H.E. Vladimir Putin
President
The Kremlin
Moscow
Russian Federation
Fax: (011.7.495) 206-6277/ 5173
Your Excellency:
Your government@quot;s repression of independent journalists has apparently become an organized campaign, and we continue to protest it. Defenders of freedom around the world are increasingly persuaded that you are now in full retreat from the democratic reforms you once supported, and this development is both tragic and frightening.
Since we last wrote you, abuses of the media have multiplied:
Another prominent, award-winning reporter has fled Russia to seek asylum abroad after being followed, harassed, beaten, and apparently twice poisoned in reprisal for her work. Fatima Tlisova, head of the North Caucasus bureau of the Regnum online news service and a former correspondent for Svoboda, Novaya Gazeta and the Associated Press, is reportedly safe now in the United States. But she says she suffered kidney damage after applying face cream, from a jar in her own home, that peeled the skin from her face and fingers last October, and heart damage a month later after drinking tea and losing consciousness. “I have no doubt I was poisoned,” Tlisova told the Sunday Times. “I feel trapped and constantly threatened by the security services.” Her case is chillingly reminiscent of last year@quot;s murder of the fearless journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the fatal poisoning of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. We call on you to order a full investigation of Tlisova@quot;s treatment, with prompt punishment for those who ordered and carried out the attack.
The Overseas Press Club of America is also dismayed by the recent ruthless attacks on peaceful protesters attempting to march in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, as well as the roundup of journalists attempting to cover these events. On March 24 in Nizhny Novgorod, several Russian and foreign journalists were rounded up and detained, including a photographer for The New York Times. Remco Reiding, a journalist with the Dutch GPD agency, says he was punched twice in the face by riot police, despite having identified himself and shown his credentials as soon as he arrived at the scene. Such incidents are both unacceptable and inexcusable in a civilized country.
We also emphatically protest the criminal prosecution of Viktor Shmakov, editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Provintsialnye Vesti in Bashkortostan. Prosecutors have charged him with “public calls for the realization of extremist activity using mass media” and “calls for insubordination to legal authorities,” according to local press reports. If convicted, Shmakov faces up to five years in prison. Shmakov@quot;s newspaper published two articles in April, 2006, criticizing corruption and human rights abuses and calling for the resignation of Bashkortostan@quot;s president, Murtaza Rakhimov. The author of the articles, local opposition leader Airat Dilmukhametov, faces the same charges as Shmakov.
On April 14, as many as 9,000 riot police and troops were used to beat back a peaceful protest march in Moscow by the United Civic Front (OGF), an opposition group headed by former chess champion Garry Kasparov. At least 170 people, including Kasparov, were arrested; many, including journalists, were pushed, shoved, hit, dragged, and beaten. A Japanese journalist was knocked to the ground by a blow to the head. The next day, a similar rally in St. Petersburg was also violently dispersed.
Also in mid-April, Russian police and the FSB (internal security service) raided the offices of Educated Media Foundation (EMF), the main partner of the California-based InterNews Network. Investigators have brought criminal charges against the EMF director, Manana Aslamazyan, who had failed to declare 9,500 euros on a customs form. She acknowledged the error, which was transparently a pretext for the raid. In response, nearly 2,000 Russian journalists have signed an open letter deploring the action as “another step infringing on the civil rights enshrined in the Russian Constitution.”
On April 29, officers from an organized crime unit of the St. Petersburg branch of the Interior Ministry confiscated 52,000 copies of a special edition of Obyedinyonny Grazhdansky Front, the weekly newspaper of OGF. These copies, detailing the events of April 14 and 15, were to have been sent to Moscow for distribution at another opposition rally planned for May 1.
On May 16, the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) received a letter from the federal property agency evicting the RUJ from its Moscow offices. The letter gave the RUJ a month to vacate the property, but it was dated April 18, effectively reducing this deadline to two days. The RUJ was preparing to host the 26th World Congress of Journalists beginning on May 28. No reason was given for the eviction, but it is an obvious harassment of an independent voice.
