Some are interrogated, others are taken to forest

Past few weeks has shown the clear sings of a systemic crisis in the Russian Federations. It will be recalled that on June 11 Russian investigators searched the apartments of the oppositionists who had organized or participated in the Bolotnaya Square rally on May 6, including Aleksei Navalny, Sergei and Anastasiya Udaltsov, Ilya Yashin, and Ksenia Sobchak. Shortly after this, a scandal erupted in connection with Novaya gazeta. As Den reported the other day, Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya gazeta, had left the country after an incident with Aleksandr Bastrykin, chairman of the Russian Prosecution Office’s Investigation Committee.

“On Monday, June 4, you invited Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor-in-chief and head of the investigations department of Novaya gazeta, on board the Nalchik-bound airplane,” says Novaya gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry MURATOV in an open letter to Bastrykin, which was made public by Echo of Moscow. “You described the goal of the trip as follows: in Sokolov’s article ‘Ten Thousand Something Rubles for a Human Life Is the State’s Price List’ the newspaper reacted in what you think is an insulting way to the conviction of one of those implicated in the Kushchevka massacre.” [One of the convicts in the Kushchevka case, Sergei Tsepovyaz, a Kushchevka Municipal Council member from the United Russia party, who was accused of concealing the murder of 12 people in the house of farmer Ametov in 2010, was only sentenced to pay a fine of 150,000 rubles. – Ed.]

“In his commentary, Sokolov subjected the law-enforcement bodies’ actions to harsh criticism. You demanded an apology. At the meeting in Nalchik, Sokolov, whom you invited to sit on the panel, apologized to you personally for excessive emotions, but he also asked you to answer a number of questions about the investigation. Following this, you refused to accept his apologies and brutally demanded that he leave the room (I omit the epithets)… Unfortunately, this was not the end of the story. There was another, fear-inspiring, part on which the invited media did not report. But you, Mr. Bastrykin, know about it. After your airplane had landed late in the evening, your security guards forced Sokolov into a car and drove him, without offering reason, to the nearby forest. Once there, you told the guards to step aside and remained one on one with Sokolov.”

According to Muratov, in the forest Bastrykin expressed to Sokolov, in a very emotional tone, his “opinion” about the newspaper, the editorial policy, and the assassinated columnist Anna Politkovskaya whose case, incidentally, is still being handled by the abovementioned Investigation Committee. The Novaya gazeta editor-in-chief believes that what Bastrykin said constitutes a serious threat to Sokolov (and not only him).

“Now I also have the right to demand that you, general, guarantee the safety of Sergei Sokolov and our newspaper’s journalists. I also request you to tell your subordinates, who witnessed the conflict at the Nalchik meeting, not to treat the Novaya gazeta correspondents in the Caucasus as people on whom the long-awaited hunting season has opened,” Muratov says in his letter. The Investigation Committee was picketed by some of the Russian journalists in support of their Novaya gazeta colleagues. They carried placards reading “Bastrykin, hands off Novaya gazeta!” and “It’s your method to take people to the forest.” But they were immediately detained by the police. According to the BBC Russian Service, all the detainees have been released.

What is important for us is not so much a concrete dispute between Sokolov and Bastrykin (although, taking into account the methods, it also deserves to be spotlighted) as the behavior of Russian journalists, which vividly illustrates how important professionalism, solidarity, and adherence to elementary principles and standards is during a political crisis in the country.

The Day phoned Roman DOBROKHOTOV, leader of the We democratic movement, and asked him to comment on the event.

