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Doc. 8707
5 April 2000
Conflict in Chechnya
Opinion1
Committee on Culture and Education
Rapporteur: Mr Gyula Hegyi, Hungary, Socialist Group
I. Conclusions of the Committee
1. The opinion concentrates on the situation of the media covering the events in Chechnya and stresses the importance of guaranteeing freedom of expression and allowing free and unhindered exercise of journalism in a situation of conflict. The public has a right to information.
2. The Committee considers that these conditions have not been met in the Chechen conflict. The restrictions inflicted on the journalists covering the events raise serious concerns about the state of press freedom in Russia in general.
3. Whilst democratic governments may impose restrictions on information given to the media at times of crisis and war (although no war and no state of emergency have been proclaimed in Russia), in no way should these limitations apply to the free and unhindered exercise by journalists of their professional duties.
4. The personal freedom of journalists should be respected in all circumstances. The Committee considers that the kidnapping of journalists by certain Chechen groups is unacceptable and calls for the immediate release of all the civil hostages.
6. The Committee therefore presents the following amendments to the draft recommendation in Doc. 8697 presented by the Political Affairs Committee.
Amendment No 1
Add a new paragraph after paragraph 7 worded as follows:
"Restrictions imposed on the free and unhindered exercise by the media of their professional duties have also prevented the Russian public from obtaining comprehensive and objective information about the real situation on the ground, especially at the beginning of the conflict when the worst human rights violations were allegedly committed."
Amendment No 2
Add a new sub-paragraph iv. after paragraph 13 iii worded as follows:
"allow Russian and international media to visit Chechnya freely and independently and to perform their professional duties without any hindrance".
Amendment No 3
Add a new paragrpah after paragraph 15 worded as follows:
"The Assembly calls for the immediate release of all the civil hostages, including journalists, detained by certain Chechen groups".
II. Explanatory memorandum by Mr Hegyi
1. Introduction
The position of the Council of Europe on the situation of journalists covering conflicts such as in Chechnya is clearly stated in the Committee of Ministers Recommendation N° R 4 (1996) on the protection of Journalists in Situations of Conflict and Tension: "the freedom of the media and the free and unhindered exercise of journalism must be respected in situations of conflict and tension, since the right of individuals and the general public to be informed about all matters of public interest and to be able to evaluate the actions of public authorities and other parties involved is especially important in such situations".
The Recommendation also emphasises "the importance of the role of journalists and the media in informing the public about violations of national and international law and human suffering in situations of conflict and tension, and the fact that they thereby can help to prevent further violations and suffering".
In its Recommendation 1444 on the conflict in Chechnya adopted last January, the Parliamentary Assembly called on the Russian authorities "to ensure free access by Russian and international media to the region".
In a letter that the Chairman of the Committee on Culture and Education, Mr Pedro Roseta, sent to the Chairman of the Russian delegation to the PACE on 10 February 2000 and in a statement by the PACE President Lord Russell-Johnston on the following day, Russia was urged to guarantee the independent operation of the media.
The events related below, however, show that both the Russian and the Chechen side in the conflict have violated the right of journalists to free and unhindered exercise of their professional duties.
On 7 March 2000, the Committee on Culture and Education "expressed concern over the possibility for Russian public to obtain independent and objective information about the real situation in Chechnya". The Committee would wish to recall that respect for freedom of expression is one of the fundamental commitments that Russia is bound to respect as a member state of the Council of Europe. Therefore, when the Assembly assesses the overall situation in Chechnya, it should take into account the fact that there have clearly been violations of this right in respect to journalists.
2. Restrictions on access to information
It is normal that in a situation of war any government will seek to present events under the most advantageous light and try to impose some restrictions on the grounds of protection of national security. Recommendation N° R (96) 4 states, however, that the protection of national security, while constituting a legitimate aim, cannot be used as a reason for restricting all fundamental rights and freedoms.
Certain derogations are equally admissible "in situations of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed". Western practice also shows that sometimes access to the media has been denied to representatives of terrorist groups (e.g. the BBC and Sinn Fein).
However, officially, no war and no state of emergency have ever been proclaimed in the present Chechen conflict. Russian law clearly grants accredited journalists access to the entire Russian territory and officially Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation.
