DATE=5/18/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA MEDIA
NUMBER=5-46340
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: More than one-thousand demonstrators have
rallied on a square in central Moscow to denounce what
they call a plot by Russia's new government to clamp
down on press freedom. Moscow Correspondent Peter
Heinlein reports a number of prominent politicians and
media personalities joined the protest.
TEXT:
/// CHANTING - FADE UNDER ///
Free the media - these demonstrators shouted as they
stood in the bright May sunshine bathing central
Moscow's Pushkin Square.
By the standards set during anti-government protests
of the past, this was a small rally. As the Soviet
Union crumbled and independent Russia emerged in the
early 90's, huge crowds often gathered around the
statue of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin to demand
press freedoms.
That tradition faded away in recent years as a free
media began to emerge. But recently there has been a
rise in incidents that seem to target independent
reporters and media outlets.
The most disturbing event was last week's raid by
heavily armed and masked police on the headquarters of
the country's largest independent media company,
Media-Most. After that, Russia's Union of Journalists
decided it was time to revive the Pushkin Square
rallies.
The Federal Security Bureau, or F-S-B, the modern-day
successor to the Soviet K-G-B, says the raid was a
legitimate part of a criminal investigation.
But the director of Media Most's N-T-V television
channel, Evgeny Kiselyov - one of Russia's best know
media personalities - calls the incident part of a
deliberate campaign aimed at silencing government
critics.
/// KISELYOV ACT ///
I do really think that there is a great danger
in the country. I do believe that the F-S-B
raid on our offices was an attempt to silence
independent journalists to intimidate not only
the free press, but the society as a whole.
/// END ACT ///
Others at the rally went even further, expressing
fears that President Vladimir Putin is intent on again
making Russia a police state.
/// MAN CHANTING, FADE UNDER ///
Fascism will not be allowed - was the cry of 75-year
old Pyotr Tsvetkov. It was a slogan used in Russia's
battle against Nazi Germany in World War Two. Mr.
Tsvetkov says younger Russians, who voted
overwhelmingly for President Putin, need to be
reminded about the dangers of police rule.
/// TSVETKOV ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
He says - Putin is not worthy of being president. He
is Stalin. He is a butcher of our people. We
believed him, and he cheated us.
Liberal lawmaker and former presidential candidate
Grigory Yavlinsky was among the politicians who
addressed the rally.
/// YAVLINSKY SPEECH - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
He noted that while the turnout was encouraging, many
of Moscow's most prominent journalists were
conspicuously absent.
Free-speech advocate Alexei Simonov, head of the
Glasnost Foundation human-rights group, says that in
the current environment of media intimidation, a lot
of journalists are afraid to speak out.
/// SIMONOV ACT ///
For getting better the situation must change in
so many details, including the attitude of
journalists, which you see several people
discussed - that some people were afraid to come
and they are working in leading newspapers of
Moscow. And that is a big problem. If this
population will get frightened, that will be the
end of democracy.
/// END ACT ///
/// SPEAKING AND CROWD - FADE UNDER AND HOLD ///
The editor of the mass-circulation Moskovsky
Komsomolets newspaper, Pasvel Gusev, told the rally he
worries that the government is consciously trying to
divide journalists. Among those who stayed away from
the gathering were representatives of the media
outlets controlled by Kremlin ally Boris Berezovsky.
State-run media largely ignored the rally, giving it
only a brief mention.
N-T-V's Evgeny Kiselyov noted the division in the
media community, saying - a lot of people we call our
colleagues seem to have become cowards. (SIGNED)
NEB/PFH/JWH/RAE
18-May-2000 10:23 AM EDT (18-May-2000 1423 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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