By Alexander Kolyandr
MOSCOW Prominent French journalist and author Anne Nivat
said Russian immigration authorities forced her to leave the
country where she was working on a book on the current political
situation.
In an email from France, Ms. Nivat said Russian immigration
officials in the provincial town of Vladimir detained her
and gave her three days to leave the country. While the formal
reason given was violation of visa rules, she said that officials
who questioned her made clear that her meetings with opposition
politicians were undesirable.
It clearly didnt please them that I was having conversations
with people from the oppositionthey clearly said it, many
times, Ms. Nivat said, noting that officials had information
about her meetings that suggested she had been followed for
days.
Russias Federal Migration Service declined to comment. The
French Embassy in Moscow said it had not been informed of
the case. Russian regulations require working journalists
to acquire special visas, but Ms. Nivat said that as a freelance
author, she was unable to obtain a press visa and had gotten
a business visa as she had for previous trips. Ms. Nivat worked
in Moscow for French newspapers and magazines in the 1990s
and 2000s and won a prestigious French journalism prize for
a book she wrote on the war in Chechnya.
Political tensions are running high in Russia ahead of the
Mar. 4 presidential election after opposition groups have
mounted the largest public demonstrations against the government
in decades. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is seeking
to return to the presidency, has attacked his critics as puppets
of western powers that aim to weaken Russia.
Last year, Russian officials denied a journalist visa to
Luke Harding, who was the Moscow correspondent for the Guardian,
the British newspaper, at the time. The Guardian said the
move was retribution for Mr. Hardings critical coverage of
Russia, while local authorities said he had violated visa
regulations. His was one of the first cases of a western journalist
being expelled from Russia since the Cold War, according to
the Guardian.
Ms. Nivat said she traveled to Russian provincial towns where
she was meeting, among others, with members of the opposition.
She traveled outside Vladimir to meet with a local official
from the Yabloko party.
She said ten minutes after her return to a hotel in Vladimir
Friday, the immigration officers showed up at her hotel and
took her to their station. They canceled my one-year multi-entry
business visa and gave me a transit visa, according to which
I had three days to leave Russia, she said.
Ms. Nivat said that the officers made clear to her that she
had been followed for daysthey mentioned her meetings with
members of the Communist Party and Yabloko in Petrozavodsk,
another provincial town in Russias north.
I thank (the authorities) for having given me the idea for
the last chapter of my book, she said.
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