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RUSSIA
The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of
the press. However, while the Government generally
respects these provisions, reports of government pressure
on the media continue, particularly when coverage deals
with corruption or criticism of the authorities.
Federal, regional, and local governments continued to
exert pressure on journalists by depriving them of access
to information, using accreditation procedures to limit
access, removing them from their jobs and bringing libel
suits against them, and violating their legal
rights. Oleg Panfilov of the Glasnost Defense Fund
(GDF), a nongovernmental organization which tracks
violations of journalists’ rights, estimates that
between 250 and 300 lawsuits and other legal actions were
brought by the Government against journalists and
journalistic organizations during the year in response to
unfavorable coverage of government policy or
operations. In most of these cases, a government
body or individual (often with links to a figure in
power) accused journalists of damaging its (or his or
her) “reputation and honor.” In some
instances, judges found for the journalists, but in the
vast majority of such cases, the Government succeeded in
either intimidating or punishing the journalist.
Typically, judges seemed unwilling to challenge powerful
federal and local officials. Stiff fines for
journalists were a common result of these proceedings;
jail terms occasionally were handed down, as well.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists these
rulings had a “chilling effect on investigative
journalism,” and such rulings reinforce the tendency
toward self-censorship. On occasion journalists
were attacked physically and even murdered, leading a
number of Russian newscasters to characterize journalism
as Russia’s “most dangerous profession.”
Private media
continued to proliferate, and by the first half of 1998,
some 20 new newspapers were being registered by the
Russian press committee each week. Magazines
totaled about 2,000. The major print media
organizations represent a broad political spectrum and
provide readers with a variety of information; however,
because Russian media generally are not financially
self-sufficient, they are subject to manipulation by the
Government and by companies that are their majority
shareholders. These financial entities manipulate
the media at times to further their own political and
financial goals. Journalists and editors admit that
the political and business interests of major
shareholders are paramount, causing journalists to
practice self-censorship. Prominent human rights
activist Sergey Kovalev has stated that, in these
circumstances, “the Russian media are free but not
independent.”
The
concentrated structure of the ownership of major media
does not encourage editorial independence. Private
companies began investing heavily in the media market in
1997, even though the media generally are not yet
profitable. The most powerful companies, such as
Lukoil, Gazprom, and a number of banks, fought for
influence in the Moscow media market and began to invest
in media in the provinces.
The resulting
concentration of ownership of major Russian media
organizations increased in 1998. The economic
crisis that began in August exacerbated the problem,
weakening the financial positions of most news
organizations, thereby increasing their dependence on
financial sponsors and, in some cases, the federal and
regional governments. Many businesses began to
struggle, and as a result, advertising revenues decreased
for nearly every major media organization in the country,
in some cases as much as 50 percent in late August and
September alone. Consequently, many media
organizations saw their tenuous financial independence
disintegrate. The economy was unable to sustain
such a large number of media organizations (in
particular, there were far too many newspapers for the
size of the market).
These
phenomena affected regional media organizations, those
based outside Moscow, to an even greater degree.
With prices up sharply, newspapers in regions in which
the average family’s monthly income was rarely over
$100 (1000 rubles) became even less affordable. The
National Press Institute (NPI), a nonprofit organization
dedicated to the development and maintenance of a free
press, reported in September that “the
landscape” for the regional media had “changed
for the worse.” Newspaper managers found that
their dependence on advertising revenue could be less
reliable than dependence on political patronage.
Reliance on political patronage, in turn, resulted in the
deterioration of journalistic objectivity. As the
NPI report noted, private newspapers faced intense
pressure from major financial groups in Moscow and from
dominant local business interests to influence their
editorial content. There was also widespread
concern that state agencies would attempt to take over
impoverished media organizations as commercial sponsors
sought to divest themselves of these properties.
In a number of
key respects, private media organizations across the
country remained dependent on the Government as
well. According to the GDF, four-fifths of all
print media organizations continued to rely on
state-controlled concerns for paper, printing, and
distribution; these companies lacked their own
equipment. Moreover, the cost of printing at
state-controlled printing presses rose from 15 to 30
percent in most locations with the onset of the financial
crisis. The GDF collected considerable evidence
that throughout the year, the Government continued to
manipulate these prices from time to time in an effort to
apply pressure on private media rivals; the GDF notes
that this practice was more common outside the Moscow
area than in the capital itself.
Independent
and semiindependent television stations continued to
develop, and the number of small private radio stations,
mostly in the large cities, continued to increase.
