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Russian government lies to victims of Beslan crisis Pravda 11/09/2004 12:05 The investigation of the hostage crisis in Beslan is very slow It has been two months since the days of the horrible tragedy in Russia's southern town of Beslan. There is no precise and definite information about the development of the investigation: little is known of what really happened in the seized school of the town. Many Beslan residents, who lost their loved ones in the siege, are certain that the Russian authorities deliberately conceal the truth from them. Deputy Prosecutor General in the southern administrative district of Russia, Nikolai Shepel has recently visited North Ossetia, where the hostage crisis took place. Shepel and spokespeople for the regional authorities were supposed to talk to local residents and try to ease people's growing indignation over the slow investigation of the terrorist attack. The situation, however, ended up in a scandal. The townspeople were more than willing to meet with the officials, but the latter would not arrive. Several spokespeople for the regional authorities, including Nikolai Shepel, came to the town only two days later. Deputy Russian Prosecutor General started from saying that 32 terrorists had attacked the school, that the terrorists were drug addicts and that special services discovered terrorists' training camp in the republic of Ingushetia. Beslan residents (over a thousand people came for the meeting with the authorities) replied that they had heard all that information before. Furthermore, they accused the deputy prosecutor general of lies: everybody in the town saw that the number of terrorists was more than 30. The townspeople set out their indignation over the official affirmation, which said that the terrorists had brought all their weapons with them. A lot of people at the meeting confessed of being pressed by investigators, who made them deny the fact that the weapons had been brought to school prior to the attack, the Kommersant newspaper wrote. Nikolai Shepel failed to answer the question about who exactly conducted negotiations with the terrorists, and why President Putin did not come to Beslan on time. Former hostages said the terrorists hoped to meet the head of state a lot, although they had to deal with Ingushetia's ex-president Ruslan Aushev instead. Beslan residents harshly rejected the assertion, which said that the terrorists had not put in claims. They said that they were perfectly aware of what the hostage-takers wanted. "I know that a certain international right stipulates the interference of the international community in the event terrorists take over 500 people hostage. Our authorities deliberately concealed the information about the exact number of hostages - over a thousand people - from the whole world," Ludmila Tsoi said, who lost her daughter in the attack. To crown it all, Beslan residents voiced resentment about the fact that North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, who chaired the special headquarters, had not been dismissed from his post. The meeting was over with Nikolai Shepel and other officials of the delegation leaving the hall. "He is not going to tell us anything! Let him leave!" someone of the townspeople screamed. It is noteworthy that the former hostages and their relatives suggested that Putin had been misinformed, which did not let him come to the meeting. "I think that we have a right to blame the state for all of that. Speaking of President Putin - we were eagerly expecting him in Beslan. He apparently decided not to come to us because of the misinformation," one of the women said. Beslan's committee of mothers plans to write an address to the Russian president with a request to relieve them of the half-truth, which is a lot worse than lies. Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov) Pravda.Ru News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International AI Index: IOR 61/025/2004        10 November 2004 Public Statement Council of Europe: Recommendations for a plan of action On the eve of his assuming the Chair of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, Amnesty International has sent a Memorandum to the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs outlining the organization's recommendations for the Council of Europe's Third Summit of Heads of State and Government, scheduled to take place in Warsaw, Poland on 16-17 May 2005. Amnesty International considers that the Third Summit of the Council of Europe presents an important opportunity for the Council of Europe to reaffirm its existing aims and mission; celebrate its accomplishments and articulate a plan of action, with measurable objectives, for its future work and functioning. In particular in the memorandum, Recommendations for the Council of Europe's Third Summit of Heads of State and Government (AI Index: IOR 61/023/2004) Amnesty International urges the Committee of Ministers to ensure that the Third Summit: - Includes an event at which States, who have yet to do so, can sign up as parties to a number of treaties which represent particularly topical and important aims of the Council of Europe to: -- eradicate racism and other forms of discrimination which continue to plague the region; -- truly establish the Council of Europe region as a death penalty-free zone; bolster the functioning of the European Court of Human Rights; -- affirm the