Freedom of the press in Russia

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The press freedom in Russia is through the Russian Constitution guarantees. De facto, there are constant restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of expression by state authorities. Russia is ranked 150th out of 180 on Reporters Without Borders' Index of Press Freedom as of May 2021 .

situation

The media in Russia are largely "pro-government" or aligned . Observers report extensive self-censorship by many media makers who omit topics that could possibly become controversial, in regional media the interdependence of government and journalism is even closer. This censorship filters leads to additional brain drain among dedicated journalists. Critical media as the foundation for fighting corruption by Alexei Navalny , are classified as extremist and banned or set by government authorities under pressure. For example, the Russian-language Internet newspaper Meduza was entered in a register of "foreign agents" by the Russian Ministry of Justice at the end of April 2021 . As a result, the Internet newspaper, which is critical of the government, is obliged to provide all published content with a warning that Meduza “is acting as a foreign agent”; Meduza's economic existence is endangered by the resulting collapse in advertising income. Russian journalists covering domestic rallies and demonstrations are sometimes arrested. If journalists are also registered as foreign agents, they will face criminal proceedings.

Roman Anin , an investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta (one of the few newspapers in Russia critical of the government) who reported on corruption in Russia , was stripped of his work supplies in the spring of 2021 after a house search. A journalist received a 25-day prison sentence for "calling for an unauthorized protest" in February 2021 after sharing a tweet .

According to Reporters Without Borders , journalists must expect violence or targeted attacks if they report critical of certain political issues and the government. Violence against journalists mostly went unpunished. Between 2000 and 2009 alone, five Novaya Gazeta journalists were murdered and others injured . Other journalists killed in Russia are included in the list of journalists killed while working .

As of June 2017, there was no nationwide broadcaster that was independent of the state. Search recommendations from the search engines Yandex and Google are subject to the requirements of the Russian state in Russia as of April 2021. Internet pages and blogs of government critics are sometimes completely deleted without notice.

Legal situation and state supervision

Legal situation

The Russian constitution basically guarantees freedom of the press and freedom of expression . In Chapter 2, Article 29 freedom of opinion and speech is guaranteed and thus freedom of the media as well . It stipulates that propaganda and agitation that stir up social, racial, national and religious hostility are prohibited. A censorship is prohibited.

Russia signed the UN Convention on Human Rights , which, in Article 19, guarantees the right of every person to freedom of expression, including the right to express his or her opinion and to hear the opinions of others. Article 19 prohibits state censorship.

There are other laws to be observed for the media, which restrict the freedom of speech. Swearwords are forbidden, and in the first instance the Echo Moskwy radio station was punished for having linked to a video with such a statement, for which neither it nor the creator of the video had any responsibility. Supporting extremism - to put it vaguely - is also a criminal offense. The definition of what is considered “extreme” is left to the authorities (President Putin had also formulated extremism as “thinking against the people”). The accusation of extremism had also become the doom of the Doschd television channel , as the public prosecutor's office had to examine a question from a survey by the station for "extremism". The examination showed that the question would not lead to the closure of the station, but the station could no longer be received on the cable networks in the meantime. The President's Human Rights Council demanded an examination of the legality of the actions of the network operators who, with the removal of the transmitter from the distribution network, exercised the function of censors .

Supporting terrorism is also a criminal offense, and consequently, for the media, any criticism of the government's actions against terrorists.

Roskomnadzor

Emblem of Roskomnadzor

All media in Russia under the control of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications (Russian Федеральная служба по надзору в сфере связи, информационных технологий и массовых коммуникаций shortly Роскомнадзор / Roskomnadzor). The agency was created almost 20 years after the country was founded in 2008 on the initiative of Vladimir Putin and is based in Moscow . It reports to the Prime Minister . She is responsible for the licensing of media and oversees the mass media. It can block Internet sites in Russia.

Roskomnadzor maintains an automated database of personal data of Russian citizens. This makes it possible to monitor people's internet usage almost completely in Russia.

development

During Boris Yeltsin's term in office 1991–1999, there was also freedom for the mass media. President Vladimir Putin reduced the freedom of independent television starting with critical reporting on the Second Chechnya War.

In the longer term rated Freedom House , the press in Russia in 2002 even as "partly free" (partly free), but since then as "not free" (not free) . Freedom House saw a general downward trend: The press freedom score fell continuously from 60 (2002) to 83 (2015 and 2016, worst possible value 100).

In 2008 the so-called “Democracy Report” by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation painted a gloomy picture of freedom of the press in Russia.

According to Reporters Without Borders, Russia's press has been tightened since Vladimir Putin's election as Russian president in 2000. Since then, the Kremlin has largely brought the nationwide television stations under its control.

From 2007: Creation of Roskomnadzor

In March 2007, then Russian President Vladimir Putin set up the national authority “Supervisory Authority for Mass Media, Communication and the Protection of Cultural Heritage” (Roskomnadzor).

