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MOSCOW - Russia abruptly pulled the plug on its only nationwide
independent television station on Tuesday, giving the Kremlin
a monopoly of the airwaves for the first time since the Soviet
era and sparking international concern.
Moscow has said the fate of TV6 is purely a business matter
following a court ruling upholding a shareholder's complaint that
the station was bankrupt.
But it has raised widespread concern over President Vladimir
Putin's tolerance of dissent and the independence of the courts.
Boris Berezovsky, TV6's owner, told Reuters the shutdown was
the latest move by the Kremlin to secure control over the media.
He accused Putin of "destroying" Russia's legal system.
The United States also questioned the legality of the closure
and said political authorities could have stopped it if they had
wanted.
At midnight on Monday, a TV6 talk show host was interrupted
mid-sentence and replaced with test pattern stripes and the message:
"We have been pulled off the air". Power was shut off
at the studio and telephones and internet links were cut.
"The authorities today showed that their single goal is
to gag us," TV6 General Director Yevgeny Kiselyov told Ekho
Moskvy radio which later broadcast some TV6 news bulletins.
Boris Nemtsov, head of the free-market Union of Right-wing Forces
party, told Ekho Moskvy: "This was a huge political mistake
on the president's part, and I hope that sooner or later somebody
will explain that to him, or he will realise it himself."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said
on Tuesday the legal action and closure of TV6 was "extremely
difficult to understand in any business or any financial context."
"For some time there's been a very strong appearance of
political pressure in the judicial process against Russia's independent
media, including in this case," he told a news conference.
Asked if President Putin could have saved TV6 from closure,
he replied: "I would say that given the appearance of political
pressure on the judicial process that political authorities could
have withdrawn that pressure, yes."
Boucher said "very unusual and rapid developments"
had taken place in the case against TV6 at high judicial levels
where he said things normally took several months.
In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer also expressed
concern. "It would be a considerable setback for the diversity
of opinion and diversity of media in Russia if this development
led to the breakup of the network without a substitute,"
he said.
Public reaction in Russia has been restrained compared to last
year when independent broadcaster NTV was taken over by the Kremlin-controlled
natural gas monopoly in a boardroom coup that led to street protests
and on-air strikes by reporters. Most TV6 staff were recruited
from NTV.
The Kremlin says it had nothing to do with action against NTV
and TV6, though Putin has never concealed his contempt for Berezovsky
and former NTV owner Vladimir Gusinsky, or his belief they had
abused the power of their media holdings.
FINANCIER SAYS KREMLIN TIGHTENING CONTROL
Berezovsky, a former Kremlin insider turned Putin opponent and
now living in exile in western Europe, said TV6's shutdown was
part of Kremlin plans to tighten central control in Russia.
"I think the next logical step will be making the media
further subservient to the authorities and the forging of a single
public opinion so that everyone thinks the way the president thinks,"
he said by telephone.
"I believe the president has ruined the legal system. As
for TV6, the arbitration court adopted clearly illegal positions.
It was a farce, a comedy."
By pulling the plug, authorities silenced a team that, first
at NTV and then at TV6, dared criticise military tactics in Chechnya
and expose alleged corruption scandals in the Kremlin.
In both companies, huge oil and gas firms with ties to the state
acquired minority stakes and went to court to wrest management
control from the businessmen.
Media Minister Mikhail Lesin, who ordered TV6 switched off,
told reporters it was "in Berezovsky's interest to exploit
the situation: he always has to prove he is a dissident."
A tender for the channel would be held on March 27, he said,
and TV6 could resume "if the journalists are able to organise
themselves and solve their...problems".
In TV6's case, a pension fund for Russia's biggest oil company
LUKOIL held a 15 percent stake and won a court case to close the
station, saying it was bankrupt.
But TV6 said popular programmes, like Russia's first Big Brother-like
reality show, had improved its finances.
See also:
TV6
case
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