MEDIA-RUSSIA: Press Freedom Controversy Deepens

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Sep 21 2000 (IPS) - In yet another spate of controversy over Russia’s press freedom, former Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, has accused the government of “blackmail”.

It is clear evidence of blunt blackmail by the state, said former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. He was commenting on the situation around the besieged – but still independent – holding Media-MOST.

Gorbachev, who chairs a watchdog group organized by Media-MOST, said he wanted to meet President Vladimir Putin to convey his concerns.

The official response has been muted, so far.

The liberal Yabloko party described the conflict and the role of Russia’s Press Ministry as political extortion, however Wednesday the State Duma lawmakers declined to ask the Kremlin for official clarification.

Media-MOST was subject to repeated police raids on its offices last May – widely seen as a part of a campaign to punish the company for its criticism of the war in Chechnya and its push to expose alleged corruption in the Kremlin.

Media-MOST’s owner, Vladimir Gusinsky, was briefly detained in June, but the embezzlement charges were suddenly dropped amid speculation that a deal had been clinched to turn Media-MOST over to Russia’s state-controlled gas giant, Gazprom, in exchange for an end to the probe.

On Sep 18, both companies acknowledged that Gusinsky signed a deal in July to sell the holding company for 300 million US dollars in cash and 473 million US dollars in debt to Gazprom- Media.

However, Media-MOST said that Gusinsky, Press Minister Mikhail Lesin and Gazprom-Media head, Alfred Kokh, had signed a deal to sell the holding in exchange for Gusinsky’s freedom.

Gusinsky described the contract as being invalid, saying he had been forced to sign it under duress and the threat of imprisonment.

Media-MOST floated the document with the signature of Lesin, which contains a paragraph that names the conditions of the agreement – that criminal charges against Gusinsky are dropped and that all shareholders of his companies be free to travel.

Gusinsky said he had signed the deal under pressure and therefore it was invalid.

“Two days before the signing of this agreement, in the presence of foreign lawyers, I declared that all papers that I will sign have no legal weight because I am in fact signing them under pressure, you could say at gun point,” Gusinsky told Ekho Moskvy radio, one of his holdings.

Gusinsky said he had a video recording of his statement, and the two foreign lawyers would testify to it. Gusinsky also accused Lesin of pressuring him to give up his assets.

However, on Sep 18 Gazprom head, Rem Vyakhirev, accused Media- MOST of breach of signed contract. “There are signatures on this document, it’s a legal document, so it has to be carried out,” he said on ORT television.

“If they refuse to carry it out, then it will have to be sorted out in another, not-so-peaceful way,” Vyakhirev said.

Gazprom spokesperson, Igor Ivantsov, told IPS that the company was keen to settle its accounts with Media-MOST economically.

Gusinsky has a long relationship with Gazprom, which in 1996 bought a 30 percent stake in NTV. At that time, Gusinsky needed investment and state support to expand his empire, and the Kremlin needed the media’s help in securing President Boris Yeltsin’s re- election.

However, the government officials deny any wrongdoing. On Wednesday, Lesin admitted to the journalists that he was not supposed to sign the controversial agreement as a minister, but claimed that he signed the document “as a private citizen.”

Russian prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, just commented that MOST-Gazprom controversy is a mere “dispute between commercial companies.”

The Kremlin is silent on whether Putin will step into the dispute.

However, appearing on the CNN programme “Larry King Live” on Sept 8, Putin dismissed talk about the need to protect the freedom of expression as “only a pretext to cover commercial interests.”

Kokh called on Media-MOST to honor its 473 million US dollar debt. “Media-MOST is in default, and we have not heard serious arguments as to how it will repay its debts,” Kokh said. He said Gazprom-Media would like to sell Media-MOST to a foreign investor.

The holding could sell for between one billion to two billion US dollars, he said. Kokh also said Gazprom-Media would sue Media- MOST for hiding its assets, and he named several companies that he believed are now holding Media-MOST subsidiaries.

Gazprom-Media claims were readily supported by Russian law enforcement agencies. If Media-MOST’s assets were transferred abroad, a criminal case is to be launched, deputy Prosecutor, General Vasily Kolmogorov, was quoted by Interfax News Agency as saying on Sep 19. Kolmogorov said Gusinsky may be called in for questioning.

However, analysts argue that former Privatization Minister, Alfred Kokh, who once faced embezzlement plus bribery charges and called Russia a “bankrupt country” with no economic future in 1998, is an unlikely defender of Russia’s state interests.

“How could a person with a criminal record become a head of the state-controlled Gazprom-Media?” wondered Yury Boldyrev, deputy head of Audit Chamber, a state-run agency.

Yevgeny Kiselyov, general director of Media-MOST flagship NTV television, said that he and other key journalists at Media-MOST would leave if Gazprom-Media took control in a forceful way. If control over NTV would be established like this, I will not work for one minute with “these racketeers and marauders,” he told a press-briefing.

It remains to be seen whether Russia’s media outlets, which are still beyond the government control, could sustain their independence.

However, the recent developments suggest that continued pressures on Russia’s private media is shifting the balance between privately-owned and state-owned media in the direction of the latter.