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July 8, 2004: Ann Cooper, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, discusses threats to free press in Russia and elsewhere with host Mishal Husain.
MISHAL HUSAIN: Ann Cooper, welcome to WIDE ANGLE. Your work is all about press freedom. And you're, in fact, just back from Togliatti, the city that we saw in the film. What are your conclusions about what's been happening to the journalists there?
ANN COOPER: Well, Togliatti is a mighty grim, industrial city, as you could see in the film. And one of the few bright spots for most people in Togliatti in recent years was the creation of this newspaper -- which was a tough-minded, investigative newspaper exposing corruption and exposing organized crime. It was shocking when the founding editor was murdered in 2002, but really just unbelievable when his replacement, Alexei Sidorov, was killed last October. And, I think people really are very much in shock about how this could happen.
MISHAL HUSAIN: Do you think those killings are related to the editors' work on organized crime and corruption?
ANN COOPER: You know, there are many theories about both of these murders and what led to them. There've been many different stories. There's a trial going on for the murder of the second editor -- in which a laborer is being accused of the murder and, supposedly, this had absolutely nothing to do with his work. I don't think anybody believes that. I think they do believe that both of these murders were very much tied to the hard-hitting journalism that this newspaper was doing. And that simply would not be tolerated by the criminal mafias in Togliatti.
MISHAL HUSAIN: Is there also a possible link to local government, to government officials?
ANN COOPER: Well, you have to understand, Togliatti is a city that in the 1990s saw a huge war among criminal mafia factions. And there certainly are many, many accusations that local police and local authorities were complicit -- to one degree or another -- in all of this fighting. And that they continue to tolerate mafia control of the city and, in particular, if they're lucrative industries.
MISHAL HUSAIN: In fact, it was your concern about those cases and your interest in them that took you back to Togliatti just now. What kind of a response did you get from the authorities when you tried to press them on these cases?
ANN COOPER: Well, we had a goal of meeting with both people in the prosecutor's office who were responsible for prosecuting these crimes -- investigating and prosecuting these crimes -- and with the mayor of Togliatti. The mayor's office told us on Friday that we would be able to see him on Monday. But, then, suddenly on Monday, he was too busy. So, we were not able to meet with him and discuss this issue. We did meet with the prosecutor and with the chief investigator in both of these murder cases. And basically they said, "Here's where things stand. One murder is unsolved. You know, it's pretty cold at this point." They didn't hold out much hope that it would ever be solved. And, in the second case, they've said, "You know, we think we found the murderer." And, I'm not sure that anybody in Togliatti believes that the man who's currently on trial, in this second murder case, is really the murderer.
MISHAL HUSAIN: How does it leave you thinking about the state of justice and the rule of law, if there seems to be this official apathy in justice being served in these cases?
ANN COOPER: Well, I must say, it was extremely discouraging. The prosecutor we met with is a man who's been a prosecutor for 32 years. That means most of his experience was during the Soviet era. He acknowledged that it wasn't normal for him, during the Soviet era, to ever talk to the press about these matters. He was trying to show that he's more open now. He said he's met with reporters. And he sat down and met with us from the Committee to Protect Journalists. But we asked him about this: someone in his office had called in a reporter covering the trial in the second murder, and this lower level prosecutor had castigated the reporter. And he said, "Yeah, you know, that probably happened." But, he said, "Look, I don't think that a trial should be covered while it's underway." He thinks that the newspapers there should let the trial take place and then, basically, publish the verdict at the end. And then some details about what happened.
MISHAL HUSAIN: Given all of that, do you think that, ultimately, we will ever see justice served for the two editors who died in Togliatti?
ANN COOPER: "Ultimately," "ever" -- those are pretty strong terms. I certainly hope so. But, it's not going to happen very quickly. That's for sure.
MISHAL HUSAIN: And what was your impression about the impact on the journalists at the paper itself? Also, journalists in Togliatti -- what is the effect that the killings have had on their work?
ANN COOPER: Well, clearly, the killings have had a very chilling effect on all of the journalists in Togliatti. And, in particular, on the newspaper TOLYATINSKOYE OBOZRENIYE. You know, people say that after the first murder, the newspaper toned down quite a bit. After the second murder, it really pretty much stopped doing any investigative reporting. And other newspapers there certainly are not doing so either. It's my understanding that there are only two papers in that region that are covering the trial. One of them is TOLYATINSKOYE OBOZRENIYE -- the newspaper that had two of its editors killed. And another is a local newspaper in Samara, which is a couple of hours away.
