The next general elections in Russia: What role for the media?

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Notes

When Veshnyakov resigned in March 2007, he compared the need for the CEC chairman to step down with that of the constitutional requirement for the president to retire at the end of his second term. Veshnyakov was replaced by Vladimir Churov as head of the CEC. See ‘Veshnyakov ob''yasnil svoyu otstavku sushchestvovaniem nepisannykh pravil i sravnil sebya s Putinym’, newsru.com, 15 March 2007, available at: http://www.newsru.com/russia/15mar2007/uhod.html, last accessed 3 August 2007.

For example, Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a member of United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya), and Sergei Mironov, chairman of A Just Russia (Spravedlivaya Rossiya); see Tatyana Stanovaya, ‘“Partiya vlasti” i problema “tret'ego sroka”’, in demokratia.ru, 10 April 2007, available at: http://www.democracy.ru/article.php?id=1467, last accessed 3 August 2007.

VTsIOM [Vserossiiskii tsentr izucheniya obshchestvennogo mneniya] report of 17 April 2007, available from the organisation's website at: http://wciom.ru/novosti/press-vypuski/press-vypusk/single/4401.html, last accessed 3 August 2007; reported by lenta.ru on 18 April 2007, available at: http://www.lenta.ru/news/2007/04/18/third/, last accessed 7 July 2007.

RIA Novosti, 2 May 2006, available at: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060502/47143666.html, last accessed 7 July 2007.

The new NGO/NPO law was passed in December 2005 and published in Rossiiskaya gazeta on 17 January 2006, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2006/01/17/nko-poryadok-dok.html, last accessed 1 August 2007.

Federal Law on Elections to the State Duma, 22 April 2005, as published in Rossiiskaya gazeta, 24 May 2005, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2005/05/24/vybory-doc.html, last accessed 4 August 2007.

For information on the Duma election legislation, passed in May 2005 and coming into effect in December 2006, see http://www.yabloko.ru/Publ/Book/Selective_technologies/st_012.html, last accessed 3 August 2007.

Konstantin Katanyan, ‘Aleksandr Veshnyakov: My prelagaem strakhovky ot obmana izbiratelei’, Politicheskii zhurnal, 9 November 2004, available at: http://www.politjournal.ru/index.php?action=Articles&dirid=72&tek=2544&issue=76, last accessed 3 August 2007.

Law on Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights, amended 30 March 1999: chapter VII: 37.

See http://gd2003.cikrf.ru/gd2003/way/76799909/sx/art/76805048/cp/1/br/76804797, last accessed 3 August 2007.

OSCE/ODIHR Media Monitoring Results (television) 12 February – 12 March 2004, p. 1, available at: http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/03/2205_en.pdf, last accessed 7 July 2007.

For reports on irregularities see the OSCE website at: www.osce.org. The election fraud in Azerbaijan concerned the elections in November 2000; the OSCE reported on irregularities in the Ukrainian presidential elections of November 2004 and the Belarusian elections on 17 October 2004.

RIA Novosti, 15 May 2006, available at: http://en.rian.ru/world/20060515/48107284.html, last accessed 7 July 2007. The member countries of the SCO are Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Media Law of 27 December 1991, available at: http://www.consultant.ru/popular/smi/, last accessed 3 August 2007.

Reported in Rossiiskaya gazeta, 31 October 2003, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2003/10/31/sud-doc.html, last accessed 3 August 2007.

Federal'nyi Zakon, ‘O protivodeistvii ekstremistskoi deyatel'nosti’, available at: http://www.medialaw.ru/laws/russian_laws/txt/27.htm, last accessed 7 July 2007.

‘Proizvol v zakone’, 17 July 2006, available at: http://www.novopol.ru/article10243.html, last accessed 7 July 2007.

The Moscow Times, 6 September 2006.

Kommersant-Vlast', 29, 24 July 2006.

World Association of Newspapers, available at: http://www.wan-press.org/article11428.html; CPJ raised a news alert in June 2006 (http://www.cpj.org/news/2006/europe/russia30june06na.html); all sites last accessed 3 August 2007.

See Article 19's Statement on proposed amendments to the Russian extremism law, July 2006, as available at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/russia-extremism-law.pdf, last accessed 3 August 2007.

Available at: http://www.cjes.ru/actions/action.php?p_id=2, last accessed 7 July 2007.

Passed 28 June 2006 first reading; third and final reading on 8 July 2006, see http://www.rg.ru/2006/07/29/ekstremizm-protivodeistvie-dok.html; for the vote see ‘Zakon ob ekstremizme proshel v Dume okonchatel'noe chtenie’, Gazeta.ru, 8 July 2006, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/2006/07/08/last207289.shtml, last accessed 3 August 2007.

