The "March of the Dissenters"

Systematic Denial of Press Freedoms

Reporting from the Field Strictly Monitored

Local Journalists Key to Covering the Region; Face Frustration and Danger

Dealing with Russian Institutions

Foreign vs. Local Journalists: Advantages and Disadvantages

On May 18, 2007, at around 8:40 a.m., in the Moscow airport Sheremetiyevo 1, Russian police stopped and confiscated plane tickets and papers from Wall Street Journal reporter Alan Cullison, The Daily Telegraph writer Adrian Blomfield, and the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation journalist Allard Detiger. The journalists were on their way to the “March of the Dissenters” rally in the city of Samara (800 kilometers southeast of Moscow), which attracted several hundred demonstrators to protest the Kremlin’s silencing of Russia’s opposition. The rallies in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Samara in March – May 2007 were organized by the opposition coalition “The Other Russia,” led by former chess world champion and Kremlin critic Garri Kasparov and former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.

Police held the journalists in the airport, along with a group of The Other Russia’s leaders and activists, for about five hours, until the last plane to Samara departed. The detainees tried to leave the airport twice in the three hours after they were stopped, but the police wouldn’t let them go. The authorities took papers and plane tickets from 13 detainees and asked everyone where and when they had purchased the tickets.

“The officers at customs said that I had to wait and my ticket had to be kept for an investigation into whether it was counterfeit”, Cullison says.

“They let us free five minutes before the last plane to Samara departed,” said Blomfield. “We asked the police officers to release an official statement on our arrest, but they refused. They didn’t even return our tickets.”

Boris Raitshuster, the head of the Moscow bureau of the German magazine Focus, was detained in Samara on the way to the rally. Raitshuster told Russian independent radio station Ekho Moscvy (“Echo of Moscow”) that two cars drove up to him and his two companions -- Denis Bilunov, executive director of Russian pro-democracy movement Obiyedinyonny Grazhdansky Front (“United Civil Front”), and Stanislav Yakovlev, the press secretary for the youth movement Smena. MVD (Internal Affairs Ministry) officers emerged from the cars, presented their IDs, and took all three men to the police station without any explanation.

“Policemen told me that I resembled the photo of some criminal suspect, and they needed to identify me,” Raitshuster told Ekho Moscvy. “They released us when the rally was over, obviously. We were detained for an hour-and-a-half.”

“I was told that the check-ups were conducted because of the European Union-Russia summit near Samara,” Bilunov added.

The “Marches of the Dissenters” turned out to be the borderline in Kremlin’s attempts to build a positive image of Russia in the outside world. The rally in Samara coincided with the EU-Russia summit near the city. Besides other contradictions between the European leaders and Russian government, the way Russian authorities treated the opposition activists and journalists stirred up arguments between German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany is the EU’s chairman at present) and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I hope that they [opposition activists coming to the rally] will be able to express their opinion," Merkel said. Putin responded with criticism of the treatment of ethnic Russians in EU members Estonia and Latvia…

During the March of the Dissenters in Nizhny Novgorod, according to different sources, from 12 to 20 journalists were beaten. Five of them were foreign media staff: Remko Reiding, a correspondent for the Dutch Press Association; Ivan Sekretaryov, photographer for the Associated Press; Jelle Brandt Corstius, reporter for the Dutch newspaper Trow; Denis Sinyakov, photographer for Reuters; and Joseph Sywenkyj, a photographer for The New York Times. Seventeen journalists were detained. Police took the journalists to the police station and kept them there for a few hours before releasing them. Five of those detained work for foreign media.

In Moscow, eleven journalists were detained and four beaten. Naoya Sugio from the Japanese newspaper Mainiti simbun sustained a head injury. A policeman from OMON (the police department for special operations) hit the journalist with a baton even though Sugio was wearing his journalist’s identity card, given to him by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The journalist had to go to the hospital afterwards for stitches. Two other members of the foreign media , Alexander Bekhterev and David El from ZDF, the German broadcasting company, were detained.

