Chechen interview brings crackdown

[dArKeR]

Moscow — A leading Russian television news program has been shut down and its anchor fired after the program tried to broadcast an interview with the widow of a slain Chechen separatist leader, news agencies reported.

The reports said the announcement of Leonid Parfyonov's dismissal and the closing of his show Namedni (Recently) was made in a statement by the NTV television channel. NTV officials could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

NTV in recent years has been the focus of concern over media freedom in Russia. The station was taken over by an arm of the state-connected natural gas monopoly Gazprom in 2001 after its owner, Vladimir Gusinsky, was charged with financial misdeeds in a probe widely seen as punishment for NTV's critical coverage of President Vladimir Putin and the war in Chechnya.

http://theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040602.wruss0602/BNStory/International/

[HuckleB]

1. The Chechens have been run over by Putin.

And he's done it largely through deterring freedom of the press. Talk about Chechen "terrorists" all you want. What Russia has done to Chechnya over the last ten years is pure terrorism, every step of the way.