commitment to the fight against terrorism in a manner that protects and respects the human rights of all persons; -- ensure enhanced respect for the human rights of trafficked persons. - Commits its 46 Member States and the Council of Europe itself to prioritising the effective implementation of existing human rights standards; - Reviews, and where appropriate, addresses the need for additional resources to support and enhance the effectiveness of the work of the full range of bodies and mechanisms of the Council of Europe; - Commits the Council of Europe to articulate and publish action strategies on priority thematic issues and to ensure better implementation of human rights standards, including the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter and Revised Social Charter, in each of the 46 Council of Europe Member States; - Commits to enhancing coordination and cooperation between the Council of Europe and the other international organizations, most notably the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN), with the aim of achieving more effective implementation of the international human rights treaties by Council of Europe Member States; - Considers, in particular, the opportunities and challenges presented by the possible future accession of the expanded European Union as a party to the European Convention on Human Rights; - Commits to pursuing the possibilities of organizing a pan-European campaign against Domestic Violence, as recommended by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; - Develops plans to enhance transparency of the Council of Europe activities for the some 800 million people living in its member states and to enhance the inclusion of National Institutions for the Protection of Human Rights and non-governmental organizations, in the work of the Council of Europe. ***************************************************************** You may repost this message onto other sources provided the main text is not altered in any way and both the header crediting Amnesty International and this footer remain intact. Only the list subscription message may be removed. ***************************************************************** Past and current Amnesty news services can be found at <http://www.amnesty.org/news/>. Visit <http://www.amnesty.org> for information about Amnesty International and for other AI publications. Contact amnestyis@amnesty.org if you need to get in touch with the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. Privacy policy <http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-privacy-eng> ==================================================================== Kommersant, Nov.05, 2004 Beslan Banished the Prosecutor Relatives of the Dead Accuse Investigation of Lying Will of the People Two months after the terrorist act in the Beslan school, the situation has intensified. Hostage relatives think that authorities are delaying the investigation and concealing the truth from them intentionally. On Wednesday, RF Southern Federal District Deputy General Prosecutor Nikolay Shepel arrived in Beslan to meet with relatives of the former hostages. He tried to join local authorities and comfort the relatives, but was banished by the people, who demanded that to see North Ossetian President Aleksandr Dzasokhov. Currently hostage relatives intend to write an appeal to RF President Vladimir Putin requesting a meeting with him and an objective investigation. "What you say doesn't suffice for us." Beslan residents went to the Culture Center three days in a row. First they go to the cemetery, where they go every day to learn all news, since it has become a gathering place for the whole city, and then they come here. All three days, they waited for a meeting with state representatives in vain. Only on Wednesday morning they heard at the cemetery that President Aleksandr Dzasokhov and the ex-head of the Pravoberezhny District administration Boris Urtaev would come to Beslan for sure. By three p.m., people started to gather around the culture center, where they spent the first three days of the tragedy. At five minutes to the hour, head of Pravoberezhny district Vladimir Khodov, ex-head Boris Urtaev, ex-mayor Oleg Gabuyev, senior investigator Konstantin Lufi and Deputy General Prosecutor on the Southern Federal District Nikolay Shepel arrived. More than a thousand people had already gathered in the assembly hall when the delegation walked in. Sitting in the second row by the exit was director of School No. 1 Lidia Tsalieva. This was her first appearance in public after she had been injured and she wanted to demonstrate to all who thought her guilty of the tragedy that she was innocent. So far she went unnoticed. "We all wanted the authorities to answer our questions," Khodov began, "We wanted to be updated on the course of the investigation. We will be told that today." Shepel began. He said there were 32 rebels, of whom 27 had been identified. And that the terrorists were using drugs. And that in Malgobeksky district of Ingushetia they found a camp of the terrorists, because of which the head of the local internal affairs department and North Ossetia Pravoberezhny district internal affairs department head had charges pressed against them. Both were accused of criminal negligence. "Why are you telling us all that?" somebody yelled. "We have known that for ever!" "Why do you always talk about 32 terrorist?" another question shot up. "We