June 4, 2007

Sign a letter of support for Internews Russia and Manana Aslamazyan

Support Journalism Under Attack in Russia

Dear Friend,

Russian authorities continue to harass Internews Russia and its president, Manana Aslamazyan. As we wrote to you three weeks ago, Internews Russia (now known as Educated Media Foundation, or EMF) was forced to suspend its work following an eleven-hour police raid on its Moscow headquarters and a criminal investigation of Manana for neglecting to complete a customs declaration form. Since then the authorities have briefly frozen the organization's bank accounts, and EMF's efforts to have the criminal investigation of Manana declared illegal have not been successful.

We are now asking media professionals around the world to sign a letter of support for Manana and EMF. The letter below was composed by the Global Forum for Media Development, which Internews Network and Internews Russia helped launch.

EMF is an independent Russian non-governmental organization, and has been a leading source of professional training and support for Russian media for many years. While it is independent of the US-based Internews Network, we have partnered together on many projects and we share the same goals of fostering high-quality, professional media. Manana Aslamazyan was hired as Internews Network's first overseas employee in 1992 and we know her to be a person of utmost integrity and professionalism as well as a woman of real heart. We appreciate your support in this difficult time for Manana and for Russian media.

Sincerely,

David Hoffman
President, Internews Network

Send a Message of Support

We request signatures from media professionals to show support for their Russian colleagues. (Please sign the letter below if you are a journalist, media manager, owner, technical staff, media advertising professional, journalism educator/academic, or media development implementer.)

"As professionals working in, for and with the mass media in countries around the world, we are deeply concerned that the Russian non-governmental media support organization, the Educated Media Foundation (EMF), legal successor to Internews Russia, has been forced to suspend its activities, which focus on training journalists and other media professionals. By signing here we express our solidarity with our Russian colleagues who have initiated a protest, and express our support for the Educated Media Foundation/Internews Russia and its president Manana Aslamazyan. Like us, our Russian colleagues are part of an international professional media community that believes its audiences and readers deserve access to complete, diverse and independent sources of information. We support them in their efforts to stop the harassment of  the EMF and all other impediments to the work of Russian journalists."

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