Free Speech in Russia


Here are two fascinating articles from The Guardian newspaper which provide competing claims about freedom of speech in Russia.

The first is by a journalist, Dmitry Kiselev, who is accused of being a mouthpiece for President Putin but who gives examples of where is his eyes dissident voices are perfectly free to express their disagreement with the Russian state and government policies.

The second is by another journalist, Tikhon Dzyadko, working with an independent television station (Dodzh or 'Rain) which he says has come under attack, commercially speaking, after asking controversial questions of the Russian Government and Russian society more generally.  

Now I've always believed that the right to freedom of speech does not exist in isolation because it is completely meaningless if people can be punished or victimised for exercising that right and speaking their minds.

As appears to be happening in the case of Dodhz which is tolerated but only up to a point and as soon as it steps out of line, the Russian state and its cronies gang up to put the TV channel out of business.

I wonder how long Private Eye would last in Russia or a satirical programme like Spitting Image? - not long if you ask me. 



Russia and the west are trading places on freedom of speech



EU calls me 'Putin's chief propagandist', yet in Russia journalists are free to tackle difficult issues without fear of state sanction

Dmitry Kiselev - The Guardian

Vladimir Putin, gives a press conference in his country residence of Novo-Ogaryova outside Moscow. Photograph: Alexey Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images

East and west appear to be trading places. In Russia we now take full advantage of freedom of speech, whereas in the west political correctness, or political expediency in the name of security, have become arguments against freedom of speech.

This is not happening in Russia. Why? Just because the Soviet Union and its one-party system are gone. Russia is gradually returning to a state more natural to the Russian soul, which Dostoyevsky describes so well in The Brothers Karamazov as "capable of combining the most incongruous contradictions, and capable of the greatest heights and of the greatest depths".

Great heights and depths characterise not only the Russian character, but also freedom of speech in Russia today. Ksenia Larina, a popular host on the Ekho Moskvy radio station, which is owned by Gazprom Media, once ranted on air that patriotism makes her "throw up worms and cherry pits". The writer Viktor Yerofeyev, speaking on the television channel Dozhd, said that "Leningrad should have been surrendered to the Germans" during the second world war, diminishing the heroic sacrifice of the city's defenders. The editor-in-chief of Moscow-based New Times, Yevgenia Albats, has said Russia should let China take Siberia. All of these people consider themselves liberals. In my opinion, they are "ultra-liberals".

And yet they and other ultra-liberals continue to work in Russia without any government restrictions on their freedom of speech. While some patriotic Russians fiercely oppose the ultra-liberals, there have been no calls for reprisals against them; their names have not been added to sanction lists. However, the same cannot be said about the ultra-liberals, for whom making such lists is a favourite pastime. We tolerate this in Russia and make no complaints.

Russian journalists are free to tackle difficult issues in their reporting without fear of government sanction. To take one such issue, unlike in Great Britain or the US, gay men in Russia are not prohibited from donating blood or organs, a heart, for example. In the US, any man who has had sex with another man after 1977 is banned for life from donating blood. The UK recently relaxed its rules, requiring that at least a year pass after the last contact with another man, but continues to bar homosexuals from being donors. Gay men who die in accidents cannot donate organs, and their bodies are buried or cremated along with their perfectly healthy hearts.

Personally, I believe the US and the UK have the right policy, and I have discussed this at length on the air. My opponents have called me a homophobe and used their freedom of speech to wage a war of words against me. But Russian journalists are free to comment on this or any other issue, from events in Ukraine to problems in Russia and the world. There are no government sanctions restricting freedom of speech or freedom of movement in my country.

Instead, the sanctions have come from the west. On 21 March, the EU barred me and other Russian citizens from travelling, banking or otherwise doing business in the EU. There's just one problem: I don't have any accounts or business in the EU. I am a professional journalist; that is all I've ever been.

As a political commentator, I host the weekly TV news show Vesti Nedeli on Rossiya 1. The show, which recently has stretched to more than two hours, features reporting from correspondents and my personal take on the news. Although we work in a highly competitive market, we usually get anywhere from 15% to 20% of the Sunday primetime audience, which are good ratings for any country.

Furthermore, I have editorial control of Vesti Nedeli, and my point of view does not always coincide with the official position of the Kremlin. Another programme, Vesti v Subbotu, airing on Saturday nights on our channel, is hosted by our former London correspondent Sergey Brilev – a talented reporter whose interpretation of events is often quite different from mine.

