30 May 2012 | Russia
Moscow journalist Sergei Aslanyan was stabbed repeatedly earlier this week. Anslanyan, who specialises in motoring and hosts a programme on state Mayak radio station, was attacked on 29 May after a stranger called him and asked to leave his apartment “for a talk”. Aslanyan was attacked as he left the house. He managed to call an ambulance himself, and is now in a stable condition in hospital, where he is under police guard.
Some of Aslanyan’s colleagues believe the attack was caused by comments about the prophet Muhammad he made on a radio station. Sergei Arkhipov, head or radio at VGTRK state holding, which owns Mayak radio, said Aslanyan heard his attacker say “You dislike Allah”.
The Muslim society of Tatarstan had expressed concerns about Aslanyan’s anti-Muslim comments in an appeal to Russia’s general prosecutor’s office. After the journalist was attacked, they condemned both the assault and premature conclusions about “Muslim trace” in the case. Their leader Rishat Khamidullin told journalists that Aslanyan was treated brutally and “such an attack after his insulting statements is no more than a provocation against the Muslims”.
Attacks on journalists are common in Russia. In April Novaya Gazeta reporter Elena Milashina was beaten near her house. In May three journalists of Novaya Gazeta branch in Ryazan were beaten. Another newspaper’s reporter, Diana Khachatryan, alleged she was threatened by pro-Kremlin youth movements after publishing an article about the United Russia congress.
The latest most scandalous attacks on journalists include the beatings of Kommersant’s Oleg Kashin, and Khimki Truth’s Mikhail Beketov, and the murders of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, who wrote columns for the same paper while working for Memorial human rights centre. In the vast majority of these cases, no one has been brough to justice.
Freedom House placed Russia at 172 out of 197 countries for press freedom this year.
29 May 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
A Russian journalist has been hospitalised after being stabbed 20 times. Sergei Aslanyan from Radio Mayak, was lured out of his house by an anonymous caller who invited him for a chat at around midnight. The former presenter on Echo Moskvy, Russia’s leading liberal radio station, was stabbed repeatedly in the chest, neck and arms. Local newspapers have suggested the attack was a result of a recent radio appearance, in which Aslanyan insulted the prophet Muhammad. The journalist remains in hospital, where his condition is believed to be stable.
15 May 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
The Russian feminist collective tells Index’s Elena Vlasenko they will continue to speak out, in spite of arrests and harassment
A Moscow court has confirmed the legality of the pre-trial detention of alleged Pussy Riot members Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Semutsevich.
The women had appealed against the Tagansky court decision detaining them until 24 June — when they will face a criminal trial on charges of hooliganism for allegedly staging an anti-Putin performance in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in the run-up to recent presidential elections. But the court has turned down their appeal.
Two of the three accused Pussy Riot members are mothers of young children. The maximum sentence for their charges is seven years in prison.
Tolokonnikova, Alekhina and Samutsevich deny the allegations and are considered prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International and other leading human rights activists in Russia and abroad.
The women’s arrests triggered an emotional public discussion about the Orthodox church’s relationship with Russian authorities and society. Radical nationalist movement members have been preventing activists from protesting against Pussy Riot arrests. The Church, led by patriarch Kirill, who publically supports Vladimir Putin, performed a public prayer in April “against blasphemers”. Kirill’s support of the Pussy Riot prosecution has concerned many religious Russians, who have petitioned for the release of the women.
Pussy Riot members who have not yet been arrested are now in hiding and are difficult to reach. They gave this exclusive email interview to Index on Censorship.
– Did you expect these consequences — arrests, criminal proceedings, your supporters being beaten and insulted by radical nationalists — when you planned your cathedral performance? Would you repeat the performance if you knew how this would end?
– We didn’t expect the arrest. We are a women’s group which is forced to consume the ideas of patriarchal conservative society. We experience each process that happens in this society. Besides, we are a punk band, which can perform in any public place, especially one which is maintained through our taxes. That’s why we would definitely repeat our prayer. It was worth it: look at the awakened pluralism — political and religious!
