6/4/08

Putin killed Russia free press

Kasparov: Putin killed Russia free press

GOTEBORG, Sweden (AP) — World chess star turned political activist Garry Kasparov told world news industry leaders Tuesday that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had assaulted press freedoms in Russia, and urged them to challenge Kremlin leaders over the issue.

Kasparov, 45, became the world's youngest chess champion in 1985. The Russian grand master remained at the top of chess rankings until he retired in 2005 to devote himself to politics in his homeland, eventually joining The Other Russia, a coalition opposing Putin's rule.

Kasparov said Putin and his colleagues must be faced with complaints about press freedoms.

"Make sure they have to respond and make sure your governments raise the issue," he told about 200 senior news industry executives at an invitation-only luncheon during the World Newspaper Congress in Sweden.

On Monday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the country's parliament to scrap a bill widely seen as restrictive to the media.

It was not immediately clear whether Medvedev's move signaled his intention to take a more liberal course compared to Putin, his predecessor and mentor, whose eight-year tenure saw a steady rollback of post-Soviet media and political freedoms.

The congress on Tuesday also criticized the U.N. Human Rights Council, claiming it has repeatedly sought to undermine freedom of the press to protect religious sensibilities. The group adopted a resolution saying the council's "proper role is to defend freedom of expression and not to support the censorship of opinion at the request of autocracies."

The U.N. General Assembly formed the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in March 2006 to succeed the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which was sometimes criticized for too heavily considering the views of member states that did not adequately guarantee human rights.

"International human rights groups have expressed concern that the Council may be emulating the practices that discredited the Commission on Human Rights," the congress said in a statement.

Putin became Russia's prime minister on May 8, after he completed the maximum allowed two consecutive terms as president. Kasparov made an unsuccessful bid for president this year.

Kasparov accused one of the delegates to the newspaper meeting, editor-in-chief of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Svetlana Mironyuk, of only publishing government propaganda.

That prompted Evgeny Abov, deputy chief executive of the Russian government-controlled newspaper Rossijskay Gazeta, to speak out in her defense.

"You have been unfair to Novosti," Abov said. He said opposition leaders were given a voice in the news agency's stories, and that it translates critical foreign news stories.

About 1,800 news industry leaders were attending the three-day World Newspaper Congress, which opened Monday in Goteborg. The association says it groups news organizations from the U.S. and elsewhere in the world to protect the interests of the global newspaper industry.






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