In St. Petersburg, eleven correspondents were arrested and seven beaten. Two of those journalists, Thomas Peter of Reuters and Schtefan Schtukhlic from ARD Broadcasting Co. in Germany, were beaten.

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Systematic Denial of Press Freedoms

As a rule, foreign journalists in Russia enjoy much more press freedom than their local colleagues, who are strictly limited by censorship, which has recently flourished in the local media. Nevertheless, Russian authorities have developed ways of sidelining the most inquisitive reporters from other countries.

One such way is the denial of entry visas or accreditation. Thomas de Waal, a citizen of Great Britain, could not enter the Russian Federation last year in accordance with point 1 of Article 27 of Russia's Federal Law, which bars entry to foreign citizens on national security grounds.

The Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) invited de Waal to present his book on the conflict in Nagorny-Karabakh (a region in the South Caucasus, and the source of a dispute between the republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which culminated in war in 1988-1994). Besides Nagorny-Karabakh, in the past 14 years de Waal has written extensively on the war in Chechnya (the Russian republic located in the Northern Caucasus Mountains whose territory, since 1991, has been locked in an ongoing struggle between Chechen rebels fighting for independence and Russian federal military forces). From 1993 to 1997, de Waal worked in Russia, covering North Caucasus for The Moscow Times and The Times of London. Then, de Waal wrote a book entitled Chechnya: A Small Victorious War, and in 2003 he testified as an expert witness for the defense at the extradition trial in Great Britain of Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev.

An interview with another Chechen rebel leader, Shamil Basayev, in July 2005 cost accreditation in Russia to a whole television network, -- ABC. Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky, employed by the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, passed copies of his interview to several foreign TV companies, including ABC. The broadcaster’s accreditation in Russia has not yet been renewed.

These are just a few examples of the Kremlin’s attempts to hide Chechnya and other turbulent Russian regions from foreign media. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) has never publicized the number of accreditation rejections for journalists and media companies from other countries. The Moscow-based media watchdog Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations counted over 30 journalists and companies that have been denied accreditation since 2000, but these are published cases only. Moreover, once a journalist denied accreditation, it is unlikely that he or she will have it granted in the future.

On March 29, 2006, police in the northeastern Dagestani city of Khasavyurt (in the North Caucasus) detained American freelance journalist Kelly McEvers. She was taken to the Khasavyurt Interior Ministry headquarters, where police officers and Federal Security Service (FSB) agents questioned her for ten hours about her research on terrorism in Dagestan. They confiscated her camera, audio tape recorder, computer disks and notebook. McEvers was released in the early morning on the next day.

Upon returning to Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, the journalist was detained again. Police took her to the Makhachkala Interior Ministry’s Directorate for Battling Organized Crime and questioned her. The investigators were particularly interested in the names of McEvers’ local sources; they even presented printouts of her mobile phone conversations, trying to learn with whom she had been talking. The investigators threatened the journalist with a charge of engaging in “terrorist activity” for allegedly having information about an ambush against a Russian military convoy in the Nozhai Yurt district of Chechnya in 2005. Police also searched the local apartment where McEvers was staying and again confiscated her notebook.

Although McEvers had never been to Chechnya, the Interior Ministry officials and prosecutors in Makhachkala questioned her for ten hours the next day, and then interrogated her local interpreter. The following day the journalist received all of her possessions and headed back to Washington, D.C.

Before her trip to Dagestan, McEvers had been making unsuccessful attempts for six weeks to get a journalist’s visa from MID. She then went to Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku, where she acquired a Russian business visa. On her previous trip to North Caucasus in 2005, she was accredited. That year she published two critical articles on the policies of the Russian Federal government in North Caucasus in Slate magazine.

As a rule, Russian authorities don’t report on the reasons for rejecting accreditation to foreign journalists. However MID claims that the only reason for denial of accreditation to journalists is their violation of the law on reporting from areas where counter-terrorism operations are taking place, in this case the North Caucasus.

De Waal has made few trips to the North Caucasus over the last few years, but he always had accreditation. Carlotta Goll, another author of Chechnya: A Small Victorious War, was denied a visa after the book release. For her trips she used a business visa.

