Although their documents were completely in order, ORF (Austrian public channel) journalist Susanne Scholl and her team have been arrested on the 24th of november in Chechnya.
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November 30, 2006The media rights group Reporters Without Borders has called for an international inquiry into the murder of Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya.
Politkovskaya was gunned down in Moscow last month. The Russian Prosecutor-General’s office, which is in charge of the investigation, says it is pursuing several possible motives.
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November 7, 2006Restrictions on civil liberties due to the “war on terrorism†have undermined media freedom in the United States and Russia over the past year, journalists’ rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) quoted by Reuters said.
RSF’s 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index released on Tuesday, a survey of censorship, intimidation and violence against journalists, found Finland, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands the most media-friendly. North Korea was last again.
Denmark fell from first last year to 19th after a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad sparked Muslim outrage and threats against reporters.
The United States fell nine places to 53rd in the survey of 168 countries, on a par with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga. It came 17th when the index was first compiled in 2002.
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October 27, 2006Condoleezza Rice on Saturday delivered a symbolic rebuke to Russia over shrinking press freedoms even as she courted President Vladimir Putin for help punishing Iran over its nuclear program, The Associated Press news agency reports.
Rice made a point of scheduling an interview with Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper where a Anna Politkovskaya had worked before her murder this month. Rice also met with the reporter’s son.
Rice’s one-day trip to Moscow followed talks in Asia last week over North Korea’s nuclear test on Oct. 9. Russia voted for U.N. penalties against North Korea after the test, and the United States is seeking Russian cooperation for an upcoming vote on sanctions against Iran.
Yet even before Rice arrived in the Russian capital, her Russian counterpart said Moscow will not allow the Security Council to be used for punitive measures against Iran. Russia, however, was ready to discuss ways to pressure Iran into accepting broader international oversight of its nuclear program, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
“Any measures of influence should encourage creating conditions for talks,†Lavrov said in an interview with the Kuwaiti News Agency KUNA that was posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry Web site Saturday.
“We won’t be able to support and will oppose any attempts to use the Security Council to punish Iran or use Iran’s program in order to promote the ideas of regime change there,†according to the interview Friday.
A draft resolution is expected to be introduced in the Security Council early this week, and diplomats have said they would seek limited penalties for Tehran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
Rice’s decision to meet with Novaya Gazeta editors and reporters was a reminder to Putin of the widening rift between Russia and the U.S. over what the Bush administration sees as a rollback of democratic gains under the Russian president.
She met privately with Putin later Saturday.
Previewing her message to the newspaper editors, Rice told reporters traveling with her that she wanted to speak to one of a shrinking number of “independent voices†in Russian media.
“The fate of journalists in Russia is a major concern,†Rice said. “Anna Politkovskaya was a particularly well-known and well-respected journalist so I think it’s important to note that.â€
Politkovskaya repeatedly had accused Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov’s security forces of abducting, torturing and killing innocent people. Her newspaper posthumously published her last story that described alleged torture by the Kremlin-backed Chechen security services.
Politkovskaya, a sharp critic of Putin and the conduct of the Kremlin and of Russia’s war in Chechnya, was found shot dead at her Moscow apartment building.
Since Putin’s election more than six years ago, he has presided over what critics have called a steady rollback in press freedoms won since the Soviet Union’s collapse. Top independent television stations have been shut down and print media are under growing pressure from officials.
Putin said the killers had done the Russian government no favor. The killing “inflicts much greater damage to the government than any of her writing,†he said after the killing.
The media rights group Reporters Without Borders has called Putin one of the world’s press freedom “predators.â€
Rice’s last Asian stop was in Beijing, North Korea’s traditional ally, where she met with a Chinese government envoy just back from a hastily arranged visit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
Rice said the envoy, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, told her nothing that confirmed news reports about conciliatory moves from the North.
“Councilor Tang did not tell me that Kim Jong Il either apologized for the test or said that he would never test again,†Rice said, adding that she does not know the source of widely circulated South Korean media reports to the contrary.
“I don’t know whether or not Kim Jong Il said any such thing. But the Chinese … in a fairly thorough briefing to me about the talks, said nothing,†that confirms it, Rice said.
Lavrov, in the Kuwaiti interview, urged the U.S. and North Korea to settle issues such as U.S.-imposed financial restrictions in order to clear the way for international talks to resume on the North’s nuclear program.
“Both sides should show flexibility,†he said.
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October 24, 2006Reporters Without Borders today asked the French government to strip Russian leader Vladimir Putin of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour that President Chirac awarded him just one month ago, on 22 September, the RSF web-site reports.
The request was addressed to the Council of State and to Chirac, as Grand Master of the Order of the Legion of Honour.
“The Legion of Honour is France’s highest award and the Grand Cross is the highest rank within the order,†the press freedom organization said. “We think Vladimir Putin is not worthy of this decoration and for this reason we have asked President Chirac and the Council of State to withdraw it.â€
Reporters Without Borders continued: “It beggars belief that Putin has been given one of the greatest honors France can bestow on a person. A total of 21 journalists have been murdered in Russia with almost total impunity since he became president. Chechnya is black hole for news coverage. Putin waited 48 hours before making any comment about the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, one of the few journalists to cover the Chechen conflict, and then he chose to say ’her impact on Russian political life was minimal’.â€
The organization added: “The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Russia twice, in February 2005 and on 12 October 2006, for its actions in Chechnya. It is outrageous to say Putin has rendered service to causes that France defends. We do not recognize France’s fundamental values in Putin’s discourse — when he says, for example, that he wants to wipe out Chechen terrorists in the shit-house, or when he describes the independent press as means of mass disinformation and tools for combatting the state, or when he tells a French journalist who asks him about Chechnya to come and get circumcised in Moscow so nothing grows back.â€
Acclaimed internationally for her courage and professionalism as a journalist, Politkovskaya was gunned down in her central Moscow apartment building on 7 October. Aged 48, she had worked for the biweekly Novaya Gazeta since 1999. She was supposed to have handed in an article, with photos, about torture in Chechnya for the 9 October issue. It never arrived at the newspaper. In her last book, “Russia according to Putin,†published this year in France, she not only criticized atrocities in Chechnya but also corruption and human rights violations in Russia.
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October 21, 2006
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