20 December 2007, 18:10
Chechnya: the "Chechen Society" newspaper deprived of its room for the comment on the course of elections
The editorial board of the independent political newspaper "Chechen Society", published in Chechnya, was forced to leave its office in the building of the House of Press in Grozny.
It was found out that the motive for this decision of the authorities was the comment of the editor-in-chief Timur Aliev on the course of voting at the elections of Russian State Duma deputies held in Chechnya. The author has stated that, in his opinion, during the first half of the day at the polling station where he was present about 30 percent of citizens had voted.
Two days after the elections, one of local TV Channels showed the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov who spoke extremely negatively about Timur Aliev. Literally on the next day, the editorial office of the "Chechen Society" was visited by assistants of the new Minister of Press, Information and National Policy of Chechnya Shamsail Saraliev and demanded to immediately remove the office of the newspaper out of the building of the House of Press.
At the same time with expulsion of the "Chechen Society" out of the House of Press, the office of another independent printed edition - the "Voice of Chechen Republic" - was sealed up. The journalists think that the reason was in the fact that the editor of this newspaper Satsita Isaeva is Aliev's wife. Later, the officials of the Ministry tried to reject any interrelation between these two events, although the ban on the work of the office was lifted only one of these days.
Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent
