Monthly Email Newsletter - June 2007

Harassment of Internews Russia Now Includes Criminal Charges

In a highly unusual gesture, over 2000 Russian media professionals, including many well-known personalities from government-controlled national media, have signed an open letter to President Putin in support of EMF, and there has been extensive coverage as well as supportive editorials in Russian-language media. Other recent coverage on this troubling case includes interviews with Aslamazyan by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, ABC (Australia) and CBC (Canada), and articles in the Times (UK), the Moscow Times. Articles in the New York Times and the Economist have mentioned the case as part of a disturbing trend.

On April 18, members of the department of economic crimes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted an eleven-hour raid on the Moscow office of EMF, seizing all of the computer servers and thousands of financial, administrative and legal documents. The criminal investigation and raid were triggered by Aslamazyan's neglecting to file a customs declaration form when re-entering Russia in January. She was carrying the equivalent of US $2500 more than the legal limit for undeclared cash. She has admitted her mistake, which was based on a confusion on whether the regulations were based on dollars or euros.

Educated Media Foundation suspended operations in May, and most of the staff have sought other work. In an open letter to supporters, Aslamazyan writes: "The ordinary oversight which I personally committed five months ago should not have destroyed this organization… There was only one guiding principle for all of our work: that people in every city of our enormous country deserve access to professional local television. Television that helps its fellow citizens understand the times in which they live and the events taking place in their country. Television that clearly knows that its responsibility is to its audience and to no one else."