Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day; a day designated by the UN to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of press and remind governments about their responsibility to uphold their commitment to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
On the menu of events in London was an informal lunch with two of Russia's leading defenders of human and civil rights – Oleg Panfilov, a journalist and Director of the rather alarmingly named Centre for Journalists in Extreme Situations and Tatiana Lokshina, Chair of the DEMOS Centre for Information and Russian journalism. With the death of several journalists over the course of the past year, most notably Anna Politkovskaya and Ivan Safronov (whose recent plummet from a fifth-floor window was masqueraded as an act of suicide), the question of press freedom in Russia is a particularly pertinent one. In total, Reporters Without Borders, states that 21 journalists have been killed since Vladimir Putin's election in 2000. But Mr Panfilov's figures are closer to 20 a year. Even though, he stresses, not all of these deaths can be directly linked to the government, they are an important indication of the prevalence of violence in Russia today.
For Mr Panfilov, the absence of a tradition of press freedom, from the tsars to the Bolsheviks, has created a society unaccustomed to fighting for its rights. Even during the interlude of transparency that accompanied Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost (openness) and the relative media freedoms under Boris Yeltsin, journalists were still conscious of being under the watchful eye of the Kremlin. Mr Panfilov nevertheless acknowledges that this era was imperative in laying the first foundations for freedom of expression, or in his own words, nurturing the "first shoots of freedom of speech" which have regrettably since been crushed by the "army boot of Putin".[ MORE TAG ]
According to Mr Panfilov, the perpetuation of this status quo is entrenched in the education system and so, students of journalism do not study journalism as one would expect, but rather Russian and foreign literature. This, he says, is part of the government agenda to "prepare an army of propagandists".
In theory, there are a number of laws which oblige Russia to safeguard freedom of expression and offer protection to journalists. Not only is Russia a member of the Council of Europe, but Article 29 of the Russian constitution stipulates the following:
- Everyone has the right to freedom of thought and speech
- The freedom of the mass media is guaranteed
- Censorship is prohibited.
The reality, however, is much bleaker. All five national television channels are state-controlled and independent newspapers are fast disappearing into the hands of either the government or conglomerates with strong ties to the state. Independent businesses and political parties are, says Ms Lokshina, non-existent.
Last year, Mr Panfilov's organisation carried out extensive research to ascertain the levels of propaganda on television; a medium chosen because it is free of charge and as such the primary source of information for 97% of the population. Prime time news was monitored and the results revealed that 93% of all information covered Putin, his party and the government at large. This investigation was also carried out a year in advance of the elections in order to expose the impossibility of holding free and fair elections in an environment saturated in propaganda.
In addition to regenerating Soviet traditions of propaganda, the state has also adopted their methods of suppression. The trigger for this revival can be traced back to the First Chechen War (1994-1996), during which time, Russian journalists, aided by their foreign counterparts, revealed the bloody brutality of the conflict to the rest of the world. For Mr Panfilov, the war was won in part by the valour of journalists who so boldly reported on the horrific events.
And so, in a bid to prevent a repeat of such damaging exposure, the government did everything in its power to muzzle the press when the Chechens embarked on a second campaign. In this manner, a new era of repression was ushered in. These days, many of the foreign journalists who reported on the Chechen War are denied visas in a vindictive act of retribution by the state. The news in Russia today, says Ms Lokshina, rather amusingly states that "the war is over", that peace has been restored to the region and that Chechnya is one of the safest provinces in the country.
But it is not just the current government which is to blame. Russia's long history of repression has created a culture of censorship so that the man on the street has become just as much of an obstacle to free speech as the state. "We have to change our population in Russia", says Mr Panfilov. "Ordinary people are steeped in communist propaganda and it is very difficult to teach them". Relative well-being has also helped to engender a widespread feeling of passivity and so the majority of the population does not feel the need to speak out against injustice.
For Ms Lokshina, who feels, "very pessimistic" about the future of Russia, there is still a glimmer of hope, albeit a minute and distant one. "Not in the present, not in the next five years and it will get worse before it gets better," she says, "but Russia will become a democracy because it deserves it". And with individuals like Mr Panfilov and Ms Lokshina who continue to struggle for human rights, despite the murders of their compatriots, one can't help feeling that her words are justified.
