Authorities in in the Russian republic of Ingushetia want to see the back of a private television channel that has shown critical reports from the region. In an open letter to the Russian parliament, the prosecutor-general, the FSB security service and the interior ministry, delegates of the region’s Popular Assembly demanded that Moscow-based REN-TV stop broadcasting in the Republic, according to the Other Russia website.
Their request, which was signed by leaders of four major political parties and was also published on the Popular Assembly’s website, comments that the presence of REN-TV journalists in the area is also undesirable.
Paris-based Reporters sans frontières (RSF) expressed concern at the move, and said, "We urge the authorities to maintain a firm position in response to the demands of the Ingush parliament. They pose a direct threat to press freedom in this Caucasian republic, where human rights are routinely flouted.”
The initial response in Moscow has been cool. Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, said: “Unfortunately, we do not have the capability or power to shut down TV channels or influence their content.”
Boris Reznik, a member of the information technology and policy committee in the Duma, the lower house, said: “The members of the lower house will not intervene in REN-TV's activities.” He added that if the Ingush parliamentarians had a complaint about REN-TV, they should turn to the judicial authorities.
The Ingush parliamentarians said, “REN-TV's provocative, slanderous and biased reports on events in Ingushetia indicate that behind them there are forces interested in shaking up the situation in the south of our country. We have every reason to believe that reports regularly broadcast on this channel are directly linked to attempts by these forces to destabilise the region, including attempts being made from abroad.”
Three REN-TV journalists and a member of the human rights group Memorial were arrested in their hotel in the Ingush capital of Nazran on the night of November 23. They were stripped of their clothes and equipment, beaten and threatened with execution before finally being dumped in a remote place outside the city. Two of the journalists had to be hospitalised. They had gone to Nazran to cover a demonstration called to protest against the failure of the local authorities to put a stop to series of murders and disappearances.
REN-TV has not issued a formal statement about the open letter as it was not addressed to the station. But deputy editor Mariana Maximovskaya said she thought it was directly linked to a report broadcast on March 16 referring to events in recent months in Ingushetia, “where opposition demonstrators are kidnapped and killed with increasing frequency and censorship reigns.”
