Glasnost defence foundation digest No. 540

10 October 2011

TOPIC OF THE WEEK

Anna Politkovskaya was killed five years ago

Anna Politkovskaya, commentator for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was killed on the stairs of her apartment block in Moscow on 7 October 2006. Security cameras recorded a young man in a baseball cap walking out the entrance door and going away.

Since then, authorities have more than once pledged the murder will be solved shortly, and that all the criminals – from the killer to the mastermind – have been identified and their arrest and conviction are only a matter of time. At one point, the case even went all the way to court, but a jury panel passed the “wrong” verdict.

Today, they are again saying the crime is almost solved, that new suspects are being questioned and that official charges will be brought against them one of these days. However, the names of those “new suspects” were already mentioned during the previous trial, and some of them even sat in the dock.

Therefore, one cannot be sure the investigators have finally done their work well, that the suspects’ guilt will be convincingly proven and the perpetrators will be duly punished at long last.

We all remember that a year after Politkovskaya’s murder, the general prosecutor reported to the president about “significant progress” in the investigation. And Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin said at the time that “there are serious reasons to believe the killers have been identified”. One year later, the general prosecutor’s office endorsed an indictment and the case was submitted to court, which, however, acquitted the accused. At the annual rally in Politkovskaya’s memory in 2009, political writer Viktor Shenderovich said, “This crime will be solved when the killers cease belonging to the ruling elite.” And last year, Bastrykin told a delegation of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists about his intention to persuade the government of one of the European states to have a suspected killer of Anna Politkovskaya arrested and extradited to Russia for prosecution...

The world, meanwhile, has not forgotten the murdered Russian journalist. International actions in her memory have been held regularly, and impunity for her killers has been repeatedly highlighted as a factor conducive to continuing murders of journalists in Russia. At special PACE hearings in Strasbourg timed to the anniversary of Politkovskaya’s killing, Thomas Hammarberg, the CE Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that reporters’ killers get duly punished only occasionally, whereas in most cases the executors and masterminds of crimes against journalists manage to get away. Journalists’ killings remain undisclosed because people linked to the ruling elite are behind them, i.e. those “linked with big capital and the underworld”.

“Lack of protection is probably the most serious press freedom problem at present, since being a journalist is more dangerous than ever today,” Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, said. She also pointed to the fact that Russia is the OSCE member state where the number of media workers killed is the largest.

EVENT OF THE WEEK

“Media Conflicts in Russia” database presented

The Glasnost Defence Foundation, RF Journalists’ Union and International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) presented a new database, “Media Conflicts in Russia”, in Moscow on 4 October.

The new web resource gives PC users the opportunity to independently appraise the status of journalists and media in Russia. The database registers by far not each type of pressure on media workers but only those which the developers thought to be the most important – which does not mean, though, that this list cannot be expanded in the future, if need be. So far, the database features six types of media rights violations: attacks, instances of censorship, detention by police, FSB, etc., criminal prosecution, unlawful dismissals, and threats. The database allows the user to quickly find required information: it is classified by the type of violation, region, time and other parameters.

The data contained have been gathered in the process of monitoring press rights violations and are based to a considerable extent on our correspondents’ reports from different regions of the Russian Federation. These reports are particularly valuable not only due to their exclusiveness but also because first-hand local information gives a clearer and more objective idea about the media’s position all across Russia, not only in the larger cities. Also, they enable rights defenders to promptly interfere in conflicts and facilitate their settlement.

While not claiming to reflect all incidents without exception, the new database contains information that is sufficient for purposes of analysing situations and identifying trends.

The database builds on the work which the Glasnost Defence Foundation has conducted since 1993, when we started monitoring media rights violations as the basic element of our efforts to defend the rights of journalists and media. That year saw the release of a collection entitled “Harassment of Journalists and Media on the Former USSR Territory in 1993”, which was annually followed by others, until the end of the 1990s. Later we started posting monitoring results on our website. The list of rights violations was compiled based on the work of our lawyers, and has since been constantly expanded to more accurately reflect existing trends. Featured below in this Digest is one such list that we publish on a monthly basis.

After the IFJ presented its “Partial Justice” report in June 2009 based on information gathered by the GDF and Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations, we launched a database on journalists who had died or gone missing in Russia. Eventually, the project partners decided to expand the list of conflicts, since killings are by far not the only method of putting pressure on journalists. We included five other types of pressure that we thought were the most dangerous ones, and later added threats against journalists: analysis shows attacks and killings are often preceded by threats.

