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Solidarity movement activist Ilya Yashin protesting outside the Interior Ministry's headquarters in downtown Moscow following the brutal beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin. The poster in his hands reads: "Russian journalist Oleg Kashin was beaten. I demand that the attackers and masterminds be found.”
The brutal beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin has outraged the professional community and human rights activists.
They have appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev for an investigation into the Kashin crime, as well as the hundreds of unsolved crimes against journalists over the past 15 years. The goal is to force the authorities to enforce Article 144 of the Criminal Code, which makes it a crime to obstruct the professional activity of a journalist.
The authors of the appeal point out that the cases of the murders of Vladislav Listyev, former head of ORT television, the precursor to Channel One, and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, as well as the 2008 savage beating of Khimki journalist Mikhail Beketov have not been solved. In this year alone, eight journalists were killed and 40 were attacked.
The president already responded by ordering Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to take personal control of the investigation. This has been done in many similar cases, but, unfortunately, these efforts have led nowhere. Nonetheless, we hope that with the order coming directly from the president, a timely and thorough investigation will be conducted and the people who ordered and executed the attack on Kashin will get the punishment they deserve.
The Russian media have never achieved the status of Fourth Estate as it exists in democratic countries. The government — and to a lesser degree society as a whole — are at fault for the fact that journalists hold so little influence in society. Since the bulk of the most influential media is controlled by the government, this prevents the development of a competitive market for independent media. In addition, the government places legal and judicial barriers to investigative journalism, such as the loosely worded law against extremism that is applied selectively against opposition newspapers and used to limit journalists’ activities.
In September, for example, Moscow’s Tagansky District Court ruled that the Federal Mass Media Inspection Service had grounds to issue a warning to opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta for “spreading fascist propaganda” after it published a story on Russia’s ultranationalist groups that included quotes from these groups. (After two warnings from the agency, a newspaper can be shut down.) Novaya Gazeta is appealing the decision.
Ideally, the mass media is a means for society to monitor and control itself — including the authorities and the business community. But in Russia, that system of controls is ineffective. Freedom of speech exists, but the media has no influence as a democratic institution that can provide checks and balances against government abuse. Media reports rarely lead to convictions in high-profile cases involving contract killings and corruption.
What they do lead to, however, is the murder and beatings of the authors of the reports. But does it matter for a judiciary that doesn’t bother to investigate cold-blooded murders and ruthless beatings and that almost never brings the perpetrators to justice? Either the government is intentionally concealing the identity of the offenders, or else the system itself is so ineffective that it cannot control its own actions, much less those of the criminals.
The letter of appeal to the president and one-person demonstrations in front of the Interior Ministry are important steps, but they are not enough. The influence and standing of Russia’s virtually nonexistent Fourth Estate would increase if it were to conduct joint investigations into the most important issues, simultaneously publish its findings and coordinate lobbying efforts for better legislation.
Like scattered soldiers on the battlefield, it is time they unite against a common enemy.
This comment appeared as an editorial in Vedomosti.
A Pummeled 4th Estate & And The Bolshevik Blogger.
Oh no, not that " bloody" Swede again..." but soldiers in dire straits, don´t unite, instead they use to "bunching", "crowding", when they lose their tactical stability, order of battle, and disintegrate, most out of fear. (The G.Custer LBH- battle 1876 / R.A. Fox.1993) (C. even met the Russian tsar, before, in vain.)
But how could Lenin´s Bolshevik activists , a small thin urban layer, survive, those years of 1918-22, alone and then be "victorious" ? Didn´t people learn something from that, real fighting, "Iskra",sparks, acting in a much more hostile environment, "organising - and not mourning". They resorted to terror ?
Perhaps, " The child went together with the bath-water, through the window ", when "Russia throw the towel, into the Box.Ring, too fast." (And the blogger activities are of an Ad-hoc character, that can collect a million of symphatizers on the web, a certain day, perhaps rally, but not sustain in opposition, "that´s´ the lesson" , as Yulia Latynina use to put it.)
Look at the Swedish mainstream morningpaper: The Dagens Nyheter/ (liberal):(see down-under)
Todays heading on the web-edition: " Russian swines are hunted down in Finland. A big herd of Russian swines, (10 animals) is on the run in Northern Savolax, from a large herd of hundred wild boars from Russian Carelia. But they can´t find any food i Finland, this time of the year. " /Savon Sanomat/
This typical swinish headings is the way the Swedish media, from the very large Bonnier´s enterprises, on the run, use to present news from Russia, when they "can´t find any other food ", of dirty facts about Russia. But don´t get physical to this incorrigible paper !
