In 1988...

The past two years in the Soviet Union have been a period of extraordinary cultural change, with the emergence of investigative journalism and a considerable extension of the limits of public debate. Continuing calls for glasnost, perestroika and demokratizatsia point to new directions in government policy.

The Constitution makes it clear that the rights of the individual in the Soviet Union are fundamentally conditional on the interests of the State as defined by the Communist Party – ‘the leading and guiding force of Soviet society’ (Art. 6)… Article 50 of the Constitution states that: ‘freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of meetings, and of street marches and demonstrations’ may be exercised ‘in accordance with the interests of the working people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system’… Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code prohibits ‘agitation or propaganda carried out with the purpose of subverting or weakening Soviet power or of committing particularly dangerous crimes against the State, disseminating for the said purposes slanderous fabrications which defame the Soviet State and social system, as well as circulating, preparing or harbouring, for the said purposes, literature of a similar content’.

All Soviet media are owned by the State… The media are ‘to unfold sharp and principled criticism and self-criticism directed against indolence, bureaucratism, waste, idleness and other anti-social phenomena, and to popularise good examples’.

The scale of self-criticism unleashed by glasnost is unprecedented… Exposés have spread to topics such as police brutality in dealing with ‘unofficial’ gatherings of hippies and punks, corruption in the courts and the maltreatment of offenders… One result of glasnost is that the Soviet press has begun to look less monolithic: newspapers and journals have acquired more distinct voices as editors (many of them newly appointed) have felt free to give expression to their own views or those of their readers… The government has now stopped jamming the BBC’s Russian Service and Voice of America. Read more...

In 2008...

After the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the establishment of the Russian Federation in 1991, Boris Yeltsin’s presidency (1991–2000) was dominated by liberal economic reforms. This led to the emergence of an independent media, but also to widespread corruption, a new class of oligarchs and the Chechen war of independence. Democracy became to a certain degree associated with economic and political instability.

Vladimir Putin was elected President in May 2000. He reversed several positive reforms and established an autocratic governance culture that eroded the new media freedom. Following the Beslan school siege in September 2004,79 President Putin took control of the appointment of previously elected regional governors. Nevertheless, he remains highly popular in the country. He was re-elected in March 2004 with 71 per cent of the vote, in elections that, according to international observers, had numerous irregularities.

‘Human rights violations have become the norm in Russia and rarely lead to public protests. There is political apathy and few Russians are involved in public life or believe that they can affect policy.’

Russia is a federation with a strong presidency. Over two-thirds of representatives in the State Duma (lower house of Parliament) are affiliated to United Russia, a pro-presidential party; other parties are A Just Russia (also pro-government), the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the People’s Party. The only opposition parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, each won less than five per cent of the votes in the 2003 elections. The government has been accused of repressing opposition and small parties.

Human rights violations have become the norm in Russia and rarely lead to public protests. There is political apathy and few Russians are involved in public life or believe that they can affect policy. Chechnya remains central to Russian politics. In recent years, the government has framed violence in the North Caucasus as part of the international terrorist threat, neglecting home-grown structural roots.

Legal and Regulatory Framework

Article 29 of the Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of thought and speech, yet broad legal restrictions are placed on it.

Defamation laws are among the principal sources of restrictions. The Criminal Code prohibits harming a person’s honour, dignity and business reputation, with specific protection for public officials. It is disturbing that more than half of civil defamation cases are brought by public figures. On a positive note, in 2005 the Supreme Court adopted a resolution requiring courts to interpret Russian laws in line with principles established by the European Court of Human Rights.

Of concern is Article 4 of the law ‘On Mass Media’, prohibiting ‘misuse’ of the freedom of the media for, among other things, divulging State secrets or carrying out extremist activities.

There is no federal freedom of information legislation, although some regions (oblasts) have adopted freedom of information laws. Existing rules are complex and contradictory due to State secret laws and decrees. Relatively good provisions on access to environmental information were substantially weakened when the list of documents available for Environmental Impact Assessments was substantially reduced.

