LI News, December 17, 2013
On the same day a media shake-up in Russia saw a merger of two pro-governmental news agencies, LI full member Yabloko has raised concerns about the liquidation of the Moscow Books Chamber, which comes as a consequence of from the same Presidential Decree to ‘improve the efficiency of public media’.

Censorship and limitations on a free press go against core liberal values and, as Yabloko make clear, represents a stark “misunderstanding of the state of public interests and evidence of profound gap between government and citizens.” Liquidation of the Books Chamber, which is responsible for registering and cataloguing all books published in Russia, also presents a risk to an open society despite the connection between the media and Book Chamber being slight.

Commenting on the suppression of civil society institutions in Russia that should concern liberals everywhere, Yabloko Party Chairman, Sergei Mitrokhin said: “One of the oldest backbones for Russian science institutions [has been] destroyed by the stroke of a pen. Russian society is once again reaping the bitter fruits of the low level of intellectual development of power and its amoral attitude to science and culture of the country.”

This latest encroachment on freedom of the media comes less than two months after the Russian government ordered that closure of the news agency, Rosbalt.