One of the project’s main goals is to fight impunity for the perpetrators of crimes against the press. The database makes it possible to monitor conflicts in progress (such as investigations of attacks on journalists, the lodging of criminal charges against them, as well as unlawful dismissals and instances of censorship). In the future, we plan to file official inquiries about investigation progress and measures taken to undo injustices. Media community appeals should help bring the law enforcement agencies’ performance under more stringent public control; also, they would be an instrument to galvanize law enforcers into action.

The database already includes data on incidents that have occurred in 2009-2011. We are now busy feeding into it the relevant data for 2005-2008. Database information may be useful not only to professional journalists but also to law enforcers, human rights activists, bloggers, analysts and university students of journalism. The database on the harassment of journalists and media in Russia may be of interest to other countries too, and not only to ex-Soviet states. It has reportedly been requested by PC users in Mexico and Serbia.

RUSSIA

Republic of Dagestan. Police interferes with journalists’ work

By Magomed Magomedov, GDF correspondent in North Caucasian Federal District

Two journalists were detained on 4 October while covering a picketing action outside the Sovetsky district police headquarters in Dagestan capital Makhachkala.

Ruslan Alibekov, a photo correspondent for the Chernovik newspaper, and local internet TV cameraman Boris Alibulatov were taking pictures of the proceedings when they were detained by police officers. The picketers, about 50 persons, were demanding the release of participants in a rally against corruption that had been held one day earlier – on the day when Russia’s Internal Affairs Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev happened to be visiting Dagestan. The police officers detained Alibekov and Alibulatov toward the end of the picketing action, looked through the photo pictures and video footage, erased part of the material, and released the journalists.

Omsk Region. Editor of one of Russia’s best district newspapers dismissed

By Georgy Borodyansky, GDF correspondent in Siberian Federal District

Alexander Belash, acting head of the Omsk Region’s Main Department for the Press, TV/Radio Broadcasting and Public Communications, has ordered the dismissal of Marina Yeliseyeva, editor of the Tarskoye Priirtyshye (TP) newspaper. He terminated the editor’s contract without offering any explanation or alternative employment option.

She had known she might be fired, Yeliseyeva told the GDF correspondent. In late June, after Governor Leonid Polezhayev’s working visit to Tara, she was urgently summoned by his chief of staff Vladimir Radul, who told her that the district head, Mr Zuikov, had complained about her newspaper’s deviating from the course charted by the district and regional administrations.

He had cited the same reason 18 months ago, when removing from the editor’s seat Sergey Malgavko, Marina’s husband, with whom she had once established Tarskoye Priirtyshye – a newspaper that has become unrivalled among not only the district but also the regional media, and one of the best newspapers in Russia. It has a circulation of 10,000 (with the number of households in the district being roughly the same, it is read actually by everyone in the area of its distribution); it is self-sufficient economically (with the average staffer earning 19,000 roubles per month); and it is well equipped technically (office vehicles, computers, etc. are all of top brands).

Its sole “fault” is its unwillingness to follow the ruling party’s course. Generally, Yeliseyeva is said to have failed to justify the district and regional rulers’ hopes – and this despite her newspaper’s winning six times in the journalistic competition “Siberia: A Territory of Hope”, the last time a few days before Marina was urged to resign voluntarily. If she did, V. Radul promised she would be allowed to stay as a deputy editor or be employed as a correspondent for what he called “the region’s number one newspaper” (with a circulation half as large as TP’s).

Yeliseyeva, however, said no to the region’s chief propagandists; the latter, though, were in no hurry to sign their long-since-ready order on her dismissal because memories of the scandal triggered by the firing of Marina’s husband last year were too fresh on people’s minds. The decision was finally signed by A. Belash, the new acting department head, apparently a man with the unwavering hand.

Here is a quote from his address to district newspaper editors.

“I am specially stressing that the theme of the regional government’s assize sitting in a municipal district [the district of Tara] should not overshadow reports about Governor L. Polezhayev’s activities; it may receive extensive coverage (on two to three pages of a district newspaper) in the light of Governor Polezhayev’s activities… We recommend that each report on Governor Polezhayev’s working visit and the regional government’s assize sitting be coordinated with the Main Department’s district media unit.”

