State ‘is trying to throw Russian union onto street’
THE INTERNATIONAL Federation of Journalists is calling on journalists’ unions around the world to join protests over a “cynical campaign” by Russian political bosses to close down the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ).
For the past year state agencies in Moscow have been trying to evict the union from the premises it has occupied for almost 30 years, claiming the building is unsafe.
Now the RUJ has learned that the government is trying to sell the building to a private owner and throw the union onto the street.
“The Russian union has been one of the most strident critics of government pressure on independent journalism,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “It is the victim of intimidation and a cynical campaign by its political opponents who have failed to close the union using trumped up charges of breaching fire regulations, who are now trying to sell off offices that the union insists are legally their own.”
The IFJ traces the campaign against the union to the World Congress of Journalists it hosted in Moscow in June last year when journalists’ leaders from almost 100 countries strongly criticised attacks on press freedom and the government’s failure to act over the killings of journalists.
“This crisis is not a property dispute,” said Aidan White. “It is a determined effort to stifle the voice of independent journalism in a country where democracy is under fire and media freedom has been plunged into darkness.”