The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over Russia's denial of entry to a British journalist into the country last week.
Freelance journalist Simon Pirani had a valid, multiple-entry visa to Russia when he was stopped by border guards at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on June 17. Officials handed him a “declaration of return,” which stated that he could not enter the country under Law 114, “On exiting and entering the Russian Federation,” and put him on a London-bound plane. Pirani has worked in Russia as a reporter and academic researcher regularly since 1990, according to New York-based CPJ.
Upon his return, Pirani wrote to the Russian Consulate in London, asking for an explanation as to why had been banned from entering the country. In an August 25 email, the consulate wrote to Pirani that he had been denied entry to Russia under Article 27.1 of the above-mentioned law, which states that “internationals” are barred when “necessary for the purpose of protecting the defence capability and security of the state or the social order, or for the protection of the public health.” The email did not explain how Pirani’s presence in the country could be a threat. Pirani also wrote to Federal Security Service Director Aleksandr Bortnikov, asking for further clarification as to why he was denied entry, but has yet to receive a response.
Pirani’s last reporting trip to Russia was in October 2007, when he visited with representatives from trade unions and civil rights groups and interviewed them for an upcoming book. Some of them, Pirani said, told him they were subjected to surveillance and other intimidation tactics by law enforcement agencies.
This is the second case in a year when an international journalist has been denied entry into Russia. In December 2007, authorities at Domodedovo airport barred Moldovan citizen and investigative reporter for the Moscow-based independent newsweekly New Times, Natalya Morar, from re-entering Russia after a business trip to Israel. Referring to a secret Federal Security Service (FSB) order, passport control officers said she was not allowed in the country.
Morar had studied journalism in Moscow and had worked for about two years with the New Times when she was banned. In May 2007, Morar had investigated complex money-laundering schemes involving government officials who funnelled large sums of money out of the country. That month, she received a warning from sources close to FSB who told her, “There is no need to end your life with an article—someone might simply wait for you at the entrance to your apartment building and they will not find a killer afterwards.”
On December 10, just one week before she was denied entry to Russia, the New Times ran Morar’s report on covert funds generated and distributed by the presidential administration before Russia’s December 2, 2007, parliamentary elections. While investigating that story, she was given another warning that she “could receive a bullet” if she didn’t stop her work.
As in Pirani’s case, Morar received the same paragraph-long explanation of her ban; on January 17, the Russian Embassy in Moldova cited the same security law that, in effect, declares Pirani and Morar a threat to Russia.
According to statistics from the Moscow-based press freedom group Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES), since 2000 more than 40 journalists have either been denied entry to or have been deported from Russia. Among those is another British journalist—Thomas de Waal of the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). In July 2006, the Federation Migration Service in Moscow denied de Waal’s application for a Russian visa, citing the same security law. De Waal had been invited to Moscow to present his book on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the Russian Union of Journalists.
