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"Media professionals in times of crisis"

 

Council of Europe online session - intervention by William Horsley

 

London, 3 May 2007

 

The Council of Europe marked World Press Freedom Day by holding an online question and comment session from journalists. It was moderated by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, who responded to some of the interventions.

 

The discussion was kicked off by an intervention by William Horsley, Chairman of the AEJ's UK Section and shortly to become AEJ Media Freedom Representative:

 

William Horsley: With all due respect to Russian parliamentarians in the CoE Parliamentary Assembly, how is it possible to reconcile the “strong condemnation” of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya reportedly made by the Russian delegation to the Council of Europe, as well as the public commitment of the Russian government to keep the CoE “fully informed of progress in the investigation”, with these reported facts: that Russia’s General Prosecutor has failed to give out any information on the investigation since the murder in October 2006, and the numerous other cases of official harassment of media workers and several further killings of Russian investigative journalists in the past six months?

 

Can the Russian members of parliament please explain why the Russian government’s statements should be considered to be credible, in view of its well-documented failure to investigate satisfactorily the murders of at least 13 other Russian journalists, allegedly for work-related reasons, since 2000 when President Putin took office?

 

Will you, on behalf of many concerned journalists and others in Europe, intensify demands to the Russian authorities for thorough judicial investigations of journalists’ killings to international standards, and

 

 

 

 

the repeal of Russia’s laws restricting freedom, independence and diversity of the media, in accordance with Russia’s obligations in the Council of Europe? In particular, will you express in the name of the Council of Europe the shock and dismay of all groups upholding media freedom at the recent forced interruption of the work of the Educated Media Foundation (the successor of Internews Russia)?

 


Thomas Hammarberg: Anna Politkovskaya was one of the most important human rights defenders in Russia. Her dedicated work exposed grave human rights violations in the North Caucasus region. Having known her well and respected her enormously, the news of her death made me very sad and angry. She is a great loss for Russia, and a great loss for the cause of human rights.

 

I cannot speak for Russian members of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, but for my part, I have raised this issue with the Russian authorities. I regret indeed that the Russian authorities have not been more forthcoming on the results of the Anna Politkovskaya investigation and I sincerely hope that the results of this and other cases of murdered journalists will be revealed very soon.


I am concerned about the increasing economic and political pressure on the media in Russia and some other countries and feel the absolute need to raise this problem in my work. I will try to get more information about the case of the Educated Media Foundation you mentioned.

 

See Council of Europe's media freedom pages