Violations of journalists' rights in Chechnya - November 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 November 2002 Compiled by the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. Translated by Prague Watchdog.
November 1-18
As we have already reported, following the terrorist attack in Moscow of October 23 when Chechen rebels took the audience at the musical hall Nord-Ost hostage, the access to the main Internet resource centers belonging to Chechen sources – “Kavkaz-Centr” and “Chechenpress” was blocked.
Later on, the operation of “Chechenpress”, reflecting the position of Aslan Maskhadov, was resumed. The “Kavkaz-Centr”, operated by Movladi Udugov, experienced serious problems in the course of November. At the beginning of the month the website resumed its operation, but at a different address. On November 15, Movladi Udugov declared that since October 26 his websites had been attacked by a group of hackers supported by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). On November 18, “Kavkaz-Centr” accused the VeriSign company of making up excuses in order to block the domain of the agency. Then, the Domains by Proxy Company threatened to block also the second domain of the agency. “Kavkaz-centr” registered another, already third domain, but it did not exclude that ”political persecution of the agency would continue and declared that new attempts to block the domains were still possible.” Few days later, “Kavkaz-centr” was inaccessible at any of its addresses.
November 4
Russian internet agency ”Press-center.Ru” reported that Aslan Maskhadov’s son Anzor works already as a journalist with Turkish web site InternetAJANS.com. Thus, on October 25 the site published Anzor’s article about the terrorist attack in Moscow, which Anzor explained as ”the fight of the Chechen nation for freedom”, but he also stated, that his father always took a firm hand on terrorism.
November 5
Russian newspaper ”Nezavisimaya gazeta” published article ”Chechnya: Door slammed shut - Foreigners need special permission to visit the Chechen Republic” by Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. The article accents a resolution of the Russian government of October 11 and called "About the approval of a list of territories, organizations and buildings for admission to which foreign citizens need a special permission". In this document is point No.6, according to which one may visit a zone where “counter-terrorist operations" are being carried out only with a special permission. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the presence of foreign journalists is not desirable in Chechnya as they represent the biggest danger for the Russian military.
November 6
In Ukraine, the leader of nationalist organization UNA-UNSO, which is part of the Block of Juliya Timoshenko, and the deputy of the Ukrainian parliament Andrei Shkil announced that his party started working on the creation of a society of the Ukrainian-Chechen friendship. According to him, UNA-UNSO started preparation for the opening of a Ukrainian-Chechen information center, which will include especially the Ukrainian version of “Kavkaz-centr”.
November 7
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the fact that Czech Television broadcast on public channels a documentary, which the ministry considered supportive of Chechen terrorists. The affair concerned the broadcasting of the documentary ”The Dark Side of the World” on channels CT 2 and CT 1 on October 31 and November 6, respectively.
Czech Television denounced the accusation of the Russian ministry as being absurd. The Czech journalists Jaromir Stetina and Petra Prochazkova, both working for news agency Epicentrum, produced the documentary. The documentary received an award from Johns Hopkins University in Washington in 2001. The documentary was filmed at the end of the year 1999 in Grozny and in the village of Samashki, where the journalists penetrated despite of numerous obstacles from the Russian military. In reaction to the accusation of the Russian ministry, Petra Prochazkova said: ”Unlike the Russians, we see the events in the Caucasus not as an antiterrorist operation, but as a conflict of two sides, and we want to give both sides a chance to express their opinions.”
On the other hand, the influential Czech newspaper ”Mlada fronta Dnes” warned the European society not to unconditionally support Chechen rebels and pointed out that international terrorism has no borders. The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs backed the journalists and the national TV and strongly denounced claims according to which in the Czech Republic there are tendencies to support terrorism.
