WIDESPREAD crupted throughour Russia Protest last 880888 takcover of the most popular and respected independent station, NTV. 20,000 demonsration and meetings, pickets safety. petitioning took place in up to 50 other regions.
Protesters are opposing a boardroom 38% state-owned monopoly ( Gazprom seized contros ana oustca the exilca owner Vladimir ( Gusinsky and his supporters.
The sister paper Secodnya and magazine logi were also ers are refusing to work under the new management.
The issue is a complex one, involving pri ess freedom, but also the the new and President Putin's role within them. To be a media worker in present-day Russia can be difficult, insecure and danReporters often work ulation. i conardons or instaomity journalist have died "clean-ups", over the last decade whist out their work. Outspoken like naarct babutsky and Anna Politovskaya have been kidKussian Special Forces whilst in Chechnya and detained without knowl. cose or taci wacicabouts of Russian presently The good reputation of NTV, Sevodnya and Itogi is Largely due to staff being preared to investigate and pub.
issues. bly dropped). such as the Chechen war on mounting Russian casualties (now up to 50 a week), favourable.
rights abuses and the plight of the 250,000refugees ifest failure, Casualties towns and The Chechen guerilla tactics of surprise ambush are leading to appalling casual- by corrupt officials Kussians perienced frightened racist attacks conscripts. In retaliation the the FSB Special Forces now in charge take barbaric punitive measures against the whole popcivilians alike are being rounded up in tured, or thrown into now infamous mud pits. These are soouco of trozen, ariess trenches, originally dug for rubbish, where prisoners are indefinitely. Mass graves have also begun to be colonel attack last month, a on trial for of an 18yr by neo-nazis in the middle of Moscow Chechen woman (the charge originally included rape, , but NTV is the only large and this has since been inexplica- independent TV net work in Russia able to give Investigation of the new coverage and Russian-imposed regime in Chechnya has also not been not always so. task of rebuilding the war- Speculation torn country has been a man- Vladimir Gusinski is not a with many villages still nary Russians. extremely rich, having made for reconstruction pocketted speculation during the noto have riously corrupt shocked by the increase in in their counempire whose blatant bias and rubbishing of opponents war, and directly attributable assurca Teltsin's propa- victory in 1996 ganda branding all Chechens Yeltsin's beir was Vladimir gangsters or terrorists. Putin. His • parocurary brutal approved by the West) is to Locked our: Itogi journalists finish the job of capitalist restoration in Russia, but more efficiently lessly than his predecessor. He has used his presidency so far to put in place the neccasary structures and iegistation to this end. critical It has meant a clean up of some of the new gangsteruncomfortable to the capitalists (and this But this was reason for his popularity), but also the building of a power base of his 'own' oligarchs. Gus-insky is not now among them. 284H 4OHOCS Gusinski's media began to attract talented reporters, and He ence than the state-owned and Kremlin-friendly media. Whilst digging deep in fraught and muddy election waters, investigations the two areas of rival oligarchs and the Chechen war role (much Putin.
The basis of his popular support has been his proand ruth• claimed intention to deal with corrupi oligarchs and ICHE Chechnya. He has done nei. ther. He therefore cannot afford the kind of independent media criticism that one cacica in Kussia today.
A government campaign to destros Gusinski's empire has been waged since last year when it's headquarers, Media Most was raided by masked, armed FSB The government is claiming that the takcover is simply about outstanding debts (which are real) But most Russians sec it as an obvious attempt to stifle too Media workers in Russia SHEC need full support defending the right to a free and independent TV and provoke