However, television companies faced government economic
pressure similar to that experienced by the print
media. Many stations were forced to rely on the
State (in particular, regional committees for the
management of state property) for access to airwaves and
office space.
Both private
print and broadcast media, like other enterprises, were
vulnerable to unpredictable changes in the policy and
practice of tax collection. (Tax avoidance is
extremely widespread, both among commercial enterprises
and individuals.) In August, federal tax
authorities sought to shut down Novaya Gazeta, a Russian
daily known for its relative independence and aggressive
reporting on corruption at high levels, on the pretext of
alleged improprieties in the organization’s internal
accounting. Novaya Gazeta continued to publish.
In some
instances, the private media faced more direct challenges
from the Government. The State owns and controls
some major media organizations, such as the national
television station RTR, the radio stations Mayak and
Radio Rossii, the newspapers Rossiyskaya Gazeta and
Parlamentskaya Gazeta, and the news agencies ITAR-TASS
and RIA-Novosti. At the regional and local levels,
governments operated a much higher percentage of the
media than in Moscow; in many cities and towns across the
country, government-run media organizations were the only
media outlet, according to the GDF. Thus, in an
increasing number of media markets, citizens received
information only from government-owned sources.
In May the
Government took steps to strengthen its control over the
state media—and to a certain extent, to increase its
leverage over other, private broadcast
organizations—by consolidating its central and local
television and radio companies into an enlarged and
potentially more powerful holding company, the All-Russia
Television and Radio Company (known by its Russian
acronym, VGTRK). The VGTRK began to manage the
sites that transmit the broadcasts of private television
channels. The head of the VGTRK is appointed by and
answers to the President.
On more than
one occasion, senior government officials, including in
one case President Yeltsin, voiced
“expectations” or “suggestions” to
media representatives and government officials that
clearly were intended to change the way the media
operated.
Local
governments, also, applied pressure on media based within
their jurisdictions. Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty noted in a 1998 report on the Russian media that
the mayor of Moscow, Yuriy Luzhkov, could exert pressure
on distribution companies, on paper suppliers, or on the
corporate parents of “any media enterprise deemed to
be objectionable,” and that Luzhkov had used his
power “to ensure a largely compliant press in his
hometown.”
There were
many instances in which authorities disregarded and
challenged the right of journalists to investigate and
publish stories. In late January, President Yeltsin
signed a decree “on the List of Information that
Constitutes a State Secret,” widening the scope of
privileged information that legally could be withheld
from the public. Information pertaining to the
development, production, storage, and disposal of nuclear
ammunition, for example, was included explicitly in the
language of the decree, with the result that it has now
become much more difficult—in fact illegal—for
citizens residing near disposal sites to publicize
through the media the increased health risks and
environmental degradation. According to this
decree, information on the preparation and conclusion of
international treaties, as well as information in certain
economic categories, falls within the domain of state
secrets.
The
controversy about military journalist Grigory Pasko
continued during the year. Attorneys for Pasko, an
active duty officer in the Russian Pacific Fleet, claimed
he is being persecuted for his environmental
activism. Pasko was arrested in November 1997 on
charges of revealing state secrets. He had been
working on a freelance basis with Japanese television
network NHK and Japanese newspaper Asahi Shinbun to
expose environmental dangers posed by the activities of
the Russian Pacific Fleet, including the dumping of
liquid radioactive nuclear wastes from nuclear submarines
in the Sea of Japan. Pasko has remained in
detention since his arrest, spending much of that time in
solitary confinement. He faces a maximum of 18
years in prison if convicted.
In April
Russian poet and journalist Alina Vitukhnovskaya faced
trial for allegedly selling $40 (400 rubles) worth of
drugs (see Section 1.c.). At the time of her
arrest, in October 1994, she was researching newspaper
articles on drug use by the children of Moscow’s
political and business elite. In January she was
sent to a psychiatric institute for tests of her
sanity. Two months later, she was released when the
tests found her normal. Her lawyers contended that
Vitukhnovskaya was deprived of food and sleep at various
points during the course of the trial; she endured what
these attorneys described as “torture” at the
hands of the legal authorities. Both her attorneys
and the international PEN group charged that
Vitukhnovskaya was being harassed for her investigative
reporting.