The offices, which the RUJ and its predecessor had occupied since 1980, are to be given to Russia Today, a state-run English-language satellite TV channel created to boost Russia’s international image.
Finally, Reuters reported on May 22 that four of the five journalists on the staff of the Russian News Service, a formerly independent radio news network that feeds news to many of the country@quot;s most popular radio stations, quit their jobs after a new editor banned them from covering anti-Kremlin demonstrations. The new general director of the Russian News Service, Alexander Shkolnik, used to work at Channel One, a state-funded TV channel which has reliably backed your government.
Your Excellency, in April we also received a reply from Ms. G.A. Chochrina of your Office of the Prosecutor General, purporting to respond to our letter of November 17, 2006. Ms. Chochrina detailed the legalistic facts of the cases we cited, but failed to address any of our substantive points. We invite you to make it plain, to us and to the world, where you stand on the issue of press freedom, and to explain how your government@quot;s recent policies and actions can be reconciled with that philosophy.
Respectfully yours,
Larry Martz
Norman A. Schorr
Co-chairmen, Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov
Prime Minister
Government Offices
2 Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya
Moscow
Russian Federation
Fax: (011.7.095) 206-4622, 205-4219
Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov
Foreign Minister
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Moscow 121200
Russian Federation
Fax: (011.7.095) 244-3448
Mr. Dmitri Peskov
First Deputy Spokesman of the President of the Russian Federation
c/o Embassy of the Russian Federation
2650 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Fax: (202) 298-5735
Yuriy Viktorovich Ushakov
Ambassador of Russia to the U.S.A.
Embassy of the Russian Federation
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Washington, DC 20007
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Ambassador Andrey Ivanovich Denisov
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations
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New York, NY 10021
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Aleksey Kirillovich Simonov
President
Glasnost Defense Foundation
4 Zubovskiy Blvd., # 432
Moscow 119021
Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 637-4947
E-mail: simonov@gdf.ru
William J. Burns
U.S. Ambassador to Russia
Embassy of the United States of America
8 Bolshoy Devyatinskiy Pereulok
Moscow 121099
Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 728-5090
Andrew McChesney
Editor-in-Chief
The Moscow Times
Ul. Polkovaya, 3, build. 1
Moscow 127018 Russia
Fax: (011.7. 495) 937-3393, 232-6529
E-mail: mcchesney@imedia.ru
Andrey Vitalyevich Vasilyev
Editor-in-Chief
Kommersant Daily
4 Vrubelya Street
Moscow
Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 943-9728
E-mail: kommersant@kommersant.ru
Konstantin Vadimovich Remchukov
Editor-in-Chief
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
13 Myasnitskaya Street, building.3
Moscow
Russia
Fax: (011.7. 495) 981-5434
E-mail: office@ng.ru
Vladimir Konstantinovich Mamontov
Editor-in-Chief
Izvestiya
18 Tverskaya Street, building 1
Moscow 127994
Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 648-1365
Pavel Nikolayevich Gusev
Editor-in-Chief
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
7 Ulitsa 1905 Goda
Moscow 123995, Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 259-4639
E-mail: berestovenko@mk.ru
Robert Munro
Editor-in-Chief
The St.Petersburg Times
4 Isakiyevskaya square
St.Petersburg 190000
Russia
Tel/fax: (011.7.812) 325-6080
E-mail: munro@sptimes.ru
Yelizaveta Osetinskaya
Editor-in-Chief, Vedomosti
3 Polkovaya Street, building 1
Moscow 125212, Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 956-0716
E-mail: vedomosti@imedia.ru
Dmitriy Andreyevich Muratov
Editor-in-Chief
Novaya Gazeta
3 Potapovskiy pereulok
Moscow 101990
Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 923-6888
E-mail: gazeta@novayagazeta.ru