Kommersant
Dagestani journalist receives press freedom award
Nadira Isayeva, editor-in-chief of the Chernovik weekly accused of extremism by Dagestani authorities, won the International Press Freedom Award.
The award is presented annually by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) for courage shown by journalists in performing their professional duties. CPJ claims the award recipients reflect their countries’ international press freedom ranking. This year, the award was presented to journalists from Russia, Ethiopia, Venezuela and Iran.
"These journalists embody the struggle to report news without fear of reprisal. Their work defies censorship," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "Their courage is a shield for many journalists asking questions and exposing uncomfortable truths, even at personal risk."
Six Russian journalists have received the award since its inception in 1991, including Kommersant’s special correspondent in Chechnya Musa Muradov (2003).
The Committee to Protect Journalists was founded in 1981 and has been monitoring incidents involving journalists. In 2007, Russia was included in CPJ’s top ten list of the worst places to be a journalist. CPJ’s special report, Anatomy of Injustice: The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia, says that 17 reporters have been killed in the country over the past ten years, and authorities have failed to investigate the crimes.
Russia is ranked eighth in CPJ’s annual Impunity Index, with Colombia, Afghanistan and Nepal only slightly higher on the list.
Chernovik’s editor-in-chief Nadira Isayeva has been faced with persecution by the authorities, who filed two criminal cases against her in 2008 on charges of extremism and inciting hatred. She was accused of citing the slain leader of the Wahhabi terrorist network Rappani Khalilov.
The authorities subjected each issue of the newspaper to extra scrutiny and searched journalists’ homes. In September 2009, they ordered to shut down the weekly for “hostile attitude toward the law enforcement agencies and extremist publications.” But Isayeva believes the accusations against Chernovik are due to the newspaper’s critical publications on Dagestan’s Interior Ministry.
She is convinced that corruption in the republic’s law enforcement agencies is the main reason for the existence of underground armed resistance in Dagestan. Isayeva believes the Islamization of the North Caucasus republics is irreversible. "It is impossible to crush armed resistance by force and therefore, we need to look for ways to coexist. The sooner the government understands this, the faster the bloodshed will be over," Isayeva says.
"She's a real hero,” Vsevolod Bogdanov, chairman of the Russian Journalists Union, said, commenting on Isayeva’s award. “The smear campaign against her is certain to fail. I'm very pleased that the journalist and the newspaper that employs real patriots have received support in the very difficult situation Dagestan is facing," Bogdanov said.
Vedomosti
President says United Russia is gathering moss
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has pointed to symptoms of political stagnation and said the party of power is gathering moss due to lack of competition. However, reforms are highly unlikely during an election year.
Before meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of parliamentary parties to discuss the annual address he is to deliver to parliament on November 30, the president surprised the public by saying in his video blog that there are symptoms of political stagnation in the country, with the party of power gathering moss and the opposition becoming marginalized due to lack of competition.
We need a more flexible system where each voter’s voice will be heard while carrying on with reforms, Medvedev said.
Unexpectedly, he concluded by saying that the necessary measures to achieve this objective have already been taken: the state-owned media give equal airtime to all political parties, the election threshold has been lowered to 5%, and the rules for early and absentee ballots have been amended.
A Kremlin source said the president’s goal was to summarize the reform’s results. Another source said he would not speak about political reforms in his third parliamentary address because he did so in the first two addresses and has explained his reasons in the blog.
The election year is not the best time for such moves; moreover, the public is more concerned with social problems now, a source said.
Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said the party leaders spoke about the political reform, proposed amending it, and discussed the possibility of setting one voting day a year and cutting the number of regional groups at parliamentary elections from 83 to 60.
The last idea in the list suits both United Russia and the opposition, which lacks high-profile politicians. But Vladislav Surkov, first deputy chief of the president’s Executive Office, said this would decrease the number of regions represented in parliament.
The politicians also discussed using the system of pledged electors at regional and local elections and allowing the parties to withdraw their representatives from the election commission.
The president has neither supported nor rejected these ideas.
A Kremlin source said it has been decided to support the proposal of St. Petersburg deputies to hold the 2012 regional elections jointly with the presidential election in March.
Medvedev thinks he has done enough to change the situation and the ball is now in the parties’ court, a source said.
Andrei Klychkov, a KPRF deputy of the Moscow legislature, said the president’s words about political competition were aimed at justifying United Russia’s potentially poor results at the 2011 elections. Surkov has recently admitted that the party of power may not get the constitutional majority next year.
Medvedev’s words should not be interpreted as opposition to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a source with close ties to the Kremlin said. Both Medvedev and Putin are demonstrating high ambitions in order not to be seen as lame ducks too soon.
Gazeta.Ru
Major changes brewing in pro-Kremlin youth movement
Some members of the United Russia Young Guard (MGER) movement are not happy with the way the organization has been evolving. Having found out about the appointment of their new leader from the media, they have decided to set up a MGER Revolution online community.
“Finding out that Timur Prokopenko, the spokesman of State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, has been appointed without anyone in the movement being consulted became the last straw,” a MGER member, who joined the mger_revolution online community on Wednesday, wrote in her blog. “Hardly any of us even know him.”
Prokopenko, who has never been a MGER activist, has the support of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. He started frequenting party events and his comments were widely quoted on the United Russia and MGER websites. A MGER source told the paper that Prokopenko has also become a common sight at the party headquarters, where he sparked off ideological debates.
MGER activist Vyacheslav Pravdzinsky, member of the organization’s central headquarters, wrote in his blog that the current movement did not oppose Prokopenko personally, but its members could not accept the fact that their future had been decided from above.
In an unprecedented act of self-criticism, Pravdzinsky bemoaned the organization’s steady decline over the past two years. He said the number of regional chapters had declined from 83 to 15, that MGER no longer set its political agenda and prided itself in organizing pickets in front of stores that charge too much for eggs.
MGER members are wondering why the regions’ funding has been cut and when a congress to elect its leader will be convened, he wrote.
Pravdzinsky called for ridding MGER of its deadweight and overhauling the governing bodies. This proposal was supported by some activists from Moscow and other regional chapters.
“Most importantly, we should put an end to the practice of approving everything unanimously and elect our organization’s future leaders independently. The best candidates should be nominated at the congress,” Pravdzinsky wrote.
Prokopenko said the creation of an opposition movement inside MGER was in line with Medvedev’s call for more active political competition. The organization needs new blood, he added, and its efforts should be diversified to address new challenges.
MGER leaders said nothing about possible sanctions against the dissenters.
Ruslan Gattarov, chairman of the MGER Political Council, said this highlighted the organization’s maturity. He shared the opinion that MGER should be able to choose its leader independently and not accept a nomination from above.
“Ours is a truly democratic organization,” Gattarov said.
Sergei Neverov, acting secretary of the United Russia Presidium, said MGER had a life of its own, and that it should be consulted on all internal matters.
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