In 2009, the Roskomnadzor began to implement a regulation according to which foreign broadcasters must register as a local medium, even if they broadcast from abroad. To do this, the media have to register a company with a Russian partner in the Russian Federation  .

In April of the same year a new media law “On the guarantees of equality between parliamentary parties with regard to the reporting of their activities by state TV and radio stations” was passed. The law guarantees each parliamentary party an equal share of airtime in order to be able to report on their activities on state television and radio stations. The law even prescribes the objectivity of this reporting. Even before this law was passed, during the 2008 presidential election in Russia , all presidential candidates were given the same 21 hours of airtime on the top three state television channels to express their views and debate.

In 2010, the Russian Media Act was amended to limit the share of foreign companies in broadcasting stations in Russia to 50 percent. This law was tightened further in mid-October 2014: the share of foreign companies in Russian media must not exceed 20 percent. In its current version, the law applies not only to broadcasting, but also to print and internet media. Almost all non-state media in Russia were affected.

From 2014: Internet monitoring and switching off transmitters

Since then, Internet laws have been passed that make it possible to block critical websites quickly and unbureaucratically. Just before the Sochi 2014 Olympics began, Russia continued to expand Internet surveillance.

The license of the independent broadcaster Doschd was revoked by the largest Russian satellite and cable operator Trikolor TV in 2014 after critical reports about a national anniversary. Trikolor TV was the last to follow the state telecommunications company Rostelekom and the telecommunications company Akado (Акадо) as well as the mobile operator Beeline , who had previously deleted the TV broadcaster from their program offerings . Since then, TV Doschd can only be received via the Internet and some regional providers in Russia. From the original 17 million households in Russia, the canal now reaches two million. The makers of the station spoke of a planned destruction. Director Sindejewa said: "The reason for this is our independence. You can't call us and say:" Your editor-in-chief did this or that, don't you want to fire him better? If you don't do that then. We're the only really independent one private television channel in Russia. "

The US news broadcaster CNN ended its broadcasts in Russia on December 31, 2014. The operating company of the station, Turner Broadcasting , had a special permit for a transitional period to register as a company in Russia (see laws of 2009).

Opinion makers

Censorship in Russia mostly works indirectly: many media belong to Russian media empires . These are under the influence of entrepreneurs close to the Kremlin. A Russian law limits the shares in Russian media for foreign shareholders to an upper limit of 20 percent. This put a number of independent media outlets in serious financial trouble.

The daily newspaper " Rossijskaja Gazeta " ("Russian newspaper", circulation of about 432,000 copies) is directly under state control. It is a gazette of the government and Russian laws and decrees do not come into force until they are published in the “Russian newspaper”. The head of the publishing house (currently Alexander Gorbenko ) an official appointed by the Moscow mayor for "work with representatives of mass communication".

The nationwide daily newspaper " Izvestia " (circulation of around 130,000 copies) is one of the oldest daily newspapers in Russia and belongs to the Moscow company " Gazprom-Media ". This in turn is part of the majority state-controlled and world's largest natural gas production company Gazprom .

Independent media

Editor-in-chief Alexei Wenediktow in an interview with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in October 2009

Some media are considered to be largely free of governmental influence. According to the opinion research institute Levada , however, they only reach 10 to 15 percent of the Russian population. The Novaya Gazeta (“New Newspaper”) is the only national newspaper . The newspaper is essentially owned by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and banker Alexander Lebedev . It is better known abroad than in Russia itself, as it has relatively few readers with a circulation of less than 200,000 copies.

Gazprom-Media has a 66 percent stake in the Echo Moskwy radio station , but it can report largely independently. Environmental journalist Grigori Pasko said of the broadcaster's independence:

“ Echo Moskvy is allowed to exist. So that the government can show something when the question arises whether there are independent media in Russia. With the Novaya Gazeta there is also a free newspaper. But there is no TV station that reports really critically. That would be too much of a good thing, because the majority of the population is reached and manipulated via the medium of television. "

- Grigori Pasko

In response to the repression in Russia, the former editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru , Galina Timtschenko , went into exile in 2014 and founded the Russian and English-language Internet newspaper Meduza in Riga together with Ivan Kolpakov .

literature

  • Nicole Bode & Andrey Makarychev (2013): The New Social Media in Russia. Political Blogging by the Government and the Opposition . In Problems of Post-Communism Volume 60. doi / abs / 10.2753 / PPC1075-8216600205
  • Anna Arutunyan (2009): The Media in Russia
  • Barbara Oertel: A lot of press - little freedom. Media and power in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In: Eastern Europe , 1/2003. Pp. 19-32.
  • Roland Haug : The Kremlin AG. Putin, Russia and the Germans , Hohenheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-89850-153-8
  • Uwe Krüger: Bought press in Russia. Political and economic surreptitious advertising using the example of the media in Rostov-na-Donu. Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9679-X
  • Anna Kreisel (2001): Between Information and Power. The Russian media landscape. In: Höhmann, Hans-Hermann; Schröder, Hans-Henning: Russia under new leadership. Politics, economy and society at the beginning of the 21st century. Münster, 241-255.
  • E. Geißlinger: Between coup and price increase, Russian media on the way from "old" to "new" journalism. In: Publizistik , H. 3 (September 97), pp. 346-360.
  • Juliane Besters-Dilger (1996): The changing Russian press ; In: Eastern Europe XLVI, 2, 109-118.

