Russian government censorship of Chechnya coverage
Encyclopedia
Since the start of the Second Chechen War
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....

 in 1999, Russian federal authorities are alleged to have implemented a plan to use legal and extralegal methods to limit media access to the conflict region.

Chechen conflict

The Russian government's control of all Russian television stations and its use of repressive rules, harassment, censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

, intimidation
Intimidation
Intimidation is intentional behavior "which would cause a person of ordinary sensibilities" fear of injury or harm. It's not necessary to prove that the behavior was so violent as to cause terror or that the victim was actually frightened.Criminal threatening is the crime of intentionally or...

 and attacks on journalists, including the kidnapping of Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky
Andrei Babitsky
Andrei Babitsky is a Russian journalist and war reporter, who has worked for Radio Liberty since 1989, covering the 1991 August Coup, Civil War in Tajikistan and, most notably, both Chechen Wars from behind Chechen lines...

 by the Russian military, almost completely deprived the Russian public of the independent information on the conflict. Local journalists in Chechnya face intense harassment and obstruction, while foreign journalists and media outlets are pressured into censoring their reports on the conflict, making it nearly impossible for journalists to provide balanced coverage of Chechnya.

Since 2001, with the headlines dominated by news of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the U.S.-led War on Terrorism
War on Terrorism
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

, the conflict has been almost completely forgotten by the international media. Few Russian journalists continue to cover the Chechen conflict, and even fewer dare to criticize the government, instead choosing self-censorship
Self-censorship
Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own work , out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities of others, without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority...

.

In 2005, the Duma passed the law making the journalists being able to have access to and publish information about terrorist attacks only with permission from those directing counter-terrorist operations. On August 2, 2005, responding to the airing of an interview with Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...

, Moscow banned journalists of the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 network from working in Russia.

In 2006, the Duma approved the Law on Fighting Extremist Activity, broadening the definition of "extremism
Extremism
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...

" to include media criticism of public officials and provide for imprisonment of up to three years for journalists and the suspension or closure of their publications. The law was used that same year to shut down the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society
Russian-Chechen Friendship Society
The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society was a Russian non-governmental organization monitoring the human rights situation in Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus. The society produced daily press releases on serious human rights violations...

 and convicted its executive director
Executive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...

 Stanislav Dmitrievsky of "extremist" activities.

Also in 2006, Moscow journalist Boris Stomakhin
Boris Stomakhin
Boris Vladimirovich Stomakhin is a Russian radical political activist, and editor of "Radical politics" periodical. He was convicted to five years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and making public appeals for extremist activity...

 was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of "inciting ethnic hatred" in his reports about the conflict in Chechnya. On 7 October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin...

, Russian journalist and political activist well known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and Russian authorities, was shot dead in Moscow in an apparent contract killing
Contract killing
Contract killing is a form of murder, in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for consideration, monetary, or otherwise. The hiring party may...

.

In March 2007, a Levada Center
Levada Center
Levada Center is a Russian independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organisation. It is named after its founder, the first Russian professor of sociology Yuri Levada . Levada Center traces back its history to 1987 when VCIOM was founded, originally headed by Academician...

 poll
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...

 asked Russians how they thought the situation in Chechnya was covered in the Russian media: 49 percent said they thought the coverage does not give a clear sense of what is happening, while 28 percent said it is not objective and "hides" the problems that exist there. Only 11 percent said they were happy with media coverage of Chechnya.

In September 2007, police and security forces in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia
Ingushetia
The Republic of Ingushetia is a federal subject of Russia , located in the North Caucasus region with its capital at Magas. In terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg...

 were issued orders to stop informing the media of any "incidents of a terrorist nature."

Practically all the local Chechen media are now under total control of the pro-Moscow Chechen government of Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is the President of Chechnya and a former Chechen rebel.Ramzan is a son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May 2004. In February 2007 Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as President, shortly after he had turned 30, which is the minimum age for the post...

.

