The statement came amid fresh international concerns about attacks against journalists throughout the former Soviet Union, which this week also included the killing of a journalist from Uzbekistan.
In a statement to BosNewsLife the Brussels-based IFJ, claims to represents over 600,000 journalists in 114 countries, said the action was evidence of “fresh intimidation of media and independent journalism” President Vladimir Putin’s government, ahead of parliamentary elections in December.
"The tactics of using so-called violations of fire regulations to shut down this building are bogus and sinister,” said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. “It doesn’t fool anybody. This decision is a deliberate attempt to squeeze potentially troublesome journalists from meeting and from promoting free debate during the elections."
FIRE AUTHORITIES
The action of the fire authorities, which was carried out last Wednesday, October 14, means the Journalists’ House is closed for a minimum of three months and “is seen as a fresh attack on the Russian Union of Journalists, the independent organization that represents journalists across Russia,” IFJ said. The union has been critical of the government’s treatment of media and earlier this year faced an attempt by the authorities to evict them from their headquarters.
The discussion on media freedom in Russia is also closely monitored by Christian groups who are not part of the Kremlin-backed Russian Orthodox Church. They claim evangelical churches have been denied access to major state-run television and radio outlets. In addition there are complains about anti-Christian bias in main stream media, while especially evangelical believers are often not able to comment, or refute, accusations against them.
Speaking about Wednesday’s closure of the ‘House of Journalists’ the IFJ Executive Committee, meeting in Brussels Saturday, October 27, condemned the action of authorities and pledged to support the Russian Union.
VIOLATIONS COMPLAINTS
The Russian Union of Journalists, which administers the Journalists’ House, says that complaints about violations of fire regulations a year ago had been largely dealt with and any remaining difficulties were no greater than the conditions found in the majority of other buildings and institutions operating in Moscow.
“It is beyond credibility that at this moment, for the first time in its 87-year history, the Journalists’ House should be closed on the basis of violations of fire regulations,” said White. “This is a warning to journalists and to the Russian Union in particular to toe the line in the run-up to elections both for Parliament and for President early next year.”
The IFJ has earlier also expressed concerns about killings of journalists in the former Soviet Union. In one of the latest incidents this week Alisher Saipov, an independent journalist who provided in-depth reports for the Voice Of America (VOA) was buried his murder Wednesday evening, October 24, in Kyrgyzstan’s southern city of Osh.
UNKNOWN GUNMAN
An unknown gunman hit Alisher Saipov with three bullets fired at close range outside his office in an attack linked to his critical reports. The press secretary of the Osh District Police Department, Zamir Sydykov, told VOA that Saipov died on the spot, having been shot twice in the back of the head and once in the right thigh.
VOA said 26-year-old Alisher Saipov reported for its Uzbek language service “on a variety of sensitive political issues critical to the audience throughout Central Asia.”
Saipov’s reporting, VOA said, focused on the Ferghana Valley that straddles Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and is a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism. Minority Christians have increasingly experienced persecution in the region, BosNewsLife monitored. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reporting from Brussels and Moscow).