Having read this address, Valentin Kuznetsov, head of the regional Human Rights Committee, concluded that it signals the open introduction of censorship in the Omsk Region. This, in his view, is why both editors of Tarskoye Priirtyshye have been fired.

Chelyabinsk. Who needs courtroom silence?

By Irina Gundareva, GDF correspondent in Urals Federal District

The regional court in Chelyabinsk is concerned over potential pressure on jurors in the “trial of the century” over a group of drug traffickers that may be exerted in connection with what are seen as “excessively categorical media assessments” of the case.

The three men in the dock – Latif Saidkhodzhayev, Mukhib Ironov and Maruf Ironov – are facing charges of illegal keeping and carrying of arms; unlawful detention of two persons by a criminal group resorting to violence; robbery-related assault resulting in grave bodily damage inflicted on the victims; homicide; and attempted homicide. At the defendants’ request, the case is to be considered by a jury panel.

The accused are rich and enormously influential individuals. The 187-kg batch of heroin they were attempting to smuggle when caught red-handed belonged to a relative of a high-ranking government official from Tajikistan, the Yekaterinburg-based “City without Drugs” foundation said. Before Yevgeny Roizman, the foundation’s president, posted a LiveJournal appeal to the media for help in covering the judicial proceedings, Chelyabinsk journalists had known nothing about such a resounding case being under consideration in the regional court. And getting accreditation to cover the trial turned out difficult. The journalists wondered who might be interested in hushing up a judicial case as important as this one, in which the drug dealers had once been acquitted already. Reporters’ independent conclusions went into their press reports.

The press service of the regional court rushed to protest this kind of publications on the pretext of “care for the jurors’ peace of mind”. “In spite of the judge’s calls on the jurors to disregard media comments on the case under consideration, one cannot rule out those publications may impact the verdict to be returned,” regional court spokeswoman Alyona Verigo said.

Khabarovsk. Alleged underworld king claims moral damages from journalists

By Olga Vasilyeva, GDF correspondent in Far Eastern Federal District

The Khabarovsk Region arbitration court has accepted a legal claim lodged against the Khabarovsky Ekspress (KE) newspaper and its authors Konstantin Pronyakin and Irina Kharitonova by the Tretye Marta Company, whose director Mikhail Timofeyev claims hurt by a February KE publication that he found libellous, smearing, and damaging to his business reputation and his relationships with partners.

“A good reputation is an asset that has to be valued, upheld and constantly improved,” Timofeyev wrote in his claim. He wants 95,000 roubles in moral damages plus 4,000 roubles to reimburse his payment of the state fee.

What kind of reputation is he concerned about, one may wonder. According to the KE article (which was based on reports of other media and statements by officers of the regional police department’s unit investigating organised crime ring and gangster activities), Timofeyev is the leader of a large underworld gang who was on the police wanted list on charges of money extortion from taxi drivers amid a criminal group, with four criminal cases brought against him in that connection. He was finally arrested together with his accomplices, and officially accused of extortion under Article 163 of the RF Criminal Code. According to police operatives, only one of the nine (sic!) gangs under Timofeyev’s control has been arrested, the rest are still at large. Each group has its own specialisation, from beating money out of debtors and providing protection to businessmen for pay to carrying out prepaid murders and removing competitors. The detained gang put the squeeze on taxi drivers, collecting 2,000 to 3,000 roubles per vehicle in monthly kickback. It was taxi drivers (specifically, from the Khabarovsk Taxi Association) who were the first to report extortion practices to the police.

The article featured many details which police operatives had shared with the journalists. But Timofeyev claimed hurt by only two statements – that the Moisei sports club was described as a “closed” facility (joining it without appropriate recommendations was thought impossible), and that each table in the Grey Horse café “might be bugged”.

“That’s not true!” Timofeyev protested. “’Moisei’ has never been a closed club; moreover, many town celebrities from the number of big businessmen and law enforcement officers worked out there in different years… And the Grey Horse tables are simply equipped with buttons for calling the waiters. The place is visited by respectable and renowned Khabarovsk townspeople and guests from other cities and even foreign countries, as well as by distinguished cultural personalities and movie stars.”

The KE publication caused numerous phone calls from indignant customers, and a week later the café was closed in view of no one at all coming to dine there.

