Makhackala/Agency Caucasus – The weekly Nastoyasheye Vremya newspaper has currently been having a chaos since two Dagestani journalists were killed in one single day in March.
After Andrey Melamedov resigned as chief editor in protest at pressure placed by the newspaper’s general director, its owners and sponsors on journalists, Sergei Rasulov, editor, was fired on the grounds that he was absent from work within his working hours from 9 am to 12 pm, not on the grounds that he wrote about violation by the newspaper’s founders of journalists’ freedom of thought.
"I hope that the newspaper’s founders’ illegality draws attention not only from the police but also from the journalists’ association and non-governmental organizations," said Rasulov to express his reaction. Hanjan Kurbanov, the new chief editor, introduced new rules by an order from General Director Rizvan Rizvanov to make it easier to fire other journalists, added Rasulov.
The newspaper workers drafted a special issue with which to express their reaction against violation by the newspaper’s founders, its sponsors and the general director of the Press Act. Rizvanov prevented this issue from coming out on March 14. Andrey Melamedov then resigned in protest both at the policy followed by the newspaper’s founders and at pressure placed by the general director on the newspaper workers. The workers of Nastoyasheye Vremya brought on March 26 an official complaint to court against Rizvan Rizvanov. The newspaper’s workers requested that the court inquired whether the newspaper’s founders violate the Press Act or not.
According to Melademov, Rizvanov was the person who introduced the ‘black list’ to the founders of the newspaper. This list contained the names of journalists whose editorials would never appear in the newspaper. Among the black listed names were Ilyas Shurpayev, reporter for the Russian State Television, and Gaji Abashilov, Chief of Dagestan’s State Television & Radio Institution. Both Shurpayev and Abashilov were killed in the same day in March. ÖZ/FT
