgression. These possibly included also the statement by the chief executive officer of the “INTER-Kavkaz” agency Sharip Asuyev in the “Region” programme, and the spots in the same programme on nationalists who described their plans of revenge on the terrorists. Broadcasts of the channel also included statements such as that “for Muscovites all people from the Caucasus are the same”, that they “see no difference between Barayev’s terrorists and the vendors at the market”. The Ministry of Press evaluated as an aid to terrorists the demonstration of potential escape routes and plans of Moscow’s auxiliary airports in the “Region” programme, as well as the de facto advertisement of the terrorists’ information website. During the hostage-keeping period the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennadiy Zyuganov called upon the media “not to create a hysteria” around the hostage situation. He reminded that “we live in a country with many nationalities and in such a situation every word has to be weighed”. Deputy of the Russian State Duma Valeriy Zubov accused the media of serving the terrorists in a peculiar way. In his words, mass media have a certain weakness – for hot news, for the purposes of information they often end up contradicting their own national interests. Special service veterans addressed journalists in a statement imploring them not to provide airtime and newspaper pages to dubious experts and not to report unverified information. Representatives of the Council of Veterans of the Anti-terrorist Division “Alfa” called on the media to be very accurate while covering the events in Moscow. Member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Aleksey Mitrofanov addressed the Duma deputies with a suggestion to request the government to forbid journalists access to the hostage-keeping site. However, the Duma did not support this initiative. During these days several journalists were trapped within the building of the theatre centre. Right after capturing the hostages the terrorists announced their readiness to lead talks with “Novaya gazeta” journalist Anna Politkovskaya. She returned from the USA and together with doctor Leonid Roshal started talks with the terrorists. Politkovskaya also brought water and juice with her for the hostages in the theatre. NTV channel reporter Sergey Dedukh recorded interviews with the terrorists and six women hostages in the theatre centre. NTV reporter Boris Koltsov was also present in the building where the musical had been staged. As soon as the hostages were rescued a number of assessments of the conduct of the press started to appear. Press Minister Mikhail Lesin stated that the terrorists managed to utilise certain media for their propaganda purposes. In his opinion the terrorists had planned how to work with the press. Veteran of the special division “Vympel” Viktor Kim claimed that the press initially made the mistake of commenting on the movements of special forces, though it started acting better subsequently. The former ambassador to Israel Aleksandr Bovin believed that the press fuelled the tension, thus helping to realise the terrorists’ objectives. The well-known conflict expert Oleg Nechiporenko noted that the press incited hysteria among the public the day after the hostage-taking. He also claimed that the press disseminated information which might have been useful for the terrorists. Deputy director of the Office of the Government of the Russian Federation Aleksey Volin announced that certain media attempted to devise possible schemes for carrying out a hostage rescue operation. These events brought forth a public discussion on self-regulation of the press. Advisor to the Russian president Sergey Yastrzhembskiy expressed his conviction that it is necessary to develop “unwritten rules of conduct” for mass media in emergency situations. He claimed certain mass media violated a number of laws while covering the terrorist act in Moscow, including the law on terrorism. He called the live transmission of movements of special armed forces an “open violation of valid Russian legislation”. Yastrzhembskiy attributed everything else to moral and ethical standards of journalists’ conduct. Yastrzhembskiy did not rule out the possibility of federal authority representatives’ and special services’ involvement in developing the “ethical code” for journalists, as it would be important primarily for their purposes. The Journalists’ Union of Russia responded that a summary of ethical principles for the behaviour of journalists covering terrorist events and counter-terrorist operations had been developed and published already a year ago. Besides, during the days of the “North-Ost” events the access to Chechen websites “Kavkaz-Center” and “Chechenpress” was blocked. October 24 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation conveyed to Tiddo Peter Hofstee, the ambassador of the Netherlands in Moscow, a resolute protest in connection with the launch of the “Chechen Times” newspaper scheduled for October 24. The Russian authorities requested not to permit carrying out a “clearly anti-Russian action”. In response the Netherlands national press centre cancelled the presentation of the new Chechen newspaper. Meanwhile the first issue came out. The newspaper is published every two weeks and its editor-in-chief is Albert Batayev. October 26 The military commandant of Chechnya Sergey Kizyun rejected the reports of certain media about the onset of a large-scale operation in the territory of the republic. He stressed that no operations exceeding the framework of planned measures are underway in the republic. October 31 The Russian Ambassador to Turkey Aleksandr Lebedev protested against the multitude of articles published in the Turkish press expressing support to the Chechen fighters’ actions at the Dubrovka theatre centre in Moscow. According to the ambassador the coverage of the fight against terrorism in Russia in the Turkish press and television is in stark contrast with Turkey’s own official position. The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs came out in response with a declaration of the country’s allegiance to the fight against terrorism.
Compiled by Ilya Maksakov. Based on materials of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, news agencies “Interfax”, ITAR-TASS, RIA “Novosti”, “Prima”, newpapers “Kommersant”, “Obshchaya Gazeta”, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Novaya Gazeta”, radio stations “the Echo of Moscow”, “Svoboda”, information center “the Northern Caucasus”, and internet publications “Strana.ru”, “Regiony.ru”, “Chechenpress” and “Kavkazski Vestnik”. (D/T) |