In July 2006, draconian amendments to the 2002 law ‘On Counteracting Extremist Activity’ increased the categories of ‘extremist’ activity punishable by law to include certain instances of defamation of public officials. The provisions are vague and broad, and often used to interpret legitimate government criticism. For example, reporting of corruption and maladministration has been interpreted as ‘extremist activity’. Further amendments in July 2007 expanded the definition of extremism to include ‘hatred or hostility towards any social group’ punishable with imprisonment for up to five years. The distribution of ‘extremist materials’ included in a federal list compiled by the authorities will now be punishable with administrative arrest and confiscation of the materials.

In late 2006, a controversial ‘NGO law’ was adopted. It places civil society groups under the authorities’ close scrutiny, enabling government officials to audit NGOs at any time by requesting the organisations’ internal documents without limitation. Vague concepts open the law to highly subjective and unpredictable interpretations.

Political Expression

During the 2004 presidential elections, State-controlled media displayed ‘clear favouritism’ in their coverage of President Putin and failed to give other candidates sufficient access. During the 2003 parliamentary elections, opposition political parties faced similar difficulties. There was widespread use of State resources for the benefit of the United Russia party.

The National Bolshevik Party was declared extremist in April 2007 and supporting it publicly became automatically illegal. In 2006, the Federal Registration Service refused to register the Republican Party, citing a new legal requirement of a minimum membership of 50,000 (the party claimed it had 64,000 members). The Rodina Party was banned during the December 2005 Moscow city elections on the grounds that it incited ethnic hatred by broadcasting an overtly racist political advertisement.

In the North Caucasus, restrictions have been imposed on reporters and camera crews entering Chechnya and local journalists’ work has been obstructed. In October 2006, a regional court ordered the closure of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, an NGO that monitored human rights violations and disseminated news from Chechnya. The court argued it was illegal for an NGO to be headed by a person with a criminal conviction. The organisation’s director, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, had been convicted of ‘inciting ethnic hatred’ after publishing articles written by Chechen separatist leaders, despite the fact that these called for peaceful resolution of the conflict.

The authorities repressed anti-government ‘dissenters’ marches’ held in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in April 2007, including through arbitrary detention of hundreds of marchers, denying legal representation to those detained, and excessive use of force by the police. Among those detained and beaten were journalists. The authorities also intervened in a demonstration in Nizhniy Novgorod in March 2007. Kommersant, a daily newspaper that covered plans for the demonstration, received threatening telephone calls demanding that the coverage be discontinued. People distributing leaflets were detained. Potential participants, such as students, were strongly urged not to attend and employees were threatened with dismissal.

The widening of the legal definition of ‘terrorist activity’ has particularly affected Muslims. Charges were brought against members of the banned Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir simply for being involved in the organisation rather than in terrorist activities themselves. Muslims claimed to have been targeted merely for being openly Muslim – such as by wearing the veil and not drinking alcohol. Since the second Chechen war began in 1999, repression of Muslims in the North Caucasus has increased, with officials visiting mosques regularly to interrogate (and at times arrest) worshippers. Muslims have faced increased scrutiny of their literature, and an 18th-century book by the founder of Wahhabism has been banned.

In May 2007, gay rights protesters were severely beaten by anti-gay groups, before being arrested by the police at a banned protest in Moscow. They were protesting against the refusal of the Mayor of Moscow to allow a Gay Pride March.

News Media

Financial constraints and political corruption render the media dependent on sponsors and make them a tool of clans, politicians and oligarchs. Businesses tend not to support government-critical media, as loyalty to the authorities advances their financial interests. State media have many advantages, including subsidies or deals on rent and printing, which stifle true competition. The few distributors available are mostly linked to the government.

Low professional journalistic standards due to poor training and lack of resources result in little investigative and quality journalism.

‘Financial constraints and political corruption render the media dependent on sponsors and make them a tool of clans, politicians and oligarchs.’