In mid-July,
the Constitutional Court rejected an appeal by well-known
journalist Irina Chernova against sections of federal law
on operational-investigative activities. As a
correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1994 and 1995,
Chernova published several articles criticizing the
Volgograd police. She subsequently was followed and
detained in 1995 without being told the grounds on which
she was being investigated; reportedly, police officers
also tried to blackmail her by threatening to release
pictures and videotapes of her engaged in sexual
acts. The Constitutional Court found that the
disputed articles in the law either were not relevant to
Chernova’s case or did not violate her rights.
Journalists
publishing critical information about local governments
and influential businesses, as well as investigative
journalists writing about crime and other sensitive
issues, were subjected to threats, beatings, and even
murder.
According to
the CPJ, murders and beatings of journalists were
“routine” in Russia, and in particular,
journalists who pursued investigative stories on
corruption and organized crime found themselves at
greatest risk. Police seldom found the perpetrators
of crimes against journalists. The GDF’s
midyear report indicated that in the first half of the
year, it recorded 602 actions against, or with negative
ramifications for, journalists, the majority of which
were related to their work as journalists (this figure
included numerous legal actions and decisions with a
bearing on the rights of journalists.) Sixteen
killings of journalists, proved or presumed to be
directly related to the journalistic work of the victims,
and 10 other bodily assaults on the heads of news and
media organizations were reported by the press and media
NGO’s.
On March 16,
journalists Timur Kukuyev and Yuriy Safronov, who were
working for the national ORT television station, were
harassed and beaten by a group of men dressed in
paramilitary uniforms as they tried to film at the
Dagestani-Chechen border. The assailants destroyed
the crew’s camera and confiscated their video
footage. Dagestani border guards who were stationed
nearby reportedly failed to intervene. Later that
evening, unidentified men severely beat Kukuyev, warning
him against filming “on foreign territory” in
the future; on March 9, the ORT had broadcast a story
that showed paramilitary formations on Dagestani
territory near the Chechen border. The attack on
Kukuyev, which resulted in his hospitalization for broken
ribs, a concussion, and a badly disfigured face,
represented the tenth such attack on journalists in
Dagestan in the last 2 years.
In April, Aleksey Nevinitsyn, the editor in chief
of the Zolotoye Koltso newspaper in Yaroslavl, was beaten
badly. Prior to the beating, “zolotoye
koltso” had published a series of articles that
documented corruption in the ranks of the local
administration; specifically, a top municipal official in
the pharmaceutical administration was purchasing medical
supplies for the city from a company owned by the
official’s son. As a result of the articles,
the mayor of Yaroslavl fired the senior official and a
number of lawsuits were brought against Zolotoye Koltso,
though municipal judges found in favor of the
newspaper. Nevinitsyn—and, privately, other
witnesses—stated that the man who brutally beat him
was the son of the fired official; however, the witnesses
were reluctant to come forward. As a result, no
formal investigation of the beating was initiated and no
one was charged with the crime.
On May 27, police raided the offices of Radio
Titan, the only independent radio station in the Republic
of Bashkortostan, and arrested its manager and news
director, Altaf Galeyev. The police also rounded up
and beat staff members and supporters. The police
assault on Radio Titan came in the wake of the
station’s airing of interviews with three opposition
candidates for president of the republic who had been
banned from participating in the June 14 elections.
Police also seized the station’s equipment and
detained the entire staff before releasing them the next
day. Galeyev still is being held for
“hooliganism” and “illegal use of
firearms” for firing several shots in the air with a
handgun when police stormed the radio’s
offices. Two days earlier, Radio Titan had quoted
several Moscow-based newspapers that alleged corruption
on the part of Bashkir President Murtaza Rakhimov.
Radio Titan staff members maintained that as a result of
these and other similar broadcasts, local authorities had
made several attempts to silence the station by shutting
off the electricity, telephone lines, and water supply.
In June Larisa Yudina, editor of the Sovetskaya
Kalmykia Segodnya opposition newspaper, was killed,
apparently in retaliation for investigating reports of
corrupt business practices by regional officials (see
Section 1.a.). She disappeared on June 7. On
that day she had been planning to meet a source who had
promised to give her evidence of financial improprieties
by local firms involved in an effort by Kalmyk president
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to set up an offshore economic zone in
the republic. On June 8, she was found dead with
multiple stab wounds and a fractured skull. For
years Yudina had been harassed and threatened because of
her exposes of local corruption and opposition to the
hard-line rule of president Ilyumzhinov. Before her
death, Yudina’s application for press credentials
had been rejected; she had been fired from her position;
and her automobile had been confiscated. For
several years, Yudina had been forced to print her
newspaper in a neighboring oblast after president
Ilyumzhinov allegedly prohibited local printing presses
from publishing it. The investigation
continues. The Russian procurator arrested four
individuals in connection with the murder. Two of
the suspects had close ties to President
Ilyumzhinov. One of those arrested was
Ilyumzhinov’s personal representative in
Volgograd. Officials in the republic denied any
involvement in the murder. Yudina’s death
triggered a widespread reaction in Russian and
international media and human rights circles, and it was
perhaps the most widely publicized case in a year replete
with assaults on journalists.