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Reporting from the Field Strictly Monitored

During the military campaigns in Chechnya (1994-1995 and 1999-2000) reporting from the field was extremely difficult, particularly for foreign correspondents. At that time the military was allowing only two Western media outlets (BBC and The New York Times) access to its troops. All others who asked were rebuffed.

On December 28, 1999, David Filipov from The Boston Globe; Daniel Williams from The Washington Post; Marcus Warren of The Electronic Telegraph; Rodriguez Fernandez of Spain's El Pais; Ricardo Ortego of Spanish Antenna 3 TV; and Ortego's camera operator, Teimuraz Gabashvili, went to Ingushetia (the neighboring republic of Chechnya). They were in two cars driven by two local men. The group showed its Foreign Ministry accreditations at all of the seven checkpoints en route to Chechnya’s capital, Grozny. All of the troops let the journalists through. Outside Grozny, a group of fighters loyal to Beslan Gantemirov (the leader of the Chechen militia) stopped them and offered to take the reporters to the front lines.

The correspondents were reporting from the front line town of Staraya Sunzha when Gabashvili pulled out his TV camera and started shooting footage. At that point the whole group was detained. The journalists were held until a helicopter arrived to take them to Mozdok (a town in the neighboring republic of North Ossetia), where they were questioned for about nine hours and then released.

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Local Journalists Key to Covering the Region; Face Frustration and Danger

When the first Chechen war began (in 1994), western media started to hire local journalists to cover conflicts and acts of terrorism in the North Caucasus. The work of those journalists is still the most challenging. Western media companies tend to hire the most professional Russian reporters. Having good experience and access to a wide range of sources in the field, they are able to report broadly. However, these journalists often become the thorns in the sides of authorities or security services.

In August 2004, FSB agents in Vladikavkaz (the North Ossetian capital, in the North Caucasus) raided the apartment and the office of Yury Bagrov, the Russian reporter covering the North Caucasus for the Associated Press. The agents presented a court order authorizing them to search for weapons, ammunition, drugs, and forgery-related items. They confiscated Bagrov’s passport and other personal documents, personal and work computers, computer disks, film, tape recorder and tapes, and his wife’s diaries. The agents raided the apartment of the journalist’s mother as well. Several unidentified men followed the journalist for several days after the raid. All of this happened a few days before the presidential elections in Chechnya, when Russian authorities sought ways to hide voting irregularities.

In December 2004, the Leninsky Court convicted Bagrov on criminal charges of knowingly using falsified documents to obtain Russian citizenship. (Having moved to North Ossetia from the neighboring republic of Georgia, Bagrov received a Russian passport and Russian citizenship in 2003). The journalist appealed the verdict in January before the Supreme Court of North Ossetia but lost the appeal.

In February 2005, FSB issued a document stating that Bagrov was "residing illegally in the Russian Federation," and that the Leninsky Court in Vladikavkaz would issue an order regarding his deportation. However, officers from the local migration service told journalists that they couldn’t find a legal basis for his deportation. Soon after Bagrov distributed this information through the media, both Russian and foreign, the MVD press office declared that the journalist was allowed to stay in Russia and restored his citizenship.

Meanwhile, Bagrov received death threats, and was prevented from reporting by local authorities. Lacking identity documents, the journalist was unable to travel outside Vladikavkaz until he received a residence permit in October 2005. The local passport service could not issue the new passport for Bagrov since the old one, which was locked in the court’s archive for three years, had to be provided in order for this action to be taken. Finally, in March 2007, FSB issued another ban on Bagrov’s citizenship restoration, because he allegedly provided some false information.

Bagrov’s reporting on the war in Chechnya has earned him a reputation among journalists as one of the top local stringers working in the North Caucasus conflict zone. Bagrov has reported for the Associated Press, and for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, writing numerous stories that included closely held casualty figures for Russian military and police forces in Chechnya. Such information sometimes differed from the figures provided by Russian officials. The journalist is also known for investigative reporting on Chechen rebels and abductions in the southern republic of Ingushetia.