Beslan hostage crisis

In several incidents reporters critical of the Russian government could not get to Beslan during the crisis. They included Andrey Babitsky, who was indicted on hooliganism
Hooliganism
Hooliganism refers to unruly, destructive, aggressive and bullying behaviour. Such behaviour is commonly associated with sports fans. The term can also apply to general rowdy behaviour and vandalism, often under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs....

 after a brawl with two men who picked a fight with him in the Moscow Vnukovo Airport and sentenced to a 15-day arrest. The late Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....

journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had negotiated during the 2002 Moscow siege, was twice prevented by the authorities from boarding a flight. When she eventually succeeded, she fell into a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...

 after being poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....

ed aboard an airplane bound to Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don
-History:The mouth of the Don River has been of great commercial and cultural importance since the ancient times. It was the site of the Greek colony Tanais, of the Genoese fort Tana, and of the Turkish fortress Azak...

.

According to the report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections...

 (OSCE), several correspondents were detained in Beslan (including Russians Anna Gorbatova and Oksana Semyonova from Novye Izvestia, Madina Shavlokhova from Moskovskij Komsomolets, Elena Milashina
Elena Milashina
Elena Milashina is a Russian investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta.In October 2009 she was awarded Human Rights Watch's Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism....

 from Novaya Gazeta, and Simon Ostrovskiy from The Moscow Times
The Moscow Times
The Moscow Times is an English-language daily newspaper published in Moscow, Russia since 1992. The circulation in 2008 stood at 35,000 copies and the newspaper is typically given out for free at places English-language "expats" attend, including hotels, cafés and restaurants, as well as by...

). Several foreign journalists were also briefly detained, including a group of foreign journalists from Polish Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper. It covers the gamut of political, international and general news. Like all the Polish newspapers, it is printed on compact-sized paper, and is published by the multimedia corporation Agora SA...

, French Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...

and British The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

. The chief of the Moscow bureau of the Arab TV channel Al Jazeera was framed into the possession of a round of ammunition at the airfield in Mineralnye Vody
Mineralnye Vody
Mineralnye Vody is a town in Stavropol Krai, Russia, which lies along the Kuma River and the main rail line between Rostov-on-Don and Baku . Population:...

.

Many foreign journalists were exposed to pressure from the security forces and the materials were confiscated from TV crews from ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...

 and ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

 (Germany), APTN
Associated Press Television News
Associated Press Television News, abbreviated as either AP Television News or APTN, is a global video news agency.-About:AP Television News is the video division of the Associated Press. It provides many of the world's broadcasters with a round-the-clock continuous feed of news, sports,...

 (USA), and Rustavi 2
Rustavi 2
Rustavi 2 Broadcasting Company , better known as Rustavi 2, is the most successful private television broadcasting company in Georgia. The Rustavi, based in Tbilisi, was founded in 1994 in the town of Rustavi. It is a privately owned free to air terrestrial broadcaster that currently reaches around...

 (Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

). The crew of Rustavi 2 was arrested; the Georgian Minister of Health said that the correspondent Nana Lezhava, who had been kept for fives days in the Russian pre-trial detention centers, had been poisoned with dangerous psychotropic drugs (like Politkovskaya, Lezhava passed out after being given a cup of tea). The crew from another Georgian TV channel Mze was expelled from Beslan.

Raf Shakirov, chief editor of the Izvestia
Izvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...

newspaper, was forced to resign after criticism by the major shareholders of both style and content of the September 4, 2004 issue. In contrast to the less emotional coverage by other Russian newspapers, Izvestia had featured large pictures of dead or injured hostages. It also expressed doubts about the government's version of events.

According to a poll by Levada Center
Levada Center
Levada Center is a Russian independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organisation. It is named after its founder, the first Russian professor of sociology Yuri Levada . Levada Center traces back its history to 1987 when VCIOM was founded, originally headed by Academician...

 conducted a week after Beslan crisis, 83% of polled Russians believed that the government was hiding at least a part of the truth about the Beslan events from them. According to the poll by Echo of Moscow
Echo of Moscow
Echo of Moscow is a Russian radio station based in Moscow, broadcasting in many Russian cities, in some of the former-Soviet republics , and via the Internet, which some observers describe as "the last bastion of free media in Russia"...

radio station, 92% of the people polled said that Russian TV channels concealed parts of information.

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