Russia: Newspaper issues seized by regional governors

04 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost

40,000 copies of Izvestia Kaliningrada, a weekly published in Kaliningrad, Russia, were seized by regional governors on 29 July. Its editor was also detained for several hours at the Regional Centre for Combating Extremism. The edition, due to have been published on the eve of a visit by President Medvedev, contained an open letter to the Russian leader signed by more than 2,000 local residents calling for the regional government’s removal because several of its members were implicated in corruption. The head of the regional centre, Alexander Shelyakov, told the Interfax news agency that he intervened after being informed that the issue contained “extremist statements.” This is not a one-off event: on 4 July in St Petersburg of 90 per cent of the copies of the business weekly Kommersant Vlast were seized. The edition criticised the city’s governor Valentina Matviyenko.

Russia: calls to investigate reporter’s death

01 Dec 09 | Index Index, minipost, News and features

Friends and colleagues have called for an investigation into the death of a Russian TV journalist, Olga Kotovskaya who plunged from the 14th storey of a building one day after winning a major legal case. She was a prominent journalist on Kaskad regional TV channel which broadcasts in the western enclave of Kaliningrad. The channel had a reputation for objective news reporting, live broadcasts, and studio guests who were sometimes critical of regional leaders. The death was originally considered to be suicide however Solomon Ginzburg a deputy in Kaliningrad’s regional parliament told the Guardian: “I have no doubt at all that this was a political killing.” Read more here