As the GDF has reported, a total of six legal claims have been lodged in Khabarovsk against Pronyakin and Kharitonova by former civil servants, one active army general and one State Duma deputy – all of them claiming hurt by other publications by the two authors, and each demanding half a million roubles in moral damages. The “underworld king”, as investigators have labelled Timofeyev, appears to be far more reserved in his thirst for “easy” money.

Krasnodar Region. Revenge for criticism

By Victoria Tashmatova, GDF correspondent in Southern Federal District

A whole 46 legal claims have been lodged over the past few years against the Maksimum-Korenovsk (MK) public and political newspaper issued in the Korenovsky district of Krasnodar Region.

As she was starting her newspaper business a few years ago, editor Tatyana Tereshchenko could hardly ever imagine that her newspaper would soon find itself in the epicentre of district public and political life. At the outset, local authorities accepted the emergence of an independent media outlet quietly: why interfere, it’s doomed anyway… Contrary to their expectations, the newspaper started to quickly gain popularity by reporting on socially significant matters without asking local rulers’ permission.

Problems began piling up pretty soon, after MK published a story entitled “Democratic Outrage in a Single Municipal District”, critically assessing the election race in which the incumbent district head, Vladimir Rudnik, had won. According to the lady editor, she had a phone call from the district administration warning that they would do everything to get her newspaper shut down. The critical publication triggered a torrent of readers’ letters citing a variety of appalling law violations. Most of those reports, cross-checked and confirmed, were then published in the newspaper, Tereshchenko said. The more sharp-tongued MK became, the more problem-laden its staff’s life grew. Virtually any critical publication was followed by a legal claim lodged against Maksimum-Korenovsk – easy to guess, by entities somehow or other controlled by the district administration.

The way the editor sees it, this record number of legal claims is indicative of local rulers’ attempts to revenge themselves on her newspaper for criticism. The goal is simple enough: the avalanche of claims should exhaust the journalists morally, stifle the media outlet financially, and lead to its eventual closure in court as a newspaper “regularly violating the Media Law”.

The independent newspaper’s operation has been a headache for the district administration because of the public image losses suffered by the district head. It so happens that everything that the official district newspaper writes, and the numerous multicolour booklets regularly issued in the district, are read by local residents in the critical light of MK publications. A great deal of that “official stuff” is only a beautiful picture that has nothing at all to do with real life, journalists say. Knee-deep in this heap of legal claims, Tatyana Tereshchenko, however, does not intend to give up the proclaimed format of her newspaper. On the contrary, she said, MK’s position as a public auditor will keep growing stronger. The editor does not rule out that local administrators may with time find themselves compelled to perform as defendants.

Krasnodar Region. First, they sent editor to jail

See also GDF Digest 500

By Victoria Tashmatova, GDF correspondent in Southern Federal District

A 7 July 2011 decision of the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district court in Krasnodar declared the Primorsko-Akhtarskiye Vesti (PAV) newspaper’s registration certificate null and void. Legal proceedings had been started in the wake of an unplanned inspection carried out by the Roskomnadzor [federal service overseeing public communications] Department for the Krasnodar Region and Adygei Republic. As can be gathered from the case files, the inspection was intended to check “PAV’s compliance with legislation regulating the media performance”. It resulted in the finding that PAV’s registration certificate mentioned agriculture as the approximate subject area the newspaper intended to cover, and that several PAV issues in 2010 and 2011 “featured stories on topics unrelated to the subject area specified in the registration certificate”. In this connection, the plaintiff asked the court to cancel the registration of the media outlet established by pensioner Anastasia Baranova.

Since neither the defendant nor his representatives appeared in court, the claim was considered in their absence. The point is that the same court had confined PAV editor Baranova one year earlier to a correctional labour colony, where she is still serving her term. Surprisingly, Baranova, 65, has continued all this time to perform the editor’s functions, running her newspaper from the colony and making sure that PAV issues – carrying as sharp-tongued criticism of district authorities as ever – are duly delivered to the subscribers. The way she sees it, she has been targeted by those whom she censured in her publications. The Primorsko-Akhtarsky district is know as one of the most depressive and politicised parts of the Kuban River area.

With reference to Article 15.1.1 of the Media Law, which stipulates that a media outlet’s registration certificate may be cancelled if obtained by deception, Judge I. Gritsenko ruled to satisfy Roskomnadzor’s legal claim.

