About 300 people took part in the rally "For the
freedom of the media! Against the lies and censorship on TV!
The rally was held by the Ostankino TV centre on April 14.
The action began and ended with demonstrations. A column of
YABLOKO activists led by party Chairman Sergei Mitrokhin marched
from the metro station to the site of the rally despite the
ban of the authorities on a march. In the end of the rally
the participants made a present to "Putin's censorship"
on its birthday.
April 14 is considered to be the birthday of Vladimir Putin's
censorship on television. At night of April 13 on April 14,
2001, there was forceful change of the Board of the key Russian
independent private television company NTV.
YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin said opening the meeting
that the present Russian regime represents the "rule
of the parasitic elite headed by the ruling Vladimir Putins
group." "This group is aiming at deriving and appropriating
a maximum volume of resources from the country, he said.
"Pursuing this goal the government have to keep the society
in a state of permanent duping and lulling, permanent silencing
of the problems and silencing down of those who would like
to tell the truth. Such a task is set before the state television
channels, " he added.
According to Mitrokhin, to transform the regime by means of
peaceful and constitutional changes, we must not forget these
important dates, we must continue fighting for the civilized
rule of law, where television would implement the task of
informing and educating people, ensuring of political competition
and providing full information to citizens.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a popular journalist from the old NTV
team also made a speech at the rally. He said that the independent
channel was destroyed, "because journalists of the channel
were fighting against the war in Chechnya, against corruption,
and were telling the truth about the accident with the submarine
Kursk, explosions of apartment blocks in Moscow, and exercises
of the FSB in Ryazan and were giving word to Anna Politikovskaya."
"Censorship has been dominating in the country for as
long as 11 years, but we have managed to grow a generation
of parents of those students who come to mass-scale rallies
at Bolotnaya and Sakharov squares in Moscow and a demonstration
at Yakimanka, he said.
Journalist Igor Yakovenko compared the Ostankino television
tower with a "switch" that can send the society
back to the past: "as long as we do not turn this switch
off, nothing will change in the country."
Yakovenko called to a boycott of the present NTV channel
and creation of a truly public television, which would be
funded by the society, rather than businesses, because business
always depends on the government. "We must oppose the
vertical of power symbolized by the Ostankino TV Tower with
our horizontal network of public television," Yakovenko
concluded.
Igor Drandin, one of the leaders of the Democratic Choice
movement, recollected the recent lawsuits against the present
NTV channel demanding a refutation of slander disseminated
in the film about the mass-scale protest movement "The
Anatomy of the Protest." Drandin called on participants
of the rally to create their alternative sources of information.
Alexander Gnezdilov, one of the leaders of Moscow branch of
YABLOKO, suggested that living in a real world rather than
that offered by television, it is impossible to vote for Putin.
"It is impossible to vote for Putin and his policies,
unless people are interested only in gossip, superstitions
and paranoid delusions imposed by the programmes about mystery,
as well as foreign policy," Gnezdilov said.
Valery Borshchyov, member of YABLOKO Bureau and human rights
activist, thanked journalists of the "old" NTV team,
for their courage when they left the NTV company after the
take-over. Borshchyov gave an example from his own life. When,
in 1974, Alexander Solzhenitsyn called to live by truth,
rather than lies, Borshchev and many of his colleagues left
the popular Komsomolskaya Pravda paper and even left journalism.
An activist from the Solidarity movement and Kirill Gontcharov,
leader of Moscow's Youth YABLOKO, also spoke at the rally.
Kirill Goncharov returned from his trip to Astrakhan, where
he supported Oleg Shein who was on hunger strike protesting
against election fraud at the elections of the city mayor.
The resolution of the rally demanded the resignation of the
federal television channels heads - Konstantin Ernst, Oleg
Dobrodeyev and Vladimir Kulistikov.
Protesters also brought biscuits as a gift to Putins television
(as the film of the NTV channel stated that mass-scale rallies
in Moscow had gathered so much people because of buying off
the protesters with biscuits and small amounts of money).
Galina Mikhalyova, Executive Secretary of YABLOKOs Political
Committee and YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin carried the
boxes with biscuits to the entrance of the television centre.
However, the riot police did not let them to go further and
left the biscuits the symbol of lies and propaganda to
themselves.
Photos by Anton Baskakov:
Photo: The anchor and YABLOKO's Executive
Secretary Galina Mikhalyova
Photo: YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin
Photo: Vladimir Kara-Murza
Photo: Igor Yakovenko
Photo: Igor Drandin
Photo: Valery Borschyov
See also:
More
photos and videos
Freedom
of Speech
|