all saw that there were many more of them!" The Prosecutor answered that the investigation was not stuck on number 32, it just did not have any other information. The audience did not like the answer. "We all know there were weapons in the school, even before it was seized," could be heard from the audience, "why do the authorities deny that?" "According to the investigation, there were no weapons in the school – the terrorists brought them when they came," Shepel answered. This answer was received with even less enthusiasm. The audience exploded. "Yes, there were! The terrorists couldn't have brought that much with them!" Susanna Dudieva came up to the microphone, her eighth grade son Zaur died during the siege. "What you say doesn't suffice for us," she said, "you may not have the right to tell all the information, but half truth and half measures don't do it for us anymore. Here the Deputy General Prosecutor said they were investigating the causes and circumstances which made it possible for the terrorist act to happen in Beslan. "We know them ourselves already, but the main reason is the corruptness of power, internal affairs departments, and of the people Dzasokhov surrounded himself with!" she answered. "She's right!" somebody supported her. "They didn't even do as much as come here!" "Out of the whole North Ossetian government, only a couple of ministers really do their work," Dudieva continued, "everybody else is busy with their own work, attending to their primary responsibilities when they have some free time. Why are regular policemen being held responsible? As many as 40 regular bureaucrats were fired, but none of the high rank officials were. Since Internal Affairs Minister Dzantiev (fired after the terrorist act – Kommersant) is so good, how could he have allowed it to happen? Shortly before Beslan, there was an attack on Nazran, but they didn't learn from it." "Everybody was waiting for Putin, but got Aushev instead." "Can you tell us who held negotiations with terrorists? Who should be held responsible for their failure?" Shepel was asked. "We had specialists come from Moscow," he answered, "people specializing in the negotiation process." "Who are they? Tell us their names!" He shook his head, Lufi came to his aid. "Terrorist didn't set any claims," he said. But he should not have. The audience exploded again. "Why are you lying?" people shouted. "They began setting claims from the very first hour," former hostage Felisa Batagova said. "We all knew what they wanted! And so did the authorities! They told us: your government doesn't need you, it doesn't even say how many of you are here." "The headquarters told us that the children were given food and drink, and they were given nothing!" others spoke. Head of the district department of education Zarema Turmanova was called to the microphone. "Why didn't you post the lists of students in the school the first day?" she was asked. "No one asked us for them," she was taken aback. "I didn't know who I should give them to." Ludmila Tsoi, who only found and identified the body of her daughter Sveta a month after the tragedy, said, "I know there is some international law, where the world community must intervene if more than 500 people are seized. Our authorities intentionally concealed from the whole world that there was more than a thousand hostages in the school!" The atmosphere in the hall was heating up. "Where did Aushev come from?" somebody yelled to Shepel. "The FSB asked him to come," he said. "Since when has the ex-president of Ingushetia become the most important person in Russia? Where were the rest? When we were sitting in the gym, terrorists told us: Russia's most important person is going to come now. We thought it was Putin, and waited for him. It was Aushev who came, though. So where was Putin then? The Prosecutor kept silence. Somebody suggested that ex-head of the district Boris Urtaev should be called to the microphone. Many were against him, because they thought that, being the head of the district, he could have taken certain measures. Urtaev, however, had no intentions of justifying himself. He said he had four relatives die in the school himself. "I had not the power, nor the means to protect them," he said. "I am not a military man, but if I had the district department of internal affairs under my jurisdiction, the tragedy would not have happened. Unfortunately, the administration head doesn't have such authority." Urtaev also said that the school was renovated by the local construction department, and named the construction workers. Then he went back to his seat in the auditorium. Then Lidia Tsalieva, the school director, got up. Khodov, the administration head, made a quick phone call somewhere, and police appeared in the room. This measure was not accidental. The 72-year- old director with teaching experience of a half a century had no friends left in Beslan. After the tragedy, where hundreds of her students lost their lives, people accuse her of being connected with the terrorist attack. New curses addressed to her appear every day on the smoked walls of School No.1. Tsalieva arrived just a few days before from Moscow, where she underwent through three surgeries – the woman was seriously injured during the storming of the school. She had not appeared in public, yet she knew that she was accused of hiring the suspicious worker who had brought in and hidden the weapons during renovations. As well as that