Seminar on defence of journalists' rights opened in Makhachkala

In Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, correspondents of local newspapers will discuss legal aspects of their work in the course of the seminar organized by the Union of Journalists of Russia (UJR).

The event that opened today is attended by Nadezhda Azhgikhina and Pavel Gutiontov, secretaries of the UJR, Ali Kamalov, chairman of the Union of Journalists of Dagestan, Galina Arapova, director and leading lawyer of the Voronezh Centre in Defence of Media Rights, and Roman Anin, a correspondent of the investigations department of the "Novaya Gazeta".

According to Nadezhda Azhgikhina, "the seminar will increase journalists' legal awareness and improve the situation with safety of their work. Impunity for breaking journalists' rights should disappear from our life."

As reported by Pavel Gutiontov, in recent years 326 journalists perished in Russia. "We'll be able to speak about fair and fundamental journalism only after media people get the right to work fairly," he has noted.

Roman Anin, a correspondent of the "Novaya Gazeta", has reminded that in their paper only four journalists were lost recently. He has emphasized that now his edition tries to stick to the principle that "no truth costs human life."

Galina Arapova, head of the Voronezh Centre in Defence of Media Rights, has briefed representatives of the Dagestan mass media on the problems of legal protection of journalists. Her Centre only is annually engaged in up to one hundred litigations related to defence of the press.

According to her story, recently the "Law on Counteracting Extremism" has been broadly used to press journalists.

When asked by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent about how regional mass media can struggle for their rights, Ms Arapova answered that journalists, when writing their sharp articles, should address lawyers before publication, asking them to read the text and specify the problematic sections, which should be better altered.

See earlier reports: "FSB forbids Danish photographer who cooperated with Estemirova to enter Russia," "HRC "Memorial": authorities of Dagestan should stop persecuting journalists and rights defenders," "In Dagestan, journalist is threatened for an article about murders of Derbent residents."