Press Repression in Russia and Turkey Growing

Bleak reports on press freedom in Russia and Turkey after the murder of leading journalists were given to a meeting of news ombudsmen and women in Harvard yesterday.

The murder of Anna Politkovskaya had done little to change the growing atmosphere of press repression in Russia, according to Andrei Richter, the director of the Moscow media law and policy institute.

Mr Richter said the murder had, if anything, accelerated trends toward repression and had simply highlighted the hypocrisy of the mainstream established Russian media.

The murder had been presented as the top item on state-controlled TV news bulletins - but as an example of street crime and of the dangers of living in modern Moscow. TV stations which had refused to allow Politkovskaya on-screen during the last two years of her life continue to exploit her memory after her death.

Politkovskaya's murder was one of a number of measures and incidents which were leading to self-censorship. One newspaper had recently been raided by the police claiming to investigate software piracy. The police took away all the paper's computer hard disks, assuring the publishers they were free to continue publishing.

Other tactics included the use of bureaucratic laws - fire inspections, repeated tax investigations or putting pressure on distributors or printers. Physical attacks and murders were the most extreme form of repression.

The press had reacted to repression of serious political discussion by going downmarket. That, in turn, led readers to view them with mistrust - thus playing into the hands of government, who reinforced the message that journalists were not to be trusted.

It was a vicious circle. Morale among journalists was very low: they felt very isolated from society and had no effective forces defending them.

Mr Richter spoke of the important work of Article XIX in London and the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York in keeping up pressure on the Russian government.

Yavuz Baydar, the ombudsman for the Sabah newspaper, spoke of a similar pattern of fear and self-censorship in Turkey following the murder of Hrant Dink in January this year.

Investigative reporting was disappearing. There was a sense of fatigue among editors. As many as 15 of Baydar's colleagues now had round-the-clock bodyguards: some had armored cars and feared for their relatives.

Journalists, intellectuals and writers had become used to being jailed in Turkey, said Baydar. However, the murder of a leading commentator such as Dink was different: it was intended to unleash instability, polarize society and legitimize hatred.

Baydar said he could not pretend that the murder of Dink had resulted in solidarity among journalists. There had been a march of 100,000 mourners protesting at Dink's murder - but he had seen only one rival editor at the funeral, and no rival publishers or proprietors.

The Organization of News Ombudsmen - a group of readers' editors and ombudsmen and women from around the world - is meeting this week in Harvard, Cambridge.