>OSCE COMMISSION FOR FREEDOM OF THE MEDIA ACCUSES AUTHORITIES OF
>RUSSIA OF CENSORSHIP AND RELEASE OF FALSE INFORMATION ON THE
>SCHOOL IN BESLAN
>
> Last Thursday, OSCE Commission for freedom of the media accused
>the authorities of Russia of censorship and release of false
>information on the school in Beslan.
> The OSCE report was certainly a shocker. Russian Embassy in
>Vienna even called a special news conference to express its
>disagreement. The report in question was based on the document "Work of
>journalists during the terrorist act in Beslan" drafted by the Center
>of Extreme Journalism. Here are excerpts from the document.
> According to an official of Rossiya TV network, management of
>the company sent instructions to its subordinates on how reports
>and comments should be phrased as soon as the school was overrun.
>Highlighting the events in North Ossetia, state TV networks did
>not mention President Vladimir Putin. It must have been done to
>prevent the audience from associating the tragedy with the name of
>the president.
> On September 2, Day 2 of the tragedy, Lev Dzugayev (press
>secretary of the president of North Ossetia) and Kazbek Dzantiyev
>(republican interior minister) called a briefing and asked
>journalists working in Beslan "to abstain for a time from sending
>information on what is happening in the town to the editorial
>offices or to show the materials to the crisis headquarters."
>Journalists say that it happened when Russian newspapers and TV
>channels announced with references to ex-hostages that the numbers
>of captives inside the building dramatically differed from what
>had been officially announced.
> Gazeta ran an article of its correspondent on September 3 to
>the effect that officials of PR departments of all security
>structures involved in the hostage rescue operation (Interior
>Ministry, Federal Security Service, Prosecutor General's Office)
>had come to Beslan on September 1. They were supposed to provide
>the media with the latest information and organize contacts
>between journalists and operation commanders. Gazeta claims that
>the men in question did nothing of the sort.
> After the assault, Valery Andreev (commander of the local
>Federal Security Service), Sergei Fridinsky (deputy prosecutor
>general), and Dmitry Peskov (an official of the presidential
>administration) revealed information to representatives of the
>state media alone. Since nobody bothered with establishment of at
>least something resembling a press center, these officials were
>forced to roam the streets in search of journalists from the state
>media.
> Margarita Simonjan of Rossiya TV network says that Doctor
>Leonid Roshal gave the order to confiscate the tape filmed by this
>company's camera crew.
> Tapes showing the assault were confiscated from some other
>camera crews (ZDF and ARD of Germany, APTV of the United States,
>Rustavi-2 of Georgia) on September 3.
> Yelena Milashina of Novaya Gazeta claims that journalists
>were stopped in the street and asked to show IDs - passport and
>accreditation certificates. Quite unexpectedly for journalists,
>police patrols even demanded to see documents on provisional
>registration in North Ossetia.
> Anna Gorbatova and Oksana Semenova of Novye Izvestia (they
>spent an hour at a police station), Madina Shavlokhova of
>Moskovskie Novosti, and Milashina were detained in this manner.
> Simon Ostrovsky of The Moscow Times was detained on the
>territory of Sputnik cantonment on September 5.
> Special paragraphs of the document dwell on the strange
>"poisoning" of Anna Politkovskaya of Novaya Gazeta en route to
>Beslan, detention of Andrei Babitsky at Vnukovo, and dismissal of
>Raf Shakirov from Izvestia the day following a report on Beslan
>with photos.
> Martin Woicehowski of Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) says that
>foreign journalists representing Gazeta Wyborcza, Liberation, and
>The Guardian were arrested at the airport of Mineralnye Vody on
>September 2. The police and Federal Security Service spent several
>hours scrutinizing their documents and making copies. Secret
>services were particularly interested in the whereabouts of Al
>Jazeera journalists bound for Beslan too.
> On September 4, the police and Federal Security Service
>detained Nana Lezhava and Levan Tetladze, correspondent and
>cameraman of Rustavi-2. Lezhava and Tetladze were accused of
>illegal crossing of the Russian-Georgian border. There is an
>agreement between Russia and Georgia, however, that residents of
>border areas may be on the territory across the border for 10 days
>at a stretch. Unofficially, secret services made an emphasis on
>the fact that the journalists had allegedly made it to Beslan 15
>minutes after the takeover. It allegedly implied a connection
>between the camera crew and terrorists.
> The journalists were released on September 8. Georgian
>Minister of Health Care Vladimir Chipashvili said two days later
>that Lezhava had been poisoned at detention cells of the Interior
>Ministry and Federal Security Service in Vladikavkaz (she fainted
>after a cup of coffee offered her by an officer of the Federal
>Security Service).
> Amir Abdul Hamid, chief of the Moscow bureau of Al Arabia,
>was detained at the airport of Mineralnye Vody on September 6.
>Vasily Babaskin of Kavminvody - Avia says that the journalist came
>to town from Beslan and was carrying "a banned item". It was a
>bullet for a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
> Hamid says that he was released on September 8 but criminal
>charges had been pressed. He believes that the bullet was planted
>in his luggage at the Beslan hotel.
> On September 7, the North Ossetia police and secret services
>drove out from Beslan a camera crew of Mze, a Georgian TV network,
>comprising journalist Zurab Dvali and his cameraman. "The night
>before, officers of local law enforcement agencies forced their
>way into our suite and told us to leave immediately because they
>could not ensure safety of Georgian journalists," Dvali told Radio
>Echo of Moscow afterwards.
> To quote Dvali, "law enforcement agencies confiscated our
>documents, took us to the airport, and returned the documents only
>on the stairway to the plane bound for Moscow."
> P.S. On September 8, several international human rights
>organizations including Amnesty International, International
>League of Human Rights, International Helsinki Federation,
>International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, Moscow Helsinki
>Group, Russian Movement for Human Rights, Memorial, and Human
>Rights Watch released a joint communique emphasizing
>responsibility of the authorities of Russia for proliferation of
>false information. "We are worried by how the authorities tried to
>conceal the true scope of the crisis and provided false
>information on the numbers of hostages," the document stated. "We
>urge the authorities of Russia to run a thorough investigation of
>the Beslan tragedy and to have it include an investigation of how
>the authorities released information for the benefit of society in
>general and families of hostages. We urge the authorities to make
>the findings of the investigation public knowledge."
> Translated by A. Ignatkin