The Federal Security Service on Tuesday interrogated a reporter from the Russian edition of Esquire regarding an interview with a human rights activist published in the magazine last year, a news report said.
Reporter Svetlana Reiter was questioned at the FSB's headquarters outside Lubyanka metro station about an interview she did with Igor Kalyapin, head of the Nizhny Novgorod- based Committee Against Torture, for the September 2011 issue of Esquire, Openinform.ru reported. Openinform.ru is the mouthpiece of human rights group Agora.
In the interview, Kalyapin accuses Chechen authorities of refusing to investigate kidnappings in the region.
A field investigator from Nizhny Novgorod, Igor Savelyev, arrived in Moscow to question Reiter, the Openinform.ru report said.
Esquire, one of the country's most prominent general-interest magazines, periodically draws attention for articles featuring criticism of the authorities.
It also attracted attention from authorities in 2010 after it placed a nine-story banner featuring the cover of its April 2010 issue on a central Moscow street with the question: "Why do ballet dancers and gays join United Russia?" The advertisement was removed soon after it appeared.
The parent company of both Esquire Russia and The Moscow Times is Sanoma Independent Media.
In October 2008, prison officials placed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky in solitary confinement for 12 days for granting an interview to Esquire. The punishment was later ruled illegal.
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