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gazeta.ru
December 20, 2001
Duma Appoves Amendments Curtailing Press Freedoms
By Lisa Vronskaya
On Thursday the State Duma approved draft amendments to the "˜Law On Mass Media" and the "Federal Law on Combating Terrorism" after the first reading. The amendments are designed to prevent terrorists having access to the mass media. In effect the amendments are aimed at giving the state yet more control over the flow of information from Chechnya.
The bill envisages amending Article 4 of the key media law providing for "inadmissibility of abuse of freedoms of the media".
If amended, Article 4 of the mass media law will expressly ban "the use of means of mass media and computer information networks for propaganda or vindication of terrorism or extremism".
The draft bill of amendments approved by the lower house on Thursday also contains a draft amendment to Article 15 of the Federal Law on Combating Terrorism.
If parliament votes in favour of that amendment, the anti-terror law will prohibit media outlets from publishing or broadcasting, "statements made by terrorists, extremists and other persons who impede the conduct of counter-terrorist operations, who propagate and/or justify resistance to counter-terrorist operations in any form".
Presenting the draft bill of amendments to the lower house, deputy Nikolai Kovalev, said that the initiative to revise the effective media and anti-terror laws first emerged after the savage terror attacks in Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk in 1999 in which hundreds of civilians were killed.
From the very start of the investigation Russian law enforcers were convinced that Chechen terrorists were responsible for the attacks.
Nikolai Kovalev said the amendments were designed "to ensure the personal safety of all people, including those who combat terrorism."
In principal the State Duma deputies approved of the basic concept of the draft bill of amendments, nonetheless, members of almost all Duma factions said the draft requires serious revision before it is ready for the second, decisive, reading.
Human rights activists and media observers have already noted that owing to loopholes and ambiguities in Russian law, the amendments to the media and anti-terror laws may pave the way for strict censorship and a considerable curtailment of democratic freedoms, primarily the freedom of speech and press and citizens' right to information.
The popular TV6 and Ekho Moskvy political observer Andrei Cherkizov commented on Friday morning on the daily "Nazlo" programme that, even though the definition of a crime of "terrorism" is spelled out in contemporary Russian law - in the Criminal Code and in the Federal Law on Combating Terrorism, the term "extremism" has not been defined in any legal act. Therefore, he holds, the criteria for branding a person "an extremist" are vague. Besides, in the general sense of the word most of us tend to define "extremism" as adherence to or advocacy of extreme political opinions and or tactics. Such behaviour may be denounced but cannot be perceived as criminal.
Human rights activists and prominent Russian lawyers continually remind Duma politicians and law enforcers of the golden rule of justice contained in the Federal Constitution of Russia: a person is innocent until proven guilty. That means that no person can be branded a terrorist until a court rules accordingly. As for extremism, the Russian Crime Code does not include such a crime as extremism; therefore, it cannot constitute a crime.
If the amendments are introduced to the media law, journalists will have to be very careful about who they interview and whose statements to quote.
Russian and foreign journalists experience serious problems reporting from the breakaway region of Chechnya, especially when they attempt to investigate violations of human rights of Chechen civilians by federal servicemen.
For example Novaya Gazeta's correspondent Anna Politkovskaya claims she has been forced to leave Russia after receiving explicit threats from a Russian police officer, whom she alleged murdered an innocent Chechen boy.
The popular Kommersant Daily has on several occasions been reprimanded by the Press Ministry for publishing interviews with Chechen rebel leaders, in particular with the president of the unrecognised breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov.
It is worth noting that on December 19, leaders of the human rights watchdog Memorial Tatyana Kasatkina and Oleg Orlov told a news conference in Moscow that the Russian army and special services have set up death squads in Chechnya to exterminate Chechens suspected of involvement with rebel groups, but no Russian media outlet immediately reacted to the sensational allegation.
Memorial's activists say that during the so-called clean up operations conducted regularly in populated areas in Chechnya, the military almost always detain Chechen males, many of whom have been found tortured to death.
On December 20 the Spanish daily El Pais published a report about Memorial's news conference and only then did the Russian news sites inopressa.ru and NTVru.com report about Memorial's allegations, referring to the Spanish daily.
Indeed it appears that many Russian journalists have been far more cautious since the state-orchestrated campaign against the critical NTV channel in early 2001.
If the law regulating journalists' rights and obligations is subjected to further restrictive amendments contained in the draft bill of amendments approved by the Duma on Thursday, the Russian public will be able learn about the genuine situation in Chechnya almost exclusively from foreign sources.
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