she supposedly knew the plans of the terrorists, so started the opening ceremony not at 10:00 a.m. as usually, but earlier. That in the gym she was on the terrorists' side and drank tea with them. The fact that Tsalieva had a sister and grandchildren in the school somehow was missed. Tsalieva said, "I've worked my lifetime here. I love my city, and my people, and now I am the one to get the blame. I am not guilty. I was as happy as everyone else on September 1, and my children were too the most beautiful…" There was a roar in the audience while she was speaking. Her last words brought on a storm of emotions. "Why did you not save them?" "You don't belong here, you won't live here any longer!" "If you talk about weapons, we'll kill you" She did not hear what was said because of the contusion. She understood, however, that she would not be allowed to say anything else, so went back to her seat. "She's to blame for the weapons brought into school! The whole arsenal of them!" people yelled. Former hostage Ruslan Boloev, whose daughter died in the siege, came up to the microphone. "Don't lie," he said turning to Lufi and Shepel. "Don't lie about there not being any weapons at the school. I was made to carry weapons and explosives to the gym from the library." "Wait a second," Lufi said turning to the investigator, "Let's deal with it publicly. When I interrogated you, you told me there were no weapons at school, correct? "Correct!" the former hostage said. "What else could I have done if two people in uniform came to me and threatened that if I said anything about the weapons, they would kill me." Then it turned out that Boloev was not the only one visited by people in uniform. "They came to me also!" "I had two military men tell me the same thing too! "Okay, lets talk about it," Lufi took Boloev aside. "Leave him alone! Or do you want to kill him too?!" the people yelled. The investigator stopped. Prosecutor Shepel got up from his seat. "Calm down," he said. "He just wanted to ask a few questions." Prosecutor Shepel said that the investigation was prolonged till January 1 because there is not enough time – the first witness's evidence is too emotional, so the witness will have to be interrogated again. So the first results will appear only next year. "You are, are you?!" an elderly woman address him. "Who asked you to come today? We weren't expecting you!" "Do you want me to leave?" he asked. "Stay!" some people yelled. "Let him answer our questions!" "Leave!" others yelled. "He's not saying anything anyway!" "Okay, can we talk about it now that everybody's gone?" When Vladimir Khodov got up, everybody was quiet. This man, who had lost a grandchild to the tragedy, had a great influence on the audience. "You wanted to learn about the course of investigation, didn't you?" he spoke to the audience. "So we have invited the Deputy General Prosecutor on request of the Beslan women's committee." "That is true, but we were expecting Dzasokhov and Urtaev today," Dudieva, chairman of the committee, said. "That's really what we all came here for – to see Dzasokhov," people yelled. "We just wanted to look him in the eyes! We were being lied to for three days that the situation was under control! Dzasokhov is responsible for all that, because he swore that nobody would die!" Shepel sat silent the whole time, staring at the table. Then he was asked who headed up the operating headquarters on freeing hostages. "President Dzasokhov and head of North Ossetia FSB Valery Andreev (fired after the tragedy – Kommersant)," the Prosecutor said. "Why was one fired, and the other not?" the audience yelled. To which Shepel had nothing to answer to again. "Let him leave! He's got nothing to tell us!" "Do you want me to leave?" he repeated the question again. Khodov repeated the question in Ossetian. "Let them leave! They won't help us!" So the delegation left the room. "Ok, now that they're gone, would you like to talk?" Khodov said. People got up and began telling how they are coping with it. They said the investigation was not done right. That had no information or opportunity to control it. The witnesses were being pressured in order to conceal information. They remembered the teachers who were killed, the three days inside the school. "After the explosion, my daughter and I ran to the dining room," Anna Khanaeva remembered. "There were many wounded in the gym, and they were screaming. They could have been rescued, but then there was gunfire, everything caught on fire and they burned to death." Somebody started crying. Alla wiped her eyes. "When we went into the dining room and they began shooting, my daughter said, `Mommy, I am dying, I got shot on my side.' My daughter was only seven." More people were crying now. "I know for sure that the terrorists didn't want to die," Alla said. "But none of the authorities would talk to them. I also remember how the first day one terrorist yelled to someone, `You promised that we would be seizing the district department, the police, and this is a school!'" The deceased Sveta Tsoi's mother came out again. "It's been two months already, and everything hurts," she said. "We've got to go on, though, until they find those guilty and punish them. We must see that." After the meeting, the committee of Beslan mothers made the decision to write an appeal to President Putin, where they would write down all they talked about today. "I think we have no right to blame the state," Dudieva