– The state remains intolerant towards much artistic expression. What about broader Russian society?
– We are trying to educate society and will definitely take the importance of this process into account in our further actions. We expect people to at least look through Wikipedia after watching us on YouTube.
– What must you do now to avoid arrests?
– After Putin’s inauguration, just wearing a white ribbon on your clothes — a symbol of protest — has become a reason for arrest in Moscow. So we don’t wear them now.
– Will you continue performing? You said that anonymity helps you replace the band members in case they get arrested. Have many people offered to join you?
– Many people have expressed their wish to participate in our perfomances and we are planning them right now. We don’t consider the patriarch’s ignorant opinion and are not going to perform any protest songs against him personally.
– The Russian Orthodox church, according to notable human rights activists, has lost its right to establish moral standards after having severely condemned you, as did some intellectuals who preferred not to notice your persecution. Who, in your perspective, is likely to take their place?
– We think that one can learn moral values through literature, music and art, but definitely not in church. And as far as people are concerned, any human being who advocates humanistic ideas should support any prisoner who has lost her freedom because the authorities are afraid to give up their power.
15 May 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
The Russian feminist collective tells Index’s Elena Vlasenko they will continue to speak out, in spite of arrests and harassment
A Moscow court has confirmed the legality of the pre-trial detention of alleged Pussy Riot members Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Semutsevich.
The women had appealed against the Tagansky court decision detaining them until 24 June — when they will face a criminal trial on charges of hooliganism for allegedly staging an anti-Putin performance in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in the run-up to recent presidential elections. But the court has turned down their appeal.
Two of the three accused Pussy Riot members are mothers of young children. The maximum sentence for their charges is seven years in prison.
Tolokonnikova, Alekhina and Samutsevich deny the allegations and are considered prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International and other leading human rights activists in Russia and abroad.
The women’s arrests triggered an emotional public discussion about the Orthodox church’s relationship with Russian authorities and society. Radical nationalist movement members have been preventing activists from protesting against Pussy Riot arrests. The Church, led by patriarch Kirill, who publically supports Vladimir Putin, performed a public prayer in April “against blasphemers”. Kirill’s support of the Pussy Riot prosecution has concerned many religious Russians, who have petitioned for the release of the women.
Pussy Riot members who have not yet been arrested are now in hiding and are difficult to reach. They gave this exclusive email interview to Index on Censorship.
– Did you expect these consequences — arrests, criminal proceedings, your supporters being beaten and insulted by radical nationalists — when you planned your cathedral performance? Would you repeat the performance if you knew how this would end?
– We didn’t expect the arrest. We are a women’s group which is forced to consume the ideas of patriarchal conservative society. We experience each process that happens in this society. Besides, we are a punk band, which can perform in any public place, especially one which is maintained through our taxes. That’s why we would definitely repeat our prayer. It was worth it: look at the awakened pluralism — political and religious!
– The state remains intolerant towards much artistic expression. What about broader Russian society?
– We are trying to educate society and will definitely take the importance of this process into account in our further actions. We expect people to at least look through Wikipedia after watching us on YouTube.
– What must you do now to avoid arrests?
– After Putin’s inauguration, just wearing a white ribbon on your clothes — a symbol of protest — has become a reason for arrest in Moscow. So we don’t wear them now.
– Will you continue performing? You said that anonymity helps you replace the band members in case they get arrested. Have many people offered to join you?
– Many people have expressed their wish to participate in our perfomances and we are planning them right now. We don’t consider the patriarch’s ignorant opinion and are not going to perform any protest songs against him personally.
– The Russian Orthodox church, according to notable human rights activists, has lost its right to establish moral standards after having severely condemned you, as did some intellectuals who preferred not to notice your persecution. Who, in your perspective, is likely to take their place?
– We think that one can learn moral values through literature, music and art, but definitely not in church. And as far as people are concerned, any human being who advocates humanistic ideas should support any prisoner who has lost her freedom because the authorities are afraid to give up their power.