The Dagens Nyheter has taken the position (and bad sides), of former Pravda, in Swedish politics, and acting like a supporting force to the Right´s Alliance, today shaping the government, of neoliberals. (-2014). So these conservatives, group their Parties, their Medias, and their Economic power influence, together -are now collected under the same umbrella-hat.
Bonnier´s today dominate the whole Swedish mediabusiness sphere, since they even bought the commercial TV-Channel TV4, last year. They even own big evening tabloids,as Expressen, (f.1944-),Kvällsposten, and lots of publishing companies for books, and other modern media-producers.
When today the paper Aftonbladet, (labour/socialdemocrat) owner (Norwegian) Schipstedt´s, launched a campaign to scrutinize the strong influence of the " Big Bad " Bonniers media con-centration, some media accused Aftonbladet editors, for anti-jewishness, to obstruct the proj-ect, the common strategy Israel use to exercise, when in trouble.
The conservative´s morning paper Svenska dagbladet (SvD), can be edited only by some 65 million SEK (6.5 mill. Euro) as economic support every year, always advertising the "great advantages with the market neoliberal system", but would be dead in it´s tracks, without the taxpayers heavy, support. It´s a, s.c. 2nd paper, missing much of the advertisings incomes. (SvD must have been the economist Anders Åslund´s "house & life-organ", as we say, when he dwelled in the Swedish socialdemocrats "guided democracy" dictatorship, from 1932-1979).
The problem is that these papers, neoliberals, + 85 % of the total national editions, contrib-uted to the defeat of the Swedish socialdemocrats,(and the Left & Green coalition),now last election, more than ever, (29% of the votes, lower than the years of 1914, before Lenin, 2nd International ,and two World Wars.) )
The Labour party today, is in the same serious chrisis implosion, as the Soviet Union of 1991, perhaps outdated, unreformed, rigid, problematic leadership, by Mrs Mona Sahlin (not Stal...) A development I´m sure coincides with the fall of USSR,most funny, earlier the Labour party´s most frequent hate object. Sh -t happens !
Labour/socialdem. always did pose as an democratic alternative to the " Iron curtain", but those days are gone, the Curtain that kept the West´s workingclass livingstandard, rather high,, buying them - for not pointing accusing, in envy, to the Eastbloc, but´s not neccessary today. And the right party-alliance, took over labours rhetoric, over a night, and labour must beg on it´s knees, to get it back...
My point - the Russian and the Swedish media structure is different, why not, here´s Labour, and Left´s /Green´s cant compete in any way with the mighty " bourgeois" paper/media concentrations, like the Bonnier´s and others. But electionresults don´t depend totally on the mediasituation, as we know. If so, the Labour dominance since the 1930s in Sweden hadn´t been possible.
Russia seem to have more of a kind of independent, but smaller papers, with perhaps lower editions, and muckraking reporters/bloggers, without any long traditions, power, and heavy mediaenterprises in their backs ? Aren´t the readers defending their papers against violence ? (Are the papers like the Sun in Britain ? But mega-rich Russans buying up the whole of Fleet street, and the rest of London ? How come ? )
In Sweden, all those small "localchauvinistic" provincial papers are most edited by conserva-tive camps, some labours ,can´t frighten no one, so that the Russian system-threatening murdering and beating of reporters, is unknown. Contrary here, individual citizens more often, can be " victimized" by the media. In Russia the readers don´t longing too much to get used to critical reportage works, rather the other way around - raking the reporters, "if needed "?
(Sweden have a quite good public financed television, but each citizen have to pay some 200 Euro/year for that, and even Cable TV fees, from commercials, costs about 400 Euros/year. )
And there is also a rather, strong Swedish "watch-dog" -institution,(PO)+ (JK) protecting the citizens rights,in media, against ethnic hatred, etc.,... (Sorry, but not valid for Russians).
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Published and be damned !
Publicerat 2010-11-12 13:10/ The Dagens Nyheter :
En ovanligt stor vildsvinsflock jagas i Norra Savolax i centrala Finland. Flocken tros bestå av rymlingar från Ryssland, och ställer till problem i bland annat villaträdgårdar, skriver tidningen Savon Sanomat.