Violations of journalists' rights in Chechnya - November 2002
Monitoring 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 appeared on 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 right after Hans 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”.