There are more than 340 daily newspapers, of which 34 are nation-wide. The main newspapers are: Argumentiy i Faktiy (with the highest circulation of 2,825,480), Moskovsky Komsomolets (800,000), Komsomolskaya Pravda (747,956), Trud (613,000), Novaya Gazeta (500,000), Rossiyskaya Gazeta (374,000), Izvestiya (246,000) and Kommersant (86,000). Of these, Rossiyskaya Gazeta is State-owned, Novaya Gazeta is independent and others are owned by companies with close links to the government. Novaya Gazeta is the only newspaper that covers sensitive issues such as abuse of power and corruption by public officials, and human rights.

Neither public service broadcasting nor a diverse range of broadcast media exist. Lawsuits against media tycoons Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky led to government control over all significant television channels (NTV, First Channel and RTR) or closure (TV-6).

First Channel (Perviy Kanal), Rossiya and NTV are by far the most popular television networks followed by the private apolitical channel STS, national entertainment channel TNT and private REN-TV. In 2005, the government launched an English-language news-based satellite channel, Russia Today, which aims to present ‘global news from a Russian perspective’.

Two-thirds of the urban population listen to the most popular national radio stations. These include Russkiye Radio (audience share of 12.9 per cent), Evropa Plyus (12.3 per cent) and Radio Rossii (11.4 per cent). Russkiye Radio is owned by Russian Television and Radio, also the owner of television channel Rossiya; and Radio Rossii and Mayak are State-run. Most private stations are entertainment radios with music, chat shows, business and cultural news; they rarely have political content.

Russia has strong organisations working on media issues, such as the Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations, the Glasnost Defence Foundation, the Mass Media Defence Center and the Educated Media Foundation (EMF). Nevertheless, civil society is threatened by NGO laws. In April 2007 the EMF was forced to cease its activities after the seizure of its computers and electronic records by the police in an ongoing criminal prosecution of its director, Manana Aslamazyan, and the head of its Moscow office, Gillian McCormack. The charges were brought after the two women failed to fill in the proper declaration forms for bringing money into the country in January 2007, an offence usually dealt with by a small fine.

New Technologies

According to the US Department of State, 26.3 million people (23 per cent of the adult population) used the Internet in Russia in 2006, a 3.6 per cent increase from 2005. A study by market research organisation GFK-Russia shows that for the first time more women than men (51 per cent) use the Internet, while people aged between 16 and 29 have the highest consumer rate. Public institutions computerised their systems and most government structures established websites, even though they are hindered by limited resources.

Most Internet users are in big cities, accounting for 33.2 per cent of the population in towns with over one million people. In Moscow 43.1 per cent of the population use the Internet.

Officially, access to the Internet is unrestricted; however, the government requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to install a device allowing the Federal Security Service (FSB) to monitor private e-mail communications and Internet activity. In 2006, the Vladimir regional authorities discontinued the forum ‘Media and Politics’ of the website www.kovrov.ru because of critical comments placed on the website by its participants. Also in 2006, the Internet news site BankFax was sued for incitement to ethnic hatred for publishing comments on Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Repression of Media Workers

At least six journalists have been killed since 2006. The Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 45 murders of journalists in the past 15 years; the Russian Union of Journalists speaks of over 200 murders in 10 years.

On 7 October 2006, Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in an apparent contract killing. She had provided critical, analytical coverage of the Chechnya conflict, despite repeated threats. At the time of her death, she was investigating the use of torture by security services in Chechnya. Other journalists murdered in 2006–07 include Vyacheslav Ifanov, Ivan Safronov, Yevgeny Gerasimenko, Ilya Zimin and Vaghif Kochetkov, most of them investigative journalists. In August 2006, Elina Ersenoyeva, Grozny correspondent for the independent newspaper Chechenskoye Obshchestvo, who had written on the plight of Chechen refugees and on conditions in Grozny prisons, was seized by masked men in Chechnya and disappeared. No progress has been made in the investigation of such cases, nor into the death of journalist Paul Khlebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, who was shot dead in Moscow in 2004.

