05 Apr 12 | Russia
Journalists and photographers gathered near the Uzbekistan embassy in Moscow to protest against the deportation of their colleague Victoria Ivleva and Uzbekistan authorities’ policy towards foreign journalists.
Ivleva, a photojournalist for Novaya Gazeta, was deported from Uzbekistan without explanation on 23 March. She arrived in the country’s capital Tashkent to hold free training courses for her Uzbek colleagues, but was refused permission to enter the country or contact Russian officials and then was put on a flight back to Russia.
Ivleva speculates that she was refused entry because the training was being organised by Umida Akhmedova — a notable local photographer who was charged on “insult and libel against Uzbek nation” after creating a documentary dedicated to women’s rights in Uzbekistan in 2010. But her expulsion could also be due to an article she wrote six years ago. Entitled The Country of Fish the article describes how Uzbek people were humiliated and silenced by the authorities.
Ivleva’s colleagues waited until the beginning of April to hold a protest sanctioned by Moscow’s authorities. They gathered in Uzbek national clothes, with placards saying “A man with a camera is no enemy to the state” and other slogans. They told journalists that people of two countries, that once were fellow citizens, “should not suffer from deportations”.
Uzbek embassy staff did not come out of the building to meet the protesters, but were seen videoing them through the window.
As one of the protesters, Daniil Kislov editor-in-chief of Fergana online media, told journalists that since 2005 Uzbek authorities have banished reporters from all the leading agencies, making the country a “burnt information field”.
04 Mar 12 | Russia
Election day is here. And, according to all the signals, it will be as interesting as anticipated.
The first exit polls coming from the far Eastern regions of Russia are quite shocking: preferences for Putin’s United Russia are below 50 per cent, reaching as low as 42 per cent according to certain pollsters. If this is confirmed, a second round will be needed for Putin’s victory. On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook feeds are exploding with videos and pictures documenting “Carousels”, buses with voters sent to cast their votes for United Russia, often more than once.
After a few very calm days, perhaps the calm before the storm, there were several worrying episodes of opposition activists attacked and arrested in Moscow in the late hours of yesterday. Several members linked to the all-girl punk band Pussy Riot, who perform anti-Putin songs dressed in bright mini-skirts and coloured balaclavas, were arrested on charges of hooliganism following an impromptu performance at a cathedral on 21 February. At Kropotkinskaya metro station, two Solidarnost activists and one Novaya Gazeta photo reporter were held. A member of the Committee for Fair Elections, Aleksandr Bilov, was attacked in his home’s entrance and arrested after he fought back the attack.
Early this morning, an army of nearly 30,000 election observers marched towards the polling stations assigned to them, gathering there by 7:30am. Most were well equipped with smart phones, video cameras and guides to correct electoral procedures. As announced in December, Putin installed £320m worth of web cameras around polling stations to contribute to the fairness of the elections, but this did not reassure his opponents much. If proof was needed to confirm that a wave of civil activism has hit Moscow, then this army of election watchers is the final one. Tweeting by observers has already gone viral with the Twitter hash-tag #выборы2012.
Putin is expected to win, eventually, but the question is by how much. His ratings are still extremely high in the countryside, where “any desire of living better is outweighed by a persistent fear of living worse”, the NYT reports. Besides that, none of the other candidates pose an actual threat to him. The only real new entry is the liberal businessman Prokhorov, whose campaign was too short to be able to gain a significant amount of followers. Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky are two “professional opposition candidates” at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, who are today little more than caricatures of themselves, while Mironov… who is Mironov? An anonymous long-time Putin backer, hardly taken seriously by anyone. Yavlinsky, Yabloko leader and most serious counter-candidate, was not allowed to run in the elections because of alleged irregularities in the collection of signatures.
The main person to watch in the opposition spectrum remains Aleksey Navalny. The anti-corruption blogger and lawyer has rapidly risen to political stardom over the past few months. He is a controversial figure — concerns are often raised about his nationalistic views and his “prima donna” attitude. He is very popular among the younger generations for his open way of interacting on the web. It will be interesting to observe his public appearances in the next few days: much of his political future may depend from it.
Among the opposition forces nobody dares say it out loud, but many think that Putin’s defeat would not be a good thing right now. The opposition is too young and fragile to be effective. Until only some months ago, there was nobody to listen to it. Suddenly, Moscow is buzzing with political talk and desire for change, but until a couple of years (if not months) ago, the only people you could find speaking about Russian politics were foreigners. A potential new Russian leader needs a basis of consensus which is still in development, and an all-encompassing programme that it is still lacking.