However, the ruling failed to specify what the plaintiff perceives as “deceptive elements” in the editor’s behaviour. A news medium may be registered by any Russian citizen over 18 years of age, which procedure does not even require presentation of an education certificate. You just pay the registration fee of 5,000-6,000 roubles and go ahead, issue a newspaper of your own. You may not register at all if your newspaper will be printed in up to 999 copies! There is no need to deceive anyone with such a system in place.

The court ruling also fails to justify the assertion about PAV’s having gone beyond its subject area of agriculture – there is no expert study of the themes covered, and it is unclear during what period of time the newspaper covered allegedly “wrong” themes.

The editor believes the court decision is a graphic proof of somebody’s strong distaste for her newspaper.

“Newspapers that no one needs are released in the Krasnodar Region in huge numbers and paid for with budgetary funds for only one reader – the district head whose photo portraits are featured on all the four pages,” Baranova said in a conversation with the GDF correspondent. “However, no one has ever called for shutting them down on the grounds that they fail to meet public interest, as pledged in their charters. First, they sent me to jail, and now they have closed my newspaper on trumped-up charges. I will challenge that ruling, however difficult this may be, considering my confined position.”

GLASNOST DEFENCE FOUNDATION

Conflicts registered by GDF Monitoring Service on RF territory in September 2011

Attacks on journalists – 8 (Yevgeniya Kurilyonok, editor-in-chief, Inside newspaper, Voronezh; crew of REN TV reporters, Moscow; Alexander Singurov, editor-in-chief, Novoshakhtinskaya Pravda newspaper, Rostov Region; crew of reporters for Katun 24 TV channel, Altai Region; Alexander Fyodorov, reporter for Pskov Newsline, Pskov Region; Omar Magomedov, correspondent, NTV North Caucasian office, Makhachkala; Maxim Polyakov, cameraman, Den TV show, Republic of Komi; Dmitry Tayevsky, editor-in-chief, Babr.ru website, Irkutsk).

Attacks on newspaper offices, TV centres – 2 (Inside newspaper, Воронеж; Novokuznetskoye Independent Television, Channel 10, Kemerovo Region).

Instances of censorship – 7 (media in Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria; Krasny Uralets newspaper, Chelyabinsk Region; Channel One, Moscow; Verstov.info website, Chelyabinsk Region; Avangard newspaper, Akrkhangelsk Region; media in Perm Region; Moskva-24 TV channel, Moscow).

Criminal charges against journalists and media – 1 (Sergey Rogozhuk, editor-in-chief, Argumenty Nedeli – Severo-Zapad newspaper, Pskov).

Illegal sacking of editor/journalist – 5 (Olga Dubrovina, editor, Stepniye Izvestia newspaper, Samara Region; Marina Shishkina, dean of St. Petersburg University School of Journalism, St. Petersburg; Anatoly Babikov, editor, Tribuna newspaper, Kurgan Region; Yelena Ponomaryova, editor-in-chief, Avangard newspaper, Arkhangelsk Region; Vladimir Yermishev, correspondent, Selskiye Vesti newspaper, Republic of Mordovia).

Detention by police, FSB, etc. – 5 (Ruslan Alibekov, photo correspondent, Chernovik newspaper, and Zakir Magomedov, freelance journalist, both of Makhachkala, Dagestan; film crew of Yurgan TV channel, Republic of Komi; Alexei Ovchinnikov, correspondent, Vzglyad-Info news agency, Saratov; Nikolai Kirillov, reporter, Vechernyaya Ryazan newspaper, Ryazan).

Legal claims against journalists and media, registered – 16, worth a total of 28,082,000 roubles.

Denial of access to information (including bans on audio/video recording and photography; denials of accreditation; restrictions on visits to or presence at events held in government agencies, at industrial enterprises, in state institutions, etc.) – 28.

Threats against journalists and media – 7 (staffers of TLTgorod.ru web portal, Samara Region; Alexander Singurov, editor-in-chief, Novoshakhtinskaya Pravda newspaper, Rostov Region; Sergey Vasyanin, editor-in-chief, Nashe Vremya TV show (REN TV v Penze); Yaroslav Kozulin, correspondent, Caucasian Knot news agency, Moscow; Maxim Polyakov, cameraman, Den TV show, Republic of Komi; Sergey Orlov, journalist, Ufimsky Zhurnal web magazine, Ufa; Dmitry Tayevsky, editor-in-chief, Babr.ru website, Irkutsk).