Numerous journalists have been detained. Viktor Shmakov, editor-in-chief of Provintsialniye Vesti, was arrested by the FSB in April 2006 and held in custody for two months. He was charged with attempting to overthrow the government and extremism for publishing two articles denouncing corruption and human rights abuses, calling on the President of Bashkortostan to resign, and explaining how to participate in public protests. The police detained for several hours a number of journalists who covered preparations for demonstrations during the European Union-Russia Summit in Samara.

Another method of control is the instigation of lawsuits for civil and criminal defamation and for the alleged dissemination of State secrets. The absence of an independent and competent judiciary exacerbates the threat of prosecution. The situation is more acute in the regions. Local officials file defamation suits more often than central government officials. They also use their power to influence the outcome of local bidding competitions for broadcast licences. The central authorities, who have the national media at their disposal, tend to fear criticism less: independent newspapers reach a marginal section of the public compared to national radio and television, and even the publication of scandalous information about politicians often has no consequences.

Media Censorship

Corporations close to the government gained ownership of several prominent media outlets in 2006. This is widely regarded as an attempt to influence reporting before the 2008 general elections. For instance, REN-TV was sold to Severstal Group and Surgutneftegas, leading to favourable government coverage. Outspoken journalist Olga Romanova was dismissed and her news programme, 24, discontinued after she publicly protested against censorship in REN-TV. In some cases, ownership of media organisations is not revealed, a violation of Russian licensing regulations. NTV, despite being owned by State-controlled Gazprom, is the only nation-wide private channel pursuing a more autonomous editorial line. It covers sensitive events such as the prosecution of oligarch Mikhail Khordokovsky. However, it has refrained from directly criticising the authorities.

‘Employees of State channels Rossiya and First Channel have been instructed through ‘guidelines’ issued by the presidential administration on the politicians they should champion or denounce.’

Employees of State channels Rossiya and First Channel have been instructed through ‘guidelines’ issued by the presidential administration on the politicians they should champion or denounce.

NGOs have little access to the media. Instead, the media cultivate an image of foreigners and NGOs as spies from foreign intelligence services. External forces (particularly Western governments) are often blamed for Russia’s problems. Denunciations of human rights violations by the international community are frequently portrayed as foreign plots to control Russia’s resources.

Private media outlets have been offered funds to refrain from publishing sensitive information. Novaya Gazeta was offered US$240,000 not to publish information on State protectionism of a loyal company. When the newspaper refused, it received telephone calls from government officials asking it to stop the publication.

Art Censorship

In May 2007, Russian customs officials refused to ship a photomontage entitled ‘The Candle of Our Life’, depicting the Holy Trinity with images of Jesus Christ, Alexander Pushkin and Vladimir Putin, to Germany for an exhibition. In March 2005 the ‘Caution, Religion!’ exhibition at the Moscow Sakharov Museum led to a conviction for incitement to religious hatred for the museum director and the exhibition’s curator. One of the exhibits showed the face of Jesus on a red Coca Cola logo next to the words: ‘This is my blood’. Although this might be offensive to some, it did not incite hatred.

In October 2005, artist Oleg Yanushevki was granted asylum in the United Kingdom after fleeing Russia, following harassment and an attack on his son. His art includes traditional-style icons featuring consumer goods, film stars and politicians, and has been denounced as blasphemous in Russia and vandalised during exhibitions.

In the Mari El republic, television programmes in the Mari language (belonging to the Finno-Ugric group) have been cut and only a few books are published in the Mari language every year. In February 2005, Vladimir Kozlov, editor-in-chief of the international Finno-Ugric newspaper Kudo+Kudo and leader of the movement of Mari people in Russia, Mer Kanash, was attacked and beaten. An ethnographic film on the tradition of Mari song festivals was banned in the Mari El republic in 2005. In May 2005, Mari artists and musicians were attacked by a group of Russian skinheads after a concert. Reportedly, the action was arranged by a fascist group instructed by the (Russian-dominated) presidential administration of the republic.