Demonstrations have already been announced for tomorrow, 5 March. Opposition will gather at 7pm in Pushkin square, while the nationalist group Nashi will be in Manezh square at 4pm. The opposition wants to take the protest to the Red Square but authorities have not allowed this action, though it may still go ahead. Rumours say that the action at the Garden Ring last week was been the last peaceful demonstration, but it could be counterproductive for Putin to crack hard on the protesters.
The carrot-and-stick Medvedev-and-Putin political model gone, it is now time for Vladimir Putin to reveal which one of the two methods is he going to choose in his next term as president of the Russian Federation — which might begin later than expected.
13 Jan 12 | Russia
The first weeks of January have been marked with a number of public moves, which opposition activists say are aimed at smearing them.
Russian general prosecutor Yuri Chaika has alleged that participants of two historically large rallies for new, fair parliamentary elections in December were financed by foreigners “for dishonorable aims”.
“Some individuals using people as an instrument for achieving their political goals, which are indeed dishonorable, is intolerable. And money for this comes from sources outside Russia,” Chaika said in an interview to state-owned daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
A journalist interviewing Chaika said that the protesters “had insulted the authorities” and asked whether they would be punished, prompting the general prosecutor to stress that defamation decriminalisation “doesn’t mean permissiveness and the lack of responsibility for slander and insult”. The punishment is still “quite sensible financially”, Chaika warned.
Novaya Gazeta has asked Yuri Chaika to provide documents proving his allegations, along with explanations of what Russian legislation had been violated.
Chaika’s allegations go in line with the Kremlin tendency to claim that opposition leaders and activists critical of Kremlin are financed “by the West in order to destabilise the situation in Russia”. Soon after the first rally on 10 December prime-minister Vladimir Putin said the protesters had been paid to attend the rally. Many joked about the allegation at the second rally on 24 December, as they held posters with “Hillary Clinton paid us in kind”, “Where’s the money, State Department?”, and “I’m here for free”. Similar allegations were made against Russia’s leading election monitor — GOLOS Association by the state-owned NTV channel, days before parliamentary elections.
Chaika’s interview was preceded by a scandal involving the publication of a fake photo of Alexey Navalny, one of the opposition leaders. Pro-Kremlin youth movements in Ekaterinburg circulated a newspaper entitled “Arguments and Facts. Ural Digest” with a photo of Navalny with disgraced Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The caption said Navalny “had never concealed” that he had received financial backing from the oligarch. The issue also said that Vladimir Putin’s United People’s Front — an organisation initiated to broaden United Russia’s electorate — contributed to it. Both the newspaper’s head and editor-in-chief claimed they didn’t release the issue, and denied any role in creating it. More controversial statements came from the United People’s Front members, but nobody can be sure who is responsible for the issue.
Alexei Navalny proved the photo was doctored by publishing the real image in his blog, where he is pictured with Russian tycoon and presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov. “What an entertaining job it must be to cut one oligarch and pasting in another” – Navalny wrote ironically in his blog.
Just like Putin’s allegations, the fake photo was used as a joke by tens of thousands of people participating in protest rallies against alleged fraud on elections. Many of them further photomontaged the photo, replacing Berezovsky with Putin, Stalin, aliens and even Harry Potter’s nemesis Lord Voldemort. Protestors agreed that Kremlin’s traditional allegations against its critics can no longer be taken seriously.
05 Dec 11 | Uncategorized
Media freedom is not one of those areas where too many cooks spoil the broth. The debate about freedom of expression – of which the role of the press is an important sub-section — has gone mainstream over the past couple of years. Around the world, free expression has crashed against issues of privacy, confidentiality, sensibility, and a panoply of other concerns. The black and white cases of egregious censorship, involving violence, intimidation and abuse of law, remain as pressing as ever.
Now thanks to social media, and the availability of instant information, free expression has become more complicated and varied. In the UK, the ongoing phone hacking scandal has focused attention on poor journalistic standards.
Therefore the arrival of a new organisation devoted to assisting and promoting “good” journalism is welcomed. The Journalism Foundation, led by former Independent Editor Simon Kelner and funded by the Lebedevs — owners of that newspaper and others including Russia’s Novaya Gazeta — intends to sponsor and assist media, starting in Tunisia and the English Midlands. It is an eclectic first stab, but only the beginning. Its most valuable contribution will be “hands on” support for those wishing to hold the rich and powerful to account. The boundaries between “established” and “citizen” journalism are breaking down, and initiatives such as this help to hasten that process.
Through our reporting and our advocacy, Index on Censorship leads the way in promoting free expression and combating censorship in all its manifestations. We welcome a new partner in this brave and not-so-new world.
Journalists and photographers gathered near the Uzbekistan embassy in Moscow to protest against the deportation of their colleague Victoria Ivleva and Uzbekistan authorities’ policy towards foreign journalists.