INTERFAX REPORTS

        Under a new cooperation agreement between Interfax News agency and this Newsletter, articles by the Agency are specially selected for inclusion in this section. 

I.  Trial of reporter suspected of espionage resumes in Vladivostok. 

        The military court of the Pacific Fleet on [22nd April] resumed the closed trial of army journalist Grigory Pasko, who is charged with state treason.  The court recessed for a week at the request of Pasko’s lawyers so that the defendant could be prepared for questioning.  Pasko is likely to start testifying on [23rd April], and the testimony may continue for three or four days, Pasko’s lawyer Anatoly Pyshkin told Interfax-Eurasia. 
        Pasko will give exhaustive explanations for every count of the charges, he said.  They are “a fantasy of the Federal Security Service (FSB), in which Pasko’s routine journalistic activity is represented with a criminal twist,” Pyshkin said. 
        However, Pasko may refuse to testify before two FSB officers and three Japanese citizens, whom the prosecution had summoned to the trial, testify, Pyshkin said.  The court has received no answer to its subpoenas, which it had sent to the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the NHK television company.  Two former heads of the NHK bureau in Vladivostok and a correspondent of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper had been summoned.  If the witnesses do not show up, the court may admit the evidence which the correspondent gave in a preliminary investigation. 
        Military intelligence offices arrested Pasko on November 20, 1997 in the Vladivostok airport upon his return from a business trip to Japan.  The closed trial began on January 21, 1999.  A classified statement of the prosecution alleges that Pasko had transferred documents on the level of preparedness of the fleet to foreign organizations which are linked to special services. 

Interfax news agency, Moscow, April 22, 1999 

II.  Yeltsin to protect freedom of press. 

        Russian President Boris Yeltsin intends to continue protecting the freedom of the press.  “Some think that they can attack Ostankino [TV center as in October 1993] again.  This is not to be.  Our press is and will remain free and independent.  There will be no censorship,” he said [on 19th April] before a ceremony at which prizes and scholarships were awarded to members of the Russian media.  Nor will “supervisory councils” be set up, because they would reinstate censorship, Yeltsin said.  “We have seen through this trick.  Their authors can forget these ideas.  Use your own brainpower to think, work where the journalistic organization has put you and trust the president.  I will always protect the press and will not allow anybody to gag it,” he said.  “Some are not accustomed to criticism,” Yeltsin said.  “I was also beaten but I did not strike back and so I was left alone.  Primakov is not good yet at handling criticism.  I am teaching him to get used to this,” he said.  Yeltsin met with Russian Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin before the ceremony. 

Interfax news agency, Moscow, April 19, 1999 

III.  Trial of reporter charged with high treason resumes in Vladivostok. 

        The trial of military reporter Grigory Pasko, who is charged with high treason, resumed in the Pacific Fleet court on [9th April].  Before [that] session, Pasko told Interfax-Eurasia, “I am not hoping that the trial will be fair.  I am not sure about it.  Everything indicates that it will be a sham, not a proper trial. 
        The true criminals are at large, doing everything to prevent me from being released, even though there is every reason for that.  What justice can there be, if every day they spit in the face of the law, the president as the guarantor of the law and the Duma that passes these laws?” Pasko, chief of the educational section of the Boyevaya Vakhta naval newspaper, was arrested on November 20, 1997, by military counter-intelligence officers at the Vladivostok airport upon his return from a business trip to Japan. 
        According to the indictment, which is classified top secret, the reporter is charged with sharing classified documents about the fleet’s combat capability with foreign institutions connected with intelligence services.  If found guilty, Pasko could be sentenced to a prison term of 12 to 20 years. 
        However, his defense team says that he reported to the Japanese media NHK television and the Asahi newspaper information about the condition of several environmentally hazardous fleet facilities.  One of his lawyers, Oleg Kotlyarov, said most of the case’s materials are directly or indirectly related to environmental matters. 

Interfax news agency, Moscow, April 9, 1999 

IV.  Duma adopts law on pornography. 

        The Russian State Duma has adopted in full an bill entitled “On state protection of the morality and health of the population and on enhancement of control over the turnover of products of a sexual nature.”  The bill was supported by 234 lawmakers, 121 were opposed and 1 undecided.  The chairman of the State Duma Committee for Culture, Stanislav Govorukhin of the Popular Rule group of deputies, who headed the team developing the bill, said that the main point it makes is as follows:  “Pornography is prohibited, products of a sexual nature are withdrawn from open circulation.”  According to the new law, all trade involving products of a sexual nature would be conducted on the basis of an appropriate license.  Demonstration of films and erotic programs on television channels is to be allowed from 1 to 4 a.m only if a coded signal is used.  The distribution and advertising of goods coming under this law is to be allowed only in specially established places. 

Interfax news agency, Moscow, April 7, 1999 

V.  Editor-in-chief of Russian newspaper reinstated. 

        Raf Shakirov, the editor-in-chief of Kommersant, a high-circulation business newspaper published in Moscow, has been reinstated after being dismissed a few days ago.  He has been appointed Kommersant’s vice president in charge of all publications, while Boris Khaskov will be vice president in charge of financial matters, Shakirov told Interfax [on 1st April]. 
        Leonid Miloslavsky, who was at the helm of Kommersant for a few days, did not agree to restructuring the publishing hose and has resigned from the position of general director, Shakirov said. 
        Shakirov was fired after the publication, which he did not authorize, of a sharply critical article on Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov’s decision to cancel his visit to the United States and fly back to Moscow when his airplane was over the Atlantic Ocean.  The article contained personal attacks on Primakov. 
        Shakirov sent a letter of apology to Primakov and then was fired by Miloslavsky. 

Interfax news agency, Moscow, April 1, 1999

Last Updated: 11/20/99

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