Fatima Tlisova, a correspondent for The Associated Press in the North Caucasus, was poisoned in October 2006 after she covered the militant raid on Nalchik (the capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic in Caucasus) in Russian and foreign media. The raid left 25 policemen, 12 civilians and 92 militants dead. Tlisova mentioned in her reports that the arrested militants were tortured. She regularly received anonymous death threats, and in October 2005 an unknown person entered her apartment while she was away. After Tlisova had coffee at home and used some cosmetics, she experienced kidney failure and skin started to peel from her face. One month later the journalist became ill again and lost consciousness after drinking tea. As a result, Tlisova was forced into exile in the U.S. in March 2007.

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Dealing with Russian Institutions

The majority of foreign journalists and media in Russia are operating in Moscow. Roughly 327 media companies from outside Russia are represented in this city. Twenty-five of them are American.

The most difficult institutions to deal with for journalists in Russia are the Ministries of Foreign and Internal Affairs, FSB, and the law enforcement agencies. MID may refuse to give or extend visas, and denies accreditation. If a journalist travels to Russian “hot spots,” the staff of the Internal Affairs Ministry and FSB may stop him or her for a papers check, and if the journalist fails to present accreditation, he or she may get into big trouble.

Russian security forces, are well known for their closeness to both the public and the media. It is always difficult to learn anything from them, especially information on their own actions. Nevertheless, even this institution can sometimes be exceptionally permissive. The most remarkable instance of the FSB and Kremlin’s permissiveness occurred in October 2002, when armed Chechen militants, who claimed allegiance to the separatist movement in Chechnya, seized a crowded Moscow theater. The terrorists held 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from the territory of their republic. Russian security forces encircled the building, and didn’t let anyone except several chosen negotiators close to it, until a salvage operation on the third day of the crisis.

Mark Franchetti, a British journalist for The Sunday Times, managed to learn the mobile phone number of one of the hostages and passed a message to the Chechen rebels, suggesting that he would come talk to them. Chechens in the theater requested that Franchetti come for the talks, along with two Red Cross representatives. Sergey Yastrezhembsky, an aid to the Russian president, and the security forces let the journalist enter the theater with a TV camera. Franchetti went into the seized building and shot a 20-minute interview with Chechen rebel Movsar Barayev. Then the journalist passed the rebels’ message to Russian authorities, and later produced a 45-minute documentary on the crisis. Because of his cooperation, the FSB press service opened its doors to Franchetti.

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies remain almost inaccessible to the media, unless there is an officially organized press conference on some significant occasion. Many foreign journalists believe that it doesn’t make sense for a foreign reporter to strive for interviews with pro-government Russian officials because they are not interested in foreign media, and even if they give interviews, they never say anything distinctive and worth a good story.

The way Russian authorities treat journalists often depends on the Russian officer’s professional level and general knowledge. In 2005, MVD in Chechnya and other Russian hot spots stopped a group of journalists from Russian Newsweek because the officers took the magazine’s English-language title to mean they were with American media. Although Russian Newsweek is a local company, only the intervention of FSB cleared the situation up and set the journalists free. Meantime, the same officers treated a British reporter very pleasantly.

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Foreign vs. Local Journalists: Advantages and Disadvantages

As to sources of information as a whole, there are certain areas which favor either foreign or local reporters and areas where it doesn’t make any difference. The military and troops are usually accessible to local journalists, but closed to foreign media. The NGOs, refugees, and migrants, on the other hand, fearing the local authorities, tend to be much more open with foreign journalists rather than with Russians. Few local orphanages and hospices open their doors to any journalist, unless these institutions are well-equipped and have professional staff, which is not common in this country.

Top government officials and the Russian political elite are mostly quite open to both local and foreign journalists. The major Russian news-wire, State-owned RIA Novosti, hosts daily press conferences and briefings for all types of media with state officials, the business community, and the cultural. Correspondents from other countries use these opportunities to access governmental institutions and their representatives.

Recent experiences in reporting from Russia prove that foreign journalists in Russia share not only access to information with their local colleagues, but also punishment from the authorities for reporting on the scene.

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