On August 21, Anatoliy Levin-Utkin deputy editor of
the St. Petersburg weekly, Yuridichesky Peterburg
Segodnya, was beaten to death in apparent reprisal for
his work as a journalist. Levin-Utkin also was
robbed of his money and his briefcase, in which he was
carrying materials that he had gathered for the next
installment of a series of investigative articles on
rivalries between major local financial and political
figures. The local procurator’s office
investigated the murder, but by the end of September,
there were no arrests. Many observers believe that
the killing was directly related to the investigative
work Levin-Utkin was undertaking; the customs service and
the secret services were subjects of his research.
Journalists maintained and strengthened
associations to defend their rights and monitor
governmental abuse.
Murmansk human rights activist Oleg Pazyura was
arrested in May 1997. He was charged with
libel, contempt of court, and threatening public
officials. At his trial in January, Pazyura was
found guilty, but the judge immediately granted him
amnesty (see Section 4).
In 1997 the Editor in Chief and a correspondent of
the Irkutsk paper, Zemlya: Novyy Poryadok, were
accused of accepting a bribe of $20,000. These
individuals were subsequently released on grounds of
insufficient evidence. Reportedly new incriminating
evidence emerged during the year, and the two are once
again under the threat of arrest. Some observers of
the case stated that the charges represented an attempt
by local authorities to trump up charges in order to
suppress the ultranationalist activities of the newspaper
for which the two journalists worked. The matter
remained unresolved at year’s end.
Communist members of the Duma attempted to deflect
public outcry over their anti-Semitic statements by
blaming the broad condemnation that they received on a
smear campaign by the media (see Section 5). At a
November 5 joint press conference at the Duma with
Communist Party leader Gennadiy Zyuganov, the head of the
Moscow Municipal Committee of the Communist Party,
Aleksandr Kunayev, publicly called for a campaign against
Moscow-based television journalists whom he accused of
“active and conscious complicity with the present
regime and criminal activities.” He declared
that he would seek the resignation of a number of leading
television journalists.
In 1997 Duma Deputy Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, leader
of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) faction,
and his bodyguards physically attacked Moscow television
journalist Yulia Olshanskaya and Valeriy Ivanov, a
cameraman from the 2X2 television channel. As of
the end of 1997, the case against Zhirinovskiy’s
bodyguards was still pending. During the year, the
case was dropped; no one was prosecuted for the beatings.
Violations of journalists’ rights in Chechnya,
rampant in 1997, decreased markedly during the year,
according to the Glasnost Defense Fund. Nonetheless
a number of serious abuses were reported. For
example, the Maskhadov Government took actions against
opposition television stations. In May acting prime
minister Shamil Basayev ordered the confiscation of
transmitter equipment used by opposition leader Salman
Raduyev. The Chechen authorities tried to restrict
reporting critical of President Maskhadov’s
administration.
On July 22, authorities in the republic of Chechnya
declared a “state of emergency” and banned the
activities of all non-Chechen state television and radio
companies and newspapers and magazines. During the
state of emergency, only state-owned television channels
were permitted to broadcast programs. The
authorities announced that they would strip the broadcast
rights and confiscate the equipment of any media
organization that attempted to violate this order.
A Chechen military official explained that the decision
to close down the independent media was taken because
these media spread “unreliable and often provocative
and biased information,” which destabilized the
social and political situation in the republic.
The Government
respects academic freedom.
Commentary
The analysis of the state of Russian journalism and its
relationship with the authorities given in this report is
quite thorough. It is very difficult to add
anything to the specific facts about violations of
journalists’ rights and pressure applied by the
authorities. However, it seems to me that the
report gives little attention to the organizational and
economic changes that have been taking place in Russian
mass media in recent years, which have a significant
effect on the level of Russian journalism.
These changes
are so rapid that neither participants in the process nor
analysts are able to seriously grasp what is taking
place. On the whole, the mass media and propaganda
system previously subordinate to the state have been
extricated from direct, total control by the state, which
has been left with only a regulatory function.
