wants to re-launch Keston News Service (KNS), a media flagship that seized operations earlier this year.
"In due course, once funding has been raised, Keston hopes to re-launch KNS," after the appointment of a new director, said Keston Chairwoman Xenia Dennen in a statement received by the BosNewsLife bureau in Budapest.
"It was with regret that Keston Institute had to suspend KNS last December, following the earlier suspension of the Russian version. Unfortunately KNS proved extremely expensive to run and was contributing to a serious deficit for the financial year 2002/2003," she added.
"Although we had gained considerable capital with the sale of No 4 Park Town, our previous premises, our expenditure was in excess of our income…My own view was that in the circumstances, the suspension of KNS was what had to be done, since it would enable us to keep our other publications going and develop research," the official said.
INSTRUMENT
Although other news organizations, including BosNewsLife and the Forum 18 News Service stepped up efforts to cover persecution of Christians in former Communist countries, KNS was seen as a crucial instrument in region to pressure authorities.
But in a statement expected to raise some eyebrows, Dennen stressed that "Keston Institute was not meant to become a campaigning organization, although religious rights would always remain an important element in Keston’s field of study."
"I had no doubt that religious freedom remained for Keston a crucial area of concern, but I thought and argued that it had to be set in a wider context and against a historical background, " she added.
Dennen said "Keston’s task was to engage in serious research and analysis as well as to write articles on the contemporary situation: past and present should not be separated."
RESIGNATION
She stressed that following "the resignation of the director, Lawrence Uzzell last year", the post of director has now been advertised and that "suitable candidates" will be interviewed in July.
Under a new director, Keston Institute will increase cooperation with Regent’s Park College in Oxford and "build up fruitful links between Keston and Oxford University", to ensure projects that involve Keston’s extensive library and archive.
Keston’s quarterly magazine, Frontier, will shortly appear in a new format and will contain articles sent from Moscow by Keston’s representative there, Tatyana Titova, and a full report on a Keston lecture about Putin’s Russia.
In addition Keston’s website (www.keston.org) was redesigned and expected to be re-launched by the end of June. It now includes the spoken word, moving images, and articles in their original language as well as current news on areas studied by Keston, Dennen said.