By Viktoria SKUBA, The Day

“Novaya gazeta has long been distinguished for rather caustic comments. Now it has taken on Bastrykin in a difficult time, when the government is changing: it is not so easy for him, as well as for other law-enforcement officials, to retain his office. On the one hand, he is in the condition of a never-ending struggle against the prosecution service, and, on the other, his agency is the center of scandals caused by various [journalistic] investigations, including the Kushchevka case of which Sergei Sokolov wrote recently. Apparently, Bastrykin lost his temper at a certain moment and showed himself from a very unbecoming angle: he began to openly threaten a journalist. In general, he has done more than enough to be dismissed, even if we do not take into account all the previous cases. The story is further unfolding at a fast rate. Five journalists, including those of the Echo of Moscow radio station, were detained for picketing in support of Sokolov. Muratov is trying to dampen the conflict. He is awaiting some positive response from Bastrykin, but during this pause, when everybody is expecting an apology, Bastrykin is hyping himself up. In my view, he is very likely to have to go.”

He may be fulfilling the will of the government, albeit with too much emotion. Will he be fired for this?

“In reality, there are very close ties between Bastrykin and Putin because the former was not just the latter’s fellow student – he was the senior student of the year. They have been maintaining friendly relations for a long time. Putin regarded Bastrykin as an authority in his field and held on to him for a long time – even when a great scandal erupted in his agency. But there is a limit to anything.

“In the past year, we have seen endless dismissals of the people who were very close to Putin. Some of them came back later, some did not. Therefore, there are no untouchable figures today, especially in a period when the situation is very unstable. Everything will depend on Vladimir Putin’s decision, which is impossible to predict. For if he had always acted rationally, there would not have been a political system as the present one in Russia for a long time. What has caused this political crisis to a large extent is the fact that Putin behaves emotionally, not rationally. So nobody will venture to predict if Putin will fire Bastrykin. Yet at least Bastrykin himself has done his best to be dismissed. And I can see no other ways to break this impasse because no apologies will help. The person has openly breached all the possible criminal norms and proved that he is not unbiased in the cases of Kushchevka and Anna Politkovskaya. He bears political responsibility for searching the oppositionists’ apartments.”

Do you think there was no Putin’s instruction to conduct the latest searches and it was the initiative of Bastrykin?

“There are two variants here. One is that Bastrykin was really fulfilling the instructions of Putin and in this case, of course, Putin will have no complaints about him. But, in any case, there was a resounding scandal, and even if Putin has no complaints about Bastrykin, this does not mean that Bastrykin’s reputation was not at all tarnished here. For the public remembers all this very well and is hyping up this story.

“Putin can still take this into account because this is also affecting his own reputation. But he is unlikely to have given this kind of instructions – Bastrykin just showed initiative.

“In an attempt to curry favor with the leader, many bureaucrats and law-enforcers are making too much effort to pressure oppositionists, and if every violent action against oppositionists is to be put down to Putin’s personal will, this will mean that he is doing nothing but thinking about the opposition every second. I think it is unlikely. Therefore, Mr. Putin’s watchful eye is not exactly needed here.”

Can this be a signal for attacking the oppositional press?

“We have seen a lot of signals lately that pressure on the media is building up. For example, there was pressure on Echo of Moscow, when the board of directors was changing, and on Kommersant, when first the editor-in-chief of the journal Vlast and then the general manager Demyan Kudriavtsev were ousted.

“There was also pressure on the NTV channel, when a relatively free-thinking team of six or even seven people had to resign. In other words, screws are being tightened all over the place, and Novaya gazeta is, of course, not an exception. I do not think it is part of a preconceived plan written on some piece of paper by the presidential administration. Simply, the atmosphere is becoming so tense that the authorities begin to react more and more nervously.”

What should we expect in the near future?

“I think the situation is going to worsen, although there is usually some respite and peace in the summer. But this year may be an exception because, with due account of the recent rally, the number of true oppositionists or oppositional-minded people is not diminishing, while media scandals have been on the rise in the last while due to censorship and some other factors.

“In other words, the atmosphere is gradually heating up. So it seems to me that pressure on the media will only be increasing. But society will also be reacting more actively. New parties will be formed and new rallies will be held. I don’t think we should let the situation take its course even if the oil price goes up again tomorrow. This factor has already exhausted itself, and people are expecting some other changes. Putin’s previous strategy of pouring petrodollars into the vat of problems no longer works.”

Interviewed by Mykola SIRUK, The Day