Mass media in
Russia have become an element of the market
economy. They are naturally becoming subject to the
laws of the market and are striving to win wider
markets. The mass media market is undergoing a
process of concentration and amalgamation.
Under such
conditions, the weak are forced out of the market, while
the strong gain additional advantages. In such
harsh competitive conditions, mass media cannot exist
without outside support, as the advertising market in its
current state cannot support the existing media
market. Under these circumstances, mass media are
beginning to seek support wherever possible: public
institutions, state structures, private capital, etc.
The
intensification of the process of consolidation within
the mass media market is accompanied by increasing
financial opacity within the media, which is still the
norm in Russia. This opacity, which is found in the
advertising market as well, prevents us from making a
positive appraisal of the perspectives for freedom of
speech in Russia. Furthermore, the situation in the
regions is very different from that in the center:
while it is still perhaps somehow possible to understand
the situation with the central media, the situation in
the regions is extremely complicated and unclear.
On the whole,
the chasm between the conditions of central and regional
media continued to grow in 1998. Many blame this on
the financial crisis, which definitely intensified the
difficult financial position of regional media.
Some analysts believe that, before the crisis, there was
a tendency in the mass media market toward becoming a
financially and politically independent business, but the
new political confrontation in society and the crisis of
August 1998 again pushed the media into the embrace of
state structures and politicians.
It is well
known that flagrant application of political pressure on
the media is a thing of the past. However,
according to a survey conducted by the Mass Media Law and
Policy Center, 90% of the heads of regional television
and radio companies admit that the media reflect
somebody’s point of view, be it that of the owner,
executive or legislative government bodies, the regional
governor, etc. Furthermore, almost all of them know
precisely which publications serve which interests.
For regional
mass media, 1998 was characterized by their division into
three groups. The first group is comprised of
private media that exist parallel to government bodies
and support themselves through advertising (local, as a
rule). The second group is made up of media founded
by local government bodies and supported by financing
from regional or city budgets and affiliated commercial
structures. The third group, state television and
radio companies, hold a very distinctive position.
Such companies do not receive very much money from
regional budgets. They are all part of a unified
state production-technical complex.
Local
management of state television and radio companies
usually consider themselves separate and independent from
local government. On the whole, the desire of
authorities at all levels to have their own publications
and have influence over the editorial policy of all other
media in the region is a nationwide tendency that has
intensified over the past year. In particular,
local authorities are cultivating a tendency to distance
themselves from Moscow as the center of political
instability and incomprehensible political games and to
intensify their role as the protector of regional
interests.
Regional
leaders long ago understood that it is easy to blame
everything on Moscow, including their own
miscalculations, their own negligence, and the corruption
of the local apparatus. And while in no way should
this excuse the lack of talent in the federal government,
it must be admitted that the cultivation of
“regional separatism” has become a real fact of
contemporary Russian life. Naturally, media cannot
but be exposed to the effects of these local tendencies.
Local
authorities frankly fear Moscow’s expansion into
regional media markets. This expansion, which was
sharply curtailed after August 1998, has both positive
and negative ramifications for regional mass media.
And while the negative aspects are easily recognized, a
positive aspect could be considered the protection of
local media by their Moscow partners against pressure
from local authorities.
1998 was also characterized by the formation of
Russian information empires. Their distinguishing
characteristic was the open symbiosis of business and
politics. In my view, this symbiosis is of a less
candid character in the West. It is difficult, for
example, to imagine that during the New York mayoral
campaign informational empires were formed with the
participation of state funds.
In addition to the excessive politicization of
Russian media, Russian media empires have another
characteristic that distinguishes them from Western
corporations: they are all located in Moscow and
divide the regions up amongst themselves. It can be
stated beyond a shadow of a doubt that during the second
half of 1998 there was a sharp acceleration of the
concentration of media properties via the formation of
large companies capable of large-scale investment in new
technologies, large expenditures on production of new
programs, quick transfer of funds from one subsidiary or
division to the other, etc. This integration could
take on any number of forms: multimedia
corporations (publishing, radio, television);
multi-sector conglomerates where business from other
economic sectors are incorporated into media holdings; or
vertical and horizontal alliances in which one owner
controls all stages of production and distribution of
information.
The leading role in this process is being taken by
media moguls who secure broadcasting and publishing
through large investments, thereby securing monopolistic
positions for themselves on the media market.
However, this was the tendency of 1998. In 1999, as
these lines are written, the picture has changed, but
that is a subject for further investigation.
Manana Aslamazyan
Internews Russia
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