EU officials have called me "Putin's chief propagandist". That's their opinion and I respect their right to express it. But why target a journalist with sanctions? Why restrict my freedom of movement, which is enshrined in the 1948 universal declaration of human rights? How are these sanctions compatible with freedom of speech? Is freedom of speech no longer a core value in Europe? If this is the case, we are truly witnessing a revolution in the western world and a betrayal of what were until recently western values.

That's why I say that Russia and the west are trading places. Even in my worst nightmares I can't imagine Russia imposing sanctions on any of my western colleagues. The main charge levelled against me is that I engage in propaganda.

However, propaganda is not a concept addressed by international law, while freedom of speech is. By sanctioning me, the EU has sanctioned freedom of speech. This shameful chapter will go down in European history much like the Dreyfus affair. Nothing personal. Let's assume that I'm an abstract journalist, but I'm also the first and so far the only journalist to be targeted by co-ordinated EU sanctions. Some may point out that I'm also the head of the new state-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya. But I've only held this position since December.

So far, we have been busy creating this new agency. We have not created a brand yet, and our only new products – news wires in English and Spanish – were released in test mode on 1 April. So the sanctions announced on 21 March cannot be related to my position as director general of Rossiya Segodnya.

Ultimately, it's somewhat quaint to believe that sanctions can restrict freedom of speech in this day and age, even if you call it propaganda. If you have read this far, I have another propaganda victim under my belt.

Dmitry Kiselev is a Russian journalist


Triumph of the will: Putin's war against Russia's last independent TV channel

Away from Ukraine, Kremlin is fighting a campaign that is part of rehashed agenda that sees media as propaganda automatons

By Tikhon Dzyadko - The Guardian

Dozhd was the only Russian media outlet to cover the clashes in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, says the channel's deputy editor. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty

Vladimir Putin won the war in Crimea without a bullet being fired. But to triumph in a very different war – that against independent Russian media – he didn't even have to bring in the army. In today's Russia, there are very different instruments for this kind of thing.

My colleagues and I know this from first-hand experience: the place we work, the only Russian independent television station, Dozhd or "Rain", has been operating on the edge of extinction for the past couple of months.

Rain first aired in Russia in 2010, when, after the first two tough presidencies of Putin, there was a strong demand for unbiased information and rigorous journalism. Thanks to this, within four years it became one of the main information resources in the country.

We didn't have to do anything particularly cunning to achieve this – we just filmed the kinds of things that had disappeared from Russian TV over the previous 15 years: live broadcasts, cutting-edge interviews with politicians and public figures, live feeds from different parts of the world. We interviewed not just opposition figures, but also the leadership, including Dmitry Medvedev, asking them uncomfortable questions live that simply wouldn't get asked on state TV.

Our audience has grown with every month: we broadcast on the internet and our channel is carried by the biggest Russian cable and satellite networks.

Then, in January, we aired a debate about the siege of Leningrad and whether the city should have surrendered so as to avoid loss of life. This is not an original question in Russia. It's even mentioned in a school textbook. But it quickly escalated into a matter of state.

Within a month, Rain was excluded from virtually all cable and satellite services and lost almost 90% of its audience. And though the leaders of these companies said they did it because they had been offended by the question about the siege of Leningrad, privately they explained that they were under pressure from the Kremlin.

MPs wrote several requests to the state prosecutor about Rain – they were interested in how we were funded. Tax and labour inspectors came. The owner of our building suddenly declared he no longer wanted to extend our lease. But the most important thing was that Rain lost its advertisers: several left because our audience had collapsed, others were worried about advertising on a TV channel that was in the doghouse.

All this happened within two months. From a successful business, Rain turned into a project on the edge of oblivion, existing only on funding from its viewers. And now everything depends on whether the Kremlin stops putting pressure on Rain: it may seem strange but the future of my TV channel will be decided in the same place that everything else in Russia is decided.

As the current Russian leadership understands it, the main aim of the media should be propaganda. Propaganda that must find the right words to explain those complicated matters such as the events in Ukraine or the inevitable economic crisis. In this system, there is no room for independent media groups like Rain, or for me and my colleagues. And so the independent media which appeared in recent years, and which can ask awkward questions about all this, has become inappropriate. One recent poll found that more than 70% of Russians are prepared to accept censorship in the interests of the state.

Tikhon Dzyadko is deputy editor of Russian independent television channel Dozhd

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