said, "and as far as President Putin is concerned, we really waited for him in Beslan. He probably didn't think it necessary to come here because of all this disinformation." by  Madina Shavlokhova, Olga Allenova, Alek Akhundov No Help For Chechnya’s Street Kids Grozny is unable to cope with a tide of abandoned children. By Amina Visayeva in Grozny (CRS No. 261, 10-Nov-04) At a petrol station in the centre of Grozny, cars draw up every few minutes and are besieged by a crowd of grubby ten-year-old boys. The boys ask the driver how much petrol he wants, fill up the car, receive a few roubles and mutter a few words of thanks. These are just some of the street children of Chechnya. Traditional Chechen attitudes mean that these children are ashamed to beg, but try to earn their money by finding jobs. Children have suffered terribly from the decade of war in Chechnya. There was a sharp rise in the number of recorded cases of children living on the street or otherwise uncared for in 2000, when major hostilities ended in the second Chechen campaign. The fighting left behind many orphans as well as what are called “social orphans”, whose parents are alive but have abandoned them. Two official campaigns to track down abandoned children found almost 700 of them in 2003, and 138 so far this year. However, experts in Chechnya’s hospitals say these figures are just the tip of the iceberg, and the real numbers will only come to light if the authorities open a children’s home or special school in Grozny. Currently the Chechen capital, where the problem of street children is particularly acute, has no such institution, and the five children’s refuges in the republic are all located outside the city. There are two government offices – one of them part of the Chechen interior ministry – which are nominally responsible for the children, but while they monitor the situation they have few powers to make a real difference. It used to be the job of the Inspectorate for Underage Children to find runaways and deliver them to a children’s refuge or reception centre. But because of the destruction of the last ten years, the city has no such institutions catering for minors. As a result, the children and teenagers whom the inspectors pick up during police raids in the city end up back on the street on the same day. Umidat Khaidarova, an inspector for underage children in the Zavodskoi district of Grozny, complains that there is nothing she can do. “We carried out a raid in the centre of the city,” said Khaidarova. “There at a bus-stop we saw ten-year-old Hasan Kharsiev. It was a typical story – his parents died in the bombing of Grozny and the boy lives with his aunt. She barely takes care of him, she has no time for her nephew, no interest in getting him to go to school, and he begs for money on buses.” “Well, we took him into the Centre for Underage Children and had a chat. But what then? The boy is absolutely free, and he knows it. He knows that he will be free that evening. And we have no alternative.” Not all the street children are orphans like Hasan. Aishat Jabrailova of Chechnya’s labour and social development ministry explains that there are three categories, all in need of help, “First of all, there are children delivered to us by the police force. Broadly speaking, they are caught in markets, cellars or doorways. You can guess that this is the most problematic group, but it isn’t the only one. “The second group we have to take care of are complete orphans. Officially there aren’t many of them, just 1,355. I repeat, these figures need to be confirmed. And the third group are social orphans, by which I mean children abandoned by their mothers and fathers or one of them. Sometimes the parents have split up and the children have been left in the care of relatives who often can’t afford to give them shoes, clothes or food.” There are more than 600 children in the republic’s five regional shelters, but the labour and social welfare ministry says this is only a fraction of those in need of protection. Many of the children in the shelters have living relatives who are not prepared to give them up for adoption. Next year the government plans to start implementing a five-year programme it calls Children of War, intended to create a network of crisis centres, treatment clinics for disabled children, and help centres for large families. The budget for the programme is extremely modest at 1.6 million roubles, around 50,000 US dollars. The tragic story of a Grozny boy named Turko underlines how badly such work is needed. Turko’s parents were killed in the second bombardment of Grozny in 1999. Not wishing to live with his uncle in a village, Turko returned to the city and joined a group of drug-users. He found a way of earning money – planting explosive devices for rebel fighters. He earned between 100 and 200 dollars a month doing this. Last year, Turko was caught – rounded up in a drug den during a “clean-up operation” by the security forces. A week later, his dead body was found in the city centre. It lay for a few days in Grozny’s central mosque until the elders there buried it. “They say Turko was suspected of blowing up military armoured vehicles,” said Asyet Shamkhmurzayeva, inspector for underage children in the Chernorechye district of Grozny. “If a teenager was seduced by that way of earning money, then it was his misfortune, not his fault. The war made him an orphan, and in a relatively peaceful period he