November 9
On November 9-10, Russian human rights activists organized a conference called “For the Termination of War and Establishment of Peace in the Chechen Republic”. During the conference the Russian Pen – Center spread a proclamation saying that the recent terrorist act in Moscow cannot serve as a reason for escalation of military actions against Russian citizens living in the territory of Chechen Republic. The Pen – Center claims that the Russian official media are boosting an atmosphere of hatred against those who see a political dialogue as a way out of the situation in Chechnya. The proclamation said that ”in the name of war against international terrorism, an open fight against freedom of speech and the right to get reliable information is waged. The authorities try to hide the real scale of the tragedy in Chechnya, foisting on the public the idea of false patriotism and showing the unwillingness to listen to the opinion of those who seek for a non-violent way out of the conflict.
Later, the participants in the conference passed a resolution to Russian President Vladimir Putin and directors of state-run TV channels. The resolution appeals to start a dialogue with Aslan Maskhadov and points out that the rejection of the dialogue would mean that the possibility of taking up the peaceful way out of the conflict in Chechnya would be lost for an indefinite time. The authors of the proclamation stated that the state-run media had secured the monopoly for the president to interprete the situation and excluded chances to express public and democratic protest. The human rights activists proposed to Putin an open discussion on TV how to end the war in Chechnya and what consequences has and will have the continuation of the war. The directors of state-run TV channels were asked to provide the broadcasting.
November 10
A group of reporters of TV station TVS was arrested in Chechnya. The journalists were preparing a reportage about the destruction of the house of one of the Chechen women who participated in the hostage-taking in Moscow. TVS reporters were the only group accredited in Chechnya that managed to film the destructed house in Achkhoi-Martan. On the way back the group was arrested by military officers from Achkhoi-Martan on the pretext of inspection of documents. The journalists were stripped of their accreditations and detained for the whole night and released only in the morning.
November 10
Russian news agencies informed about the arrest of a 35-year-old citizen of the Chechen Republic who confessed that in 1999 he killed the mayor of the town of Ust-Kamenogorsk in Kazachstan. However, Kazakh journalists, who did not cast doubt on the arrest, reported that there was no mayor of Ust-Kamenogorsk ever killed. They pronounced a hypothesis that “for Russians and the Russian media any so-called Chechen trace in whatever case is more important that the truth.”
November 11
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the Western media “to inform objectively their viewers about the events in Chechnya”. At a news conference after the meeting with NATO Secretary General George Robertson, he asked journalists to be accurate and objective about Chechnya. Putin said that recently he heard that there is nothing positive happening in Chechnya, nothing is being reconstructed, everything continues to lie in ruins and no money comes from Moscow. ”It is a entire lie”, stressed the president.
When responding to a question by French daily Le Monde - ”Don’t you think that when you liquidate the terrorists you in fact liquidate the Chechen nation?” - Putin said: ”If you are a Christian, you are in a danger. But even if you are an atheist, you are in a danger; if you decided to become a Muslim, it won’t save you either because the traditional Islam is hostile towards the conditions and aims they set. If you are ready to become the most radical Muslim and if you were ready to make circumcision, then I would like to invite you to Moscow. Russia is a multi-confessional country. And I will recommend to do the operation to you in such a way that nothing will grow up on you anymore.” This phrase never appearedon the official Kremlin web site, but was cited by the official news agency RIA-Novosti, with explanation that Putin was joking when saying it.
These words had a broad response and during several days were commented by the world’s leading newspapers. German ”Sueddeutsche Zeitung” published an article with a headline: ”Lord Putin”. By his attitude towards Chechnya and the press, the head of the Kremlin demonstrates his inner beliefs.” The article stressed out that Putin disliked some disobedient editors in the same way as the fighters and because of that he restricted the freedom of speech as much as he could. In Putin’s understanding of the statehood, the president remained a common [intelligence] agent. He is not against the atrocities of the Russian army in Chechnya but against informing [about them]. There was an article "Putin’s seamy side" in ”The Globe and Mail”, which wrote “judging from what he says, the Russian President hates people from
the Caucasus, especially those from Chechnya.” The New York Times emphasized that Putin must be crazy because the war in Chechnya is his personal matter. The Washington Post released a headline "Chechnya Query Incenses Putin".