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c Is there still freedom of the press in Russia? In: fluter.de . ( fluter.de [accessed June 12, 2017]).
  2. ^ A b Reporters Without Borders eV: Russia. Retrieved on May 2, 2021 (German).
  3. ↑ Klaus von Beyme: The Russia Controversy: An Analysis of the Ideological Conflict Between Russia Understanders and Russia Critics Springer-Verlag, 2016 ISBN 978-3-658-12031-3 , page 66
  4. ↑ Ulrich M. Schmid : The Putin Show , NZZ, June 3, 2014
  5. ↑ Putin's Propaganda , ARTE, September 8, 2015, minute 46; "The printing presses are synchronized"
  6. ^ Journalists in der Provinzfalle , dekoder.org, September 29, 2016
  7. ↑ Christina Hebel, Christian Esch: Russia takes action against Alexej Navalny: Work ban for his team. In: Der Spiegel. Retrieved May 2, 2021 .
  8. ↑ a b Christian Esch: How the Kremlin destroys a critical media: An interview with »Meduza« founder Galina Timchenko. In: Der Spiegel. Retrieved May 2, 2021 .
  9. ↑ Save Meduza Our continued existence now depends on you. In: meduza.io/en. Retrieved May 1, 2021 .
  10. ^ Freedom of the press in Russia. Retrieved May 2, 2021 .
  11. ↑ Russia: Police search the apartment of the prominent Kremlin critic Roman Anin. In: Der Spiegel. Retrieved April 11, 2021 .
  12. ↑ Russian journalist has to go to jail for a joke. Retrieved May 2, 2021 .
  13. ↑ a b c Reporters Without Borders eV: Russia - Reporters Without Borders for Freedom of Information. January 28, 2016. Retrieved June 12, 2017 .
  14. ↑ a b c Federal Agency for Civic Education : The media landscape in Russia | bpb. Retrieved June 13, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Freedom of Expression ›Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In: www.menschenrechtserklaerung.de. Retrieved April 21, 2016 .
  16. ↑ The Kremlin on All Channels How the Russian State Controls Television , Reporters Without Borders, October 2013
  17. ↑ Roskomnadzor against "Echo von Moscow" , zona.media, April 27, 2018
  18. ^ Andrei Alexejewitsch Soldatow : Taking On Putin , BBC one, Panorama, March 14, 2018; Minute 11; Soldatow: "Extremism in Russia is understood in a very strange way"
  19. ↑ http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/47045 Security Council meeting, kremlin.ru, November 20, 2014
  20. ↑ Прокуратура не нашла экстремизма на "Дожде" (The prosecutor found no extremism in Doschd), lenta.ru, January 31, 2014.
  21. ↑ Erik Albrecht: Die Meinungsmacher: Journalistic Culture and Freedom of the Press in Russia, Volume 1 of Journalism international, Herbert von Halem Verlag, 2008, ISBN 9783938258781 , page 74
  22. ^ Bill Bowring, EU-Russia Center: The electoral system of the Russian Federation, issue 17, Policy Department for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, 2011, page 18; “While freedom of the mass media survived during Yeltsin's presidency, President Putin quickly reduced the freedom for independent television media to exist, using the war in Chechnya as an excuse. Today literally all (national) television networks are state owned and controlled or are economically and politically dependent on the government. "
  23. ↑ The Kremlin on All Channels How the Russian State Controls Television , Reporters Without Borders, October 2013; “On the one hand, the Kremlin gained control of the country's largest television stations through the reorganization of ownership structures on the television market. Shortly after Vladimir Putin's first assumption of office in 2000, he smashed the corporations of private media moguls and appropriated their stations. "
  24. ↑ Russia: Freedom of the Press 2016. Freedom House , accessed July 26, 2016 .
  25. ↑ Democracy Report 2008 of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
  26. ^ Official English legal text
  27. ^ Daniel Treisman: The Return: Russia's Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev . Free Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4165-6071-5 , p. 350.
  28. ↑ a b Julian Hans Moscow: End of broadcast . In: sueddeutsche.de . November 11, 2014, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed June 13, 2017]).
  29. ↑ Doschd TV - Small, Russian TV station too critical . In: Deutschlandfunk . ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed June 12, 2017]).
  30. ↑ “'Why don't you write what I see?' The Russian journalist Grigori Pasko on the dependence and buyability of the press under Putin ”. In: Berliner Zeitung , August 20, 2007.
  31. ↑ Christian Esch (interview with Galina Timtschenko): "I call it a hostage-taking". Spiegel Online, May 1, 2021.