VTsIOM, 23 March 2007, available at: http://wciom.ru/arkhiv/tematicheskii-arkhiv/item/single/4248.html, last accessed 7 July 2007.

‘President's Mate Takes Over Ren TV’, Kommersant, 19 December 2006, available at: http://www.kommersant.com/p731400/r_500/Ren_TV_Abros_holders/.

See for example Natasha Schmidt's report on World Press Freedom Day 2007, available at: http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5_print.asp?id=5486, last accessed 4 August 2007.

Recent examples of journalists receiving death threats include Stanislav Dmitriyevsky and Oksana Chelysheva who received an Amnesty International award for their work in Chechnya and the North Caucasus (Valentina Mite, ‘Russia: Journalists, Activists Awarded for Their Work in Chechnya’, RL/RFE, 27 June 2006, available at: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/06/7041f503-ca1d-4587-9be1-c5ba280f980e.html). Politkovskaya had received death threats before her murder; see ‘Chechen War Reporter Found Dead’, BBC, 7 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5416218.stm. On the situation in general, see the frequent reports on international watchdogs, such as ‘IFJ Backs Russian Journalists Taking Fight for Press Freedom to Strasbourg’, reported on 14 May 2004 by the International Federation of Journalists, see http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?index=2492&Language=EN. All sites last accessed 4 August 2007.

Available at: http://lenta.ru/news/2006/10/10/putin/, last accessed 7 July 2007.

In connection with increasing pressure on the media, NTV set up an advisory board (obshchestvennyi sovet) in May 2000 which was chaired by Gorbachev. This had no effect on the situation that developed in April 2001 when Gazprom took over the channel's management (see gazeta.ru, 4 April 2001, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/2001/04/04/n986391360.shtml, last accessed 3 August 2007).

Dmitri Vinogradov & Vasili Sergeev, ‘Rossiya zatknula golosa’, gazeta.ru, 7 July 2006, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/2006/07/07/oa_207160.shtml, last accessed 4 August 2007.

RL was re-transmitted by four out of 30; VoA by five out of 42 partners; ‘Svobodu lishayut slova. Rossiya perekryvaet efir amerikanskim radiostantsiyami’, GIPP, 9 July 2006, available at: http://www.gipp.ru/print.php?id=13233, last accessed 4 August 2007.

Internet World Stats, available at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/euro/ru.htm, last accessed 9 July 2007.

‘Meanwhile: Russia's Last Refuge: the Blogosphere’, International Herald Tribune, 25 October 2006, available at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/25/opinion/edmorozov.php, last accessed 7 July 2007.

Media Monitoring, available at: http://www.memo98.sk/en/index.php, last accessed 4 August 2007.

The first survey is available at: http://www.memo98.sk/data/_media/russia_first_report_eng.pdf; the second survey is available at: http://www.memo98.cjes.ru/?p=3&sm2=on&reports=200604, both surveys last accessed 7 July 2007.

Kommersant, 7 July 2006.

‘Putin budet prinimat’ G8 pod eschhe zhestkim kontrolem', InoPressa.ru, 13 July 2006, available at: http://www.rprf.ru/rpr-online/press/2717.html, last accessed 4 August 2007.

In November 2005, Khinshtein accused Kasyanov of illegal acquisition of property (lenta.ru, 30 November 2005, available at: http://www.lenta.ru/news/2005/11/30/hinshtein/). The exclusion of Kasyanov from a meeting of the Democratic Party of Russia (Demokraticheskaya Partiya Rossii) in the House of Unions was reported on BBC Russian.com, 17 December 2005, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/russia/newsid_4537000/4537690.stm. A meeting in Kursk of Kasyanov and party members in December was cancelled because of a bomb scare: see gazeta.ru, 11 December 2005, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/12/11/last181212.shtml. All sites last accessed 4 August 2007.

See press digest on http://news.tipok.ru/news-37273-pagenum-1.html, last accessed 4 August 2007. Several deputies were convinced that the marches were sponsored through foreign finance. Berezovsky claimed in an interview with the Financial Times (30 May 2007) that he finances the opposition coalition Other Russia that organised the marches (see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e9031686-0ed5-11dc-b444-000b5df10621.html); however, Other Russia denies any involvement with Berezovsky (http://theotherrussia.org/2007/05/31/), both sites last accessed 4 August 2007.

See reports on Map of Human Rights in Russia, http://www.freepress.ru/arh_e.shtml.