November 12
The Press Ministry of the Russian republic of Udmurtia accused the daily ”Saf Islam” of provoking hatred between religions and nations. The accusation was related to the issue of October 25 containing a series of materials, which were, according to the ministry, of a provacating character. That concerned especially the article called ”The resolution of the participants in the demonstration of the defenders of the Fatherland from Moscow’s aggression, devoted to the 450th anniversary of the destruction of Tatar state. The editor and the founder of the daily Irek Khisamutdinov said that “the issue intentionally expresses solidarity with the Chechen people and their fight for the right to live.” According to his words, "the Tatars, unlike the Chechens cannot start an armed fight because that would be a suicide in central Russia". This issue was published when terrorists in Moscow were holding their hostages for one and half day.
November 14
The Russian parliamentary commission for the regulation of the political and social-economic situation in the Chechen Republic held its meeting behind closed doors. Commenting on the fact that journalists were not permitted to enter the meeting, the special presidential representative for the rights and freedoms of the citizens of the Chechen Republic Abdul-Khakim Sultigov said that he did not understand why the commission worked behind closed doors.
November 14
The Russian Embassy to Germany criticised the way German media and especially the first channel of the ARD television informed about the hostage-taking in Moscow. The Russian diplomats stressed that the way ARD informed about the fact that almost 800 Russians and foreign citizens were taken hostage by Chechen terrorists was shocking and absolutely unacceptable. The Russian diplomats especially were angry with the fact that ARD informed in its footage about "totally desperate" Chechen rebels and accused the Kremlin of “unwillingness to find a political resolution” to the conflict in Chechnya.
November 14
The biggest German fraction, CDU/CSU, stated that the Russian campaign in Chechnya is negatively influencing the perspectives of democracy in the Russian Federation. The best example are the limations that were recently imposed on the Russian media. The possibility of persecution for virtually any critical information about the Caucasus conflict does not correspond to the idea CDU/CSU has about the freedom of speech. This also concerns the offensive insultation of Russia against Denmark for holding the World Chechen Congress in Copenhagen.
November 25
Twenty-three foreign journalists arrived in Grozny. Ivan Cherdakliyev of the department of information and public relations of the Russian Interior Ministry said that they would be given the chance to find out more about the reconstruction process in Chechnya and to meet the leaders of the republic.
November 25
The Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow announced that the names of the Chechens arrested in connection to the detention of hostages in Dubrovka presented in media were false. "Three Chechens were really arrested in this case, but not those who were reported by the media", said one of the employees of the press section of the Prosecutor’s Office.
November 25
US weekly Newsweek reported that Hans right after Wilhelm Steinfeld, a correspondent of Norwegian TV, finished his documentary on Chechen refugees, all his tapes were confiscated and erased by Russian security agents. The journalist said that it was the first time he encountered the liquidation of his material, adding that the incident was followed by an official protest by the Norwegian government. According to the paper, several years ago such treatment of Western journalists would be appraised as an anomalous heritage of the Soviet history, nevertheless, presently they are seen as an inseparable part of the life in Russia, which gains speed on the journey towards an authoritative regime. Newsweek pointed out that 23 leading journalists asked President Putin to veto the new act, which has been already approved by both chambers of the Russian Parliament, for it restricts the right of media to inform about situations connected to terrorism. According to the journalists, the law interprets those situations so loosely that it can include any reportage about the war in Chechnya.
November 27
A “Komsomolskaya Pravda” reporter Ulyana Skoibeda published an article called “Why the policemen do not like Russian journalists”. In her article Skoibeda writes that on November 11 when she was returning from Chechnya, she showed her documents to policemen at the “Kavkaz” checkpoint. After that she was led away to a metallic wagon where a woman dressed in camouflage ordered Skoibeda to be searched over. She was undressed and searched, the content of her backpack was thrown on the table . The policemen were not satisfied with her accreditation which she received from the office of Sergei Yastrzhemski, the Russian presidential aide on Chechnya. Then she was interrogated, her films were taken away and she was promised that she will not be let in Chechnya again.
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 “Echo Moskvy” and “Svoboda”, and internet publications “Strana.ru”, “Regiony.ru”, “Chechenpress” and “Kavkazski Vestnik”. (D/T) |