According to a legal analysis by the Russian Glasnost Defence Foundation, the existing legal provisions are sufficient to limit access of journalists to the battlefields. The Russian Constitution imposes certain limitations, but only in case of state of emergency. The Federal Law on Combating Terrorism authorises regulation of the activities of journalists in areas of anti-terrorist operations.
Foreign correspondents who have obtained accreditation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be able to move freely across the Federation territory, including in Chechnya. In reality, since the beginning of the military operations, Moscow required an additional accreditation from Rossinformcentre for all foreign journalists. In addition, local military headquarters required further accreditation from the Russian military headquarters in Mozdok.
According to Human Rights Watch, most international journalists have sought this accreditation without success or have only obtained it "after extensive lobbying efforts, or even by bribing corrupt Russian officials". International journalists who have entered Chechnya without the additional accreditation have been repeatedly arrested and questioned, and have been threatened with expulsion from Russia. At the same time, in the opinion of Human Rights Watch, pro-Moscow journalists have been granted much greater access to Chechnya.
The following journalists have been arrested and interrogated by the Russian security services: Anthony Loyd, a reporter for the British Sunday Times, Tyler Hicks, an American photographer, Daniel Williams of the Washington Post; David Filipov of the Boston Globe; Marcus Warren of The Daily Telegraph; Rodriguez Fernandez of El Pais; British photojournalist Michael Yassukovich; and Ricardo Ortega of Spanish Antenna 3 television and his cameraman Teimuraz Gabashvili. More recently, Anne Nivat from the French Libération daily was questioned by the Federal Security Service and her material was confiscated.
As soon as Serguey Yastrjembsky was appointed as presidential aid and entrusted with the regulation of accreditations, he replaced the previous accreditations with one issued by his administration. Under the rules defining its issue, only full-time employed journalists can obtain accreditation and it is delivered within 7 days. They are allowed to cover military actions only if they are part of a group formed by Mr Yastrjembsky's Administration. The number of journalists on every trip can be limited for "security reasons" and "transport problems". Journalists are not allowed to move freely across Chechnya or to interview military staff without special permission. The accreditation can be withdrawn, inter alia, for "dissemination of information discrediting the honour and dignity" of the military.
These requirements are in clear contradiction with Recommendation No. R (96) 4 which calls on member states to ensure that: "accreditation operates to facilitate the exercise of journalism in situations of conflict and tension"; "the exercise of journalism and journalistic freedoms is not made dependent on accreditation"; "accreditation is not used for the purpose of restricting the journalist's liberty of movement or access to information".
The Parliamentary Assembly ad-hoc committee visiting Russia and Chechnya from 9 to 13 March 2000 met representatives of Russian and foreign media: ITAR-TASS, Interfax, Radio Echo Moscow, DPA and El Pais. They all agreed that the information coming from Chechnya was very limited and one-sided. The only way to get to Chechnya was one of the above-mentioned weekly organised "sight-seeing tours". In their view, independent reporting was impossible: although more than 800 journalists had obtained the so-called 'Chechnya accreditation' this did not seem to mean much in so far as they could not travel to Chechnya on their own.
According to the witness of a journalist from the German Frankfurter Rundschau most journalists were based in a hotel in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetya. The bulk of the staff in the hotel was from the intelligence services. They could only leave the hotel accompanied by armed officers who are instructed not to let anybody in Chechnya. A Newsweek correspondent added that Western journalists in the same hotel had found computer cables mysteriously cut and that telephones had regularly been tapped. According to Frankfurter Rundschau, male reporters trying to go to Chechnya were inevitably held back at the Russian checkpoints. This is why the British Guardian and the French Libération had decided to send female correspondents. Liberation's Russian speaking Anne Nivat spent some time in Chechnya dressed as a Chechen woman.
On 14 March 2000, according to the Interfax Press Agency, the Deputy Press Minister Mikhail Seslavinsky stated that the Press Ministry would consider it a violation of the Law on Combating Terrorism if the Russian media "made public the words of Chechen terrorist leaders", naming Aslan Maskhadov, Shamil Basayev and Movladi Udugov.
3. The case of Andrey Babitsky
The case of Andrey Babitsky, correspondent for the American-run Radio Liberty Moscow office, is unique in terms of a state violating the rights of its own citizen.
The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent was arrested by Russian military while fulfilling his professional duties in Chechnya, held incommunicado for weeks and then exchanged for Russian prisoners of war.
