Russian authorities train their sights on critical media institute

The office of the British organisation "Institute for war and peace reporting” (IWPR) in the Caucasian republic of North Ossetia is according to information received by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) being harassed by the Russian authorities and the police. On Wednesday the office of the organisation, which trains journalists in crisis regions, in Vladikavkaz was searched. Two computers and documents belonging to the organisation were confiscated. Just a month ago a criminal charge was brought against the IWPR Coordinator Valery Dzutsev for the North Caucasus. The IWPR journalist Tom de Waal, an internationally renowned expert for Chechnya, was refused a visa for Russia last year without any explanation.

"It is clear that the IWPR is to be silenced as an example to other NGO’s to block critical information from the region to which Chechnya belongs”, said the GfbV correspondent for the Russian Federation, Sarah Reinke. "The prcedure against the institute follows the typical pattern of Russian authorities of silencing awkward NGO’s. First comes the investigation for tax evasion, then come searches, which are intended to soften up the people working there. Finally there are unfair trials, which can mean the end of the organisation – as in the case of the "Society for Russo-Chechnyan Friendship”, which was closed on 23rd January 2007.”

The Russian state under Vladimir Putin is turning courts into tools for implementing his repressive policies against civil institutions, criticised Reinke. In this way he is maintaining the blockade of information concerning Chechnya and the surrounding regions.