Attempts to expel media outlets from leased offices – 1 (Selskaya Nov newspaper, Khabarovsk Region).

Closure of media – 2 (Kuryer Karelii newspaper, Petrozavodsk, Karelia; TV7 magazine, Moscow).

Withdrawal (purchase, seizure) of print run – 3 (Krasny Uralets newspaper, Chelyabinsk Region; Gubernsky Vestnik and Levy Marsh newspapers, both of Ulyanovsk).

Interference with web publications – 2 (Pravoye Delo party website; Ufimsky Zhurnal magazine, Ufa).

Release of duplicate (i.e., rival) newspapers – 2 (Trudovaya Samara newspaper, Samara; Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Moscow).

Confiscation of/damage to photo, video and audio apparatus or computers – 1 (camera of REN TV film crew, Moscow).

Administrative pressure (unplanned sanitary, fire or tax inspections) - 3 (Tamsk State TV/Radio Company, Tomsk; website of ChelNovosti.ru news agency, and Gennady Dontsov, editor-in-chief, Yuzhnouralets newspaper, Chelyabinsk Region).

Other forms of pressure or infringement of journalists’ rights – 22.

***

Last week, the Glasnost Defence Foundation was referred to at least 25 times in the internet, including at:

• Euronews: Glasnost Defence Foundation President: “Impunity can and must be fought”
• Deutsche Welle: Web portal launched featuring data about journalist rights violations in Russia
• BBC Russian Service: Information about journalist rights violations in Russia fed into database
• RIA Novosti: Russia gets database on incidents with journalists and media
• Vesti-Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria: Natalya Yusupova’s show “Journalists against Arbitrariness”
• Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Russian journalism’s battered face
• Moskovsky Komsomolets: Victimized journalists counted
• NTD television company: Journalists claim protection against violations of their rights
• 36.оn Ru: Russia gets first database on journalist rights violations
• Lenizdat.ru: Database on incidents with journalists and media compiled in Russia
• Caucasian Knot: New database on journalist rights violations presented in Moscow
• Irinagundareva.com: IFJ: Don’t kill journalists!
• RAPSI: Journalists and judges break “formula of mistrust”

OUR PUBLICATIONS

Urals journalists want Roskomnadzor to explain what is allowed for writing in chat forum comments and what is not

By Vladimir Golubev, GDF correspondent in Urals Federal District

The URA.ru web news agency has requested Roskomnadzor’s (see clear-cut instructions as to what “extremism” actually means as applied to internet postings. In a 4 October message sent to Roskomnadzor head Sergey Sitnikov and his colleague at the Sverdlovsk Region level, Marina Gvozdetskaya, the news agency explained that in the process of reviewing comments left by visitors on the agency website’s chat forum, staffers are compelled to independently decide whether or not a comment bears signs of extremism or abuse of freedom of expression. Judicial authorities often rely on the results of expert studies of questionable texts, whereas Roskomnadzor actually offers journalists to assess the legality or illegality of online chat forum comments at their own discretion.

Under the law, Roskomnadzor oversees all information published in the media, including readers’ comments. In the event of coming across a comment “abusing media freedom”, the service warns the relevant media editor of the need to remove such comment from the website. The Sverdlovsk Region branch of Roskomnadzor had regularly asked URA.ru to remove certain comments until it finally asked the news agency to independently monitor readers’ postings. Since this work is associated with certain difficulties, the journalists requested detailed instructions.

“Sometimes, it is difficult to see at first glance whether or not a comment abuses media freedom,” they wrote in their message. “Readers post over a thousand chat forum comments per day, of which 20 to 30 percent look ‘doubtful’. Agency staffers are compelled several hundred times a day to independently decide whether or not a text contains extremist statements.”

“Roskomnadzor would substantially help journalists abide by the law by providing a list of clear and comprehensible instructions for us to be guided by when deciding whether to publish or ban a comment,” the message said. “Since your service regularly notifies our news agency of the need to remove ‘media freedom-abusing’ comments from our website, we may suppose Roskomnadzor does have this kind of internal instructions at its disposal. If published, they would help not only URA.ru but also hundreds of other web-based media bearing responsibility for their readers’ actions. Besides, making public such a document would make it possible to clearly differentiate between law observance oversight and censorship.” The message was signed by URA.ru editor-in-chief Aksana Panova.

The GDF has sent Roskomnadzor head Sergey Sitnikov a message of support for its Urals colleagues.

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