The Council of Europe has reacted to the "Babitsky case" on several occasions. Both Lord Russell-Johnston and Mr Roseta, in the above mentioned statements as well as the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers Brian Cowen, Foreign Minister of Ireland in a statement issued on 16 February 2000, urged the Russian Federation to provide as soon as possible the necessary information and give assurances concerning the personal situation of Mr Babitsky.
There was no reaction to these calls by the Russian authorities while Mr Babitsky's whereabouts were unknown. In the letter dated 28 March 2000 the Chairman of the Russian delegation assures the President of the Parliamentary Assembly that appropriate State Duma committees are closely following the developments, while stating that Mr Babitsky had violated the law. These charges have to be clarified in conformity with the rule of law.
At its meeting of 7 March 2000, the Committee decided to invite Mr Babitsky during the April Assembly session and in a press release called on the Russian authorities to allow him to travel to Strasbourg. Mr Babitsky complained publicly that he had not been given such a permission. Nevertheless, he met the Assembly ad-hoc committee visiting Russia and Chechnya from 9 to 12 March 2000. Subsequently, he declared to the media that he had renounced visiting Strasbourg as the PACE representatives had obtained all the necessary information and as he needed to stay in Moscow in order to pursue his legal claims against the Deputy Minister of the Interior.
4. Concerns about the state of press freedom in Russia
In war, it is common to see certain media being recruited to support certain political objectives, often at the expense of professional credibility. It is not unusual, either, especially in new democracies, for governments to try to put pressure on the media in the name of the "national interest" and to favour what they call "objective" (meaning committed to their side) to "committed" (meaning impartial or committed to the other side) media.
According to media analysts, most Russian media have unfortunately succumbed to producing "patriotic" propaganda or have applied self-censorship in the name of misconceived notion of good citizenship. However, they are gradually beginning to realise that any small concession could lead to serious restrictions. Indeed, several influential sources of information, both Russian and foreign, suggest that pressure on the free and independent exercise of journalism has increased since Mr Putin took over command from former President Yeltsin and that the war in Chechnya has been the driving force in this.
In a joint statement made on Babitsky's case by about 30 media in a special edition of the Obshchaya Gazeta newspaper, that is only published when Russia's press freedom appears endangered, the Union of Journalists of Russia said that for the first time for many years, freedom of speech was systematically under attack.
It has not been possible to verify these statements for the purposes of the present opinion. Moreover, the journalists that the Assembly ad-hoc committee met in Moscow said that a clear difference should be made in terms of news coverage in Russia in general and the specific situation in Chechnya. They all seemed to agree that freedom of expression was not seriously threatened in Russia in general and that there were no serious infringements of the rights of the press but that the Russian authorities exerted strong pressure on the media as to the Chechnya conflict.
However, one should not take lightly several public statements made by representatives of the Russian authorities which are clearly not in favour of too much press freedom:
- Putin's cabinet minister in charge of the press, Mikhail Lesin, has stated that "the defence of the state from the free mass media is a pressing problem at present. I don't agree with the thesis that the state is more dangerous to the media than the media is to the state. I believe quite the opposite."
- Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Kozin wrote: "The reports that Babitsky relayed from Chechnya were beyond compare on a professional level. But, unfortunately, both his courage and his journalistic qualities were not utilised for the good of Russia, but to its detriment."
- President Putin himself told a newspaper that he saw nothing wrong with exchanging Babitsky for prisoners of war.
It was even more astonishing, when negotiations started about the Council of Europe providing consultative expertise to the office of the Special Representative Vladimir Kalamanov, to read him announcing in a statement that Russia would let envoys from the Council of Europe work in Chechnya but would not allow them to speak to the press directly or communicate with the Council of Europe, bypassing him!
In a most recent development, we received a letter from Grigory Pasko, military journalist who had been detained and accused of espionage because of denouncing the "pollution due to the neglect of nuclear submarines by the Russian navy and the involvement of the Russian secret service". Subsequently he was acquitted by Pacific Fleet Tribunal and released. In his letter to the Parliamentary Assembly he complains nevertheless that for the past twelve months he has been unable to obtain a passport to make a short trip abroad.
The situation of press freedom in Russia should therefore continue to be closely monitored.