MISHAL HUSAIN: In fact, that's what we see right at the end of the film. We see the third editor, effectively, saying that he's going to scale down political and criminal coverage. Do you think that, in a way, that is a fair way to proceed from now on? Is it really worth the cost in human life to keep pursuing these stories?
ANN COOPER: Well, if you look at it strictly in those terms, is it worth the cost of a human life? No, of course it's not. But the problem here is not just that the journalists in Togliatti have been chilled, that they have been frightened and will no longer do investigative reporting, will no longer look critically -- or as critically as they ought to -- on the government. The problem is that there's a message here for the entire city. And that message is, "Don't criticize. Don't investigate. Don't poke your nose into things that are not your business -- where there may be corruption, where there may be criminal action." Because if you do, whether you're a journalist or whether you're just an average citizen, you could be punished. Look what happened to the two editors.
MISHAL HUSAIN: So, there's no doubt at all in your mind that they died for their work. I mean, Russia and Togliatti in particular have a very high crime rate. Is it not possible that they were the victims of ordinary crime in your view?
ANN COOPER: I don't think that either one of them were victims of ordinary crime -- Now, there are various theories, particularly in the first murder of Valery Ivanov. He was also a member of the local city council. So, you know, he was involved in politics as well. And, look, this is a very complex city where politics, organized crime, all of these things are jumbled together. And who's straight and who's criminal? It's very hard to sort that out. That's what his newspaper was trying to do. There are suggestions that maybe he was murdered because of his political activity. I don't know that. The bottom line, though, is let's have a real investigation. Let's find out who murdered him, who ordered the murder and why it happened and bring those people to justice.
MISHAL HUSAIN: Togliatti's, of course, just one city. Are these isolated incidences? What's it been like for journalists elsewhere in Russia? What kinds of things are happening elsewhere?
ANN COOPER: Unfortunately, these are not isolated. It was shocking to have two editors from the same newspaper killed in an 18-month period. But, if you look at the cases that we've documented -- in the four years since Vladimir Putin came to power -- 13 journalists have been killed. A few of those were journalists who died in Chechnya in conflict situations. But most of them were bludgeoned or killed by gunfire. Killed with an axe, with a blunt instrument, stabbed to death. Often on the doorstep of their apartment buildings as they were going home. You know, messages are being sent here. And they're usually provincial journalists far from the center in places where criminal mafia rules or the local government really operates almost like a fiefdom with a high degree of power and the message is, “Don't poke around in things that are not your business. Don't try to expose crime here. Don't try to expose corruption." And the murders are horrible. They're horrific in their details. And they do send a very, very chilling message not just to journalists, but to everybody.
MISHAL HUSAIN: In fact, in the making of this particular film, our filmmakers told us of the difficulty they had in terms of getting people to speak to them openly about what they felt about the restrictions they were operating under. Is that the kind of thing that you also found on this trip? Was there a mood or an atmosphere?
ANN COOPER: I would say there was an atmosphere of resignation, depression. Because nothing has happened in these cases. In one case, no justice at all. In the other case, it seems to be, essentially, a cover-up and a man arrested who most people think really had absolutely nothing to do with this crime. So people are seeing that justice is not done. What kind of message does that send about the government's concern for its citizens? For their security? What kind of message does it send about the safety of journalists? If you're in Togliatti and you don't like something that a journalist is writing about you or your criminal mafia operations or whatever it may be, what do you know about how you could silence that journalist? What you know is: you could murder that journalist and probably get away with it.
MISHAL HUSAIN: Now, you've known Russia for a long time. You've lived and worked there as a journalist yourself in those crucial years as Communism came to an end at the beginning of the '90s. What was Russia like then as a place for a journalist to work?
ANN COOPER: Well, I arrived at the very end of 1986. Mikhail Gorbachev had come to power as the head of the Communist Party. He started releasing political prisoners. He declared a policy of glasnost, or openness. And, it was an incredibly exciting period. Glasnost meant that the press was freer than it had been. I wouldn't say it was a free press by any means. And it also meant that the public was freer to express its opinions, to debate issues. Again, not total freedom.
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Ann Cooper, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists
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