was thrown overboard by a state which failed to throw him a lifeline.” Around the time of Turko’s death, the then Chechen interior minister, Alu Alkhanov, warned that, “If we do not get to grips urgently with the problems of children who are unprotected or abandoned, then dozens and hundreds of people will grow up to join the criminals and swell their ranks.” His ministry proposed restoring a reception centre and a special education facility for young people, but to date the idea has not received any funding. Alkhanov is now president of Chechnya, following the election that followed the death of Akhmad Kadyrov in May. There is every sign that his dire predictions are coming true, and children’s refuges outside the capital are still turning young people away because they are full up. Amina Vasayeva is a journalist based in Grozny. eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 9/11/2004 Number of abductions grows in Chechnya An official of the Shalazhi village administration was abducted this night in the Urus-Martan district of Chechnya (south-west of the republic), reported Chechen Interior Ministry. A group of gunmen in military uniforms entered by force the house of Ayub Ibragimov, the local administration official. Threatening him with physical violence, the attackers made Ibragimov go out in the street, forced him in a car and took away in an unknown direction. Yesterday, November 8, another man was abducted in the Achkhoy-Martan district of Chechnya (south-west of the republic). Gunmen wearing masks and camouflage uniforms abducted local Magomadov in the village of Zakan-Yurt. The abductors moved in Zhiguli cars without number plates. Criminal proceedings have been instituted in connection with the abductions of Ibragimov and the resident of Zakan-Yurt, reported the Chechen Interior Ministry. The criminals are being searched for. Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent Source: Caucasian Knot November 9th 2004 · Prague Watchdog Special operation in mosque in Ordzhonikidzevskaya Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus – The police, in co-operation with special services, staged a special operation in the Ingushetian village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya. On Thursday evening November 4, at a time when more than thirty people were gathered for collective prayers in the mosque in the outer part of the village, masked gunmen stormed into the building. It was later learned that they were from special services. According to eyewitnesses, all the people from the mosque, many still barefooted, were herded into the street and told to lie down on the ground. They were kept in this position for about an hour, even though many elderly men were among them. One of the old men refused to comply with the order and was hit in the lower back with the butt of a gun and forced to kneel down. The gunmen then proceeded to check the documents of all the men in the group. They took one person away with them who was found nearby a few hours later badly beaten up. Human rights organizations are carrying out an independent investigation and inquiries have been made to respective institutions demanding that the facts of the assault on the mosque be explained. Russian Supreme Court Cancels Acquittal of Policemen Suspected of Murdering Chechen Civilians Created: 11.11.2004 18:09 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:09 MSK, MosNews The Russian Supreme Court on Thursday cancelled the not guilty verdict passed in the case of two officers of the Interior Ministry's troops who were suspected of murdering three civilians in Chechnya, the RIA-Novosti news agency reports. The case has been sent to the North Caucasus Military Court for reconsideration. Earlier, the court acquitted lieutenants Yevgeniy Khudyakov and Sergei Arakcheyev of murder. Investigators found out that on Jan. 15, 2003 the two officers fired at a Kamaz truck which was traveling along a road in the Chechen Republic. After the vehicle stopped, the officers took out the three men that were traveling in it, shot them dead and burned the truck and the bodies. Chechen news items face ban Carolynne Wheeler in Moscow Friday November 12, 2004 The Guardian Popular films and even routine news broadcasts on Russian primetime television will be censored to cut out all violence under a bill before parliament. Deputies in the lower house, the Duma, have overwhelmingly supported a bill to ban any depiction of murder, injury or rape on television between 7am and 10pm. That would cover programmes ranging from news footage of violence in Chechnya to the many popular Hollywood films and TV series broadcast with a dubbed soundtrack. "We cannot make the television sterile but we can at least keep some cruelty off the primetime screen," Liberal Democratic party leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said, according to RIA Novosti news agency. Post-Soviet Russian television has often been uncomfortable watching, with some editors and programme makers having few qualms about displaying grisly scenes of murder, crime and accidents, complete with corpses and body parts. The general director of Russia's NTV channel, Vladimir Kulistikov, said the proposal would limit journalists' ability to cover terrorist attacks, serious crimes and even accidents. "There is no doubt that the problem [of violence on television] exists, but shall we solve it by absurd means?" he told Kommersant daily.