5. Killings and kidnappings of journalists
Journalists working in Chechnya have been exposed to the worst dangers: several of them have been killed or kidnapped. At my request, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York wrote a comprehensive list of journalists who have suffered in Chechnya. Here are the main findings, confirmed by information provided by other reliable sources:
In the three years since the end of the first Chechen conflict, many Chechen warlords have turned to crime, including a lucrative hostage trade. From January 1997 to August 1999, nearly 1,100 individuals, half of them Chechens, were abducted, mostly for ransom. At the height of the epidemic in 1997, 21 journalists were kidnapped, again mostly for ransom, but all were freed by early 1998. According to the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, nine journalists whose disappearances were never fully accounted for during the 1994-1996 war in Chechnya remain on the missing list.
The kidnappers have often resorted to violence against hostages, sometimes including videos of torture sessions with their ransom demands. As a result, foreign and especially Russian journalists have stayed out of Chechnya, further isolating the region.
Said Isayev, a Chechen reporter working for the Russian news agency Itar-Tass in Grozny, was freed in June 1999 after three months of Chechen captivity. The Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov denied claims his government had anything to do with the kidnapping. Isayev, himself a Chechen, says his Chechen kidnappers accused him of working as an agent of the Russian security service and questioned him about the role of other Chechen journalists working for Russian news agencies. Ransom did not appear to be a motive for his kidnapping.
Isayev was kidnapped again on 10 October 1999. A gang of unidentified men abducted him and a relative in downtown Grozny, where the reporter was covering a rally. Isayev and his relative tried to escape on October 16 but were shot. The kidnappers took them to hospital for treatment but then removed them despite doctors' objections. They were both freed the next day, thanks to increased pressure from authorities.
Also in October 1999, rebels kidnapped Dmitry Balburov, Grozny correspondent for the paper Moscow News on a 10-day trip to cover the Chechen conflict. Balburov was released in January 2000 after four months in captivity. Although no ransom was publicly discussed, Moskovskie Novosti has hinted he may have been traded secretly for a relative of his rebel captors who was being held by Russian forces. Balburov himself says he was "duped" by close friends in Nazran, who turned him over to the kidnappers. While he was not injured, he was constantly threatened with physical violence by his Chechen captors, who held him in three different locations.
Anton Marianov, a journalist with the daily newspaper Natcheku in the Volga region, was allegedly captured by Chechen rebels and released in March 2000. CPJ has so far been unable to confirm this report.
Brice Fleutiaux, French free-lance photographer has also been missing in Chechnya since October 1999. The Russian security service subsequently released footage of an man standing in a dark room complaining in French about the poor treatment he was receiving from his captors. A Russian officer claimed the tape had been shot by Chechen kidnappers. Fleutiaux's brother then identified him on the video.
Fleutiaux's whereabouts are still unknown, although Russian authorities claim they received another videotape from the Chechen kidnappers that apparently shows him in good health. Fleutiaux's family has reportedly received two handwritten notes from him, dated November 26 and January 19, stating that he is alive and hopes to be released soon
Three journalists have been confirmed killed while covering the conflict, while a fourth death is still being investigated. In late February 2000, there were unconfirmed reports that Russian ITAR-TASS photographer Vladimir Yatsina, who disappeared in August 1999, had been shot by Chechen rebels who had been holding him hostage. The eyewitness, a fellow-hostage who was later released, claimed the rebels shot Yatsina because he was in poor health and unable to complete a mountain trek to a new hideout.
In August 1999, according to ITAR-TASS, the kidnappers contacted Yatsina's family and demanded US$2 million in ransom. The news agency claims that the kidnappers demanded the same amount from them in November. Yatsina's body has not been found, nor have his alleged kidnappers been apprehended.
Meanwhile, three Chechen journalists were killed during Russian air raids on civilian targets in October 1999. Supian Ependiyev, a reporter with Groznesnsky Rabochy, died in Grozny when he was caught in a Russian rocket attack on the central market, while Ramzan Mezhidov of Russia's TV Tsentr and Shamil Gigayev from Grozny's Nokh Cho TV were killed during an air raid on refugees fleeing Chechnya.
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Reporting Committee: Political Affairs Committee (Doc. 8697
Committee for opinion: Committee on Culture and Education
Reference to committee: Doc. 8557, Ref. 2447 of 4.11.0999
Opinion approved by the committee on 5 April 2000
Secretaries to the committee: Mr Ary, Mrs Theophilova-Permaul, Ms Kostenko