[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 72 (Thursday, May 3, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H4475-H4482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cohen). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, today is World Press Freedom Day, a day that 
the international community has set aside to honor the work and 
sacrifice of journalists around the world.
  World Press Freedom Day was first designated by the United Nations 
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in 1991 as an 
occasion to pay tribute to journalists and to reflect upon the role of 
the media in general in advancing fundamental human rights as codified 
in international law, regional conventions and national constitutions.
  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the foundation of 
the postwar human rights movement, states the principle broadly in 
article 19. ``Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and 
expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions without 
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas 
through any media and regardless of frontiers.'' It may not be as 
eloquent as our first amendment, but its effect is the same.
  For Americans, this day should spur us to consider the role that 
journalists play in our society and to ponder what our Nation would be 
like if this cornerstone of our liberty were to be curtailed.
  Although most Americans take the concept of a free press for granted, 
I believe that an unfettered press is vital to America's national 
security and to our democracy here at home.
  A year ago today, my colleague from Indiana, Mr. Spence, and Senators 
Chris Dodd and Richard Lugar joined me in launching a new bipartisan, 
bicameral caucus aimed at advancing press freedom around the world. The 
Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press creates a forum where the 
United States Congress can work to combat and condemn media censorship 
and the persecution of journalists around the world. The launch of this 
new caucus sends a strong message that Congress will defend democratic 
values and human rights wherever they are threatened.
  In launching the caucus, we were encouraged by the wide range of 
organizations and individuals, such as Reporters Without Borders, 
Freedom House, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Musa Klebnikov, 
the widow of Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes Russia, who was shot 
to death outside of his offices 2 years ago, and the legendary Walter 
Cronkite, all of whom enthusiastically endorsed our effort.

[[Page H4476]]

  Freedom of the press is so central to our democracy that the Framers 
enshrined it in the first amendment of our Constitution. At the time, 
there was little in the way of journalist ethics, and newspapers were 
filled with scurrilous allegations leveled at public figures. Even so, 
our Founders understood its importance to advancing the new Nation's 
experiment in democracy.
  In the Virginia Report of 1799-1800, touching the alien and sedition 
laws, James Madison wrote that, ``Some degree of abuse is inseparable 
from the proper use of everything, and in no instance is this more true 
than in that of the press. It has accordingly been decided by the 
practice of the States that it is better to leave a few of its noxious 
branches to their luxuriant growth than by pruning them away to injure 
the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits. And can the wisdom of 
this policy be doubted by any who reflect that to the press alone, 
checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the 
triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and 
oppression, who reflect to the same beneficent source. The United 
States owes much of the lights which conducted them to the rank of a 
free and independent nation and which have improved their political 
system into a shape so auspicious to their happiness.''
  Throughout much of our history, Madison's argument has guided our 
national attitude toward the media. Journalists have jealously guarded 
their rights, and American courts have, in the main, carved out broad 
protection for the press. In the United States, the press operates 
almost as a fourth branch of government, the fourth estate, independent 
of the other three and positioned as an agent of the American people.
  From the pioneering work of journalists during the Civil War, to the 
muckrakers who were committed to exposing social, economic and 
political ills of industrial life in the early 20th century, to the 
publication of the Pentagon Papers by The New York Times in 1971, to 
the work of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein 
in uncovering the Watergate scandal a year later, journalists have 
performed a crucial role as the watchdogs of our freedom.
  But in order for freedom of the press to do its work properly, it 
must be unfettered, and journalists must be able to do their work 
without fear of retribution. Information is power, which is precisely 
why governments, many of them, attempt to control the press to suppress 
opposition and to preempt dissent. Far too often, reporters and editors 
who seek to demand reform, accountability and greater transparency find 
that their livelihoods and even their very lives are in danger. The 
censorship, intimidation, imprisonment and murder of these journalists 
violate not only their personal liberty, but also the rights of those 
who are denied access to these ideas and information.
  The United States, as the world's oldest democracy and the greatest 
champion of free expression, has a special obligation to defend the 
rights of journalists wherever and whenever they are threatened. A free 
press is one of the most powerful forces for advancing democracy, human 
rights and economic development. So our commitment to these larger 
objectives requires active engagement in the protection and the 
promotion of this freedom.
  These are difficult and dangerous days for reporters around the 
world. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect 
Journalists, 56 journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2006, 
most of whom were murdered to silence or punish them. The toll was 9 
more than the 47 journalists killed in 2005, just the year before, and 
well above average for the last 2 decades of reporting. Another 30 
reporters were killed, but law enforcement authorities cannot confirm 
that their deaths were the result of their work.
  Outright murder is not the only tool that the authorities use to 
silence reporters. As of December 1, 2006, 134 journalists were 
imprisoned around the world as a consequence of their work. Of these, 
more than 100 were held by only five countries: China, Cuba, Eritrea, 
Ethiopia, and Burma.
  These countries which imprison journalists for straying beyond the 
bounds of official censorship are not the most dangerous for 
journalists, however. Since 1992, more journalists have been killed in 
Iraq, Algeria, Russia, Colombia and the Philippines than anywhere else.
  We are all familiar with the dangers inherent in covering war and 
insurgencies, and many of those killed in Iraq, Algeria and Colombia 
have died covering conflicts in these countries. In the Philippines, 
the murder of journalists has been part of a larger campaign against 
perceived left-wing activists.
  But it is Russia, where more than 20 journalists have been murdered 
in 6 years since Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin, that we wish 
to address this evening.
  All alone among the top five countries where journalists are 
murdered, the deaths of journalists in Russia seem to be part of a 
concerted effort to silence the few remaining journalists who refuse to 
tow the Kremlin line. China, Cuba and others have been rightly 
condemned for imprisoning journalists who raised the ire of their 
governments. Moscow seems to have taken a different tack. Instead of 
censoring jailing journalists it doesn't like, the Kremlin seems to 
look the other way when they turn up dead.
  There is no direct evidence tying the Putin government to the murder 
of journalists in Russia, but there is a wealth of circumstantial 
evidence pointing to at least acquiescence in the death of journalists.
  The number of journalists killed, the circumstances of their deaths, 
the stories they were working on, and perhaps most telling, the fact 
that not one of the crimes has been successfully prosecuted involving 
the murder of these journalists in Russia, is indicative of a 
deliberate decision not to dig too deeply into these murders.
  Others hint at something darker. In an editorial the Washington Post 
recently stated, ``The instances of violence against journalists in Mr. 
Putin's Russia and of the brutal elimination of his critics both at 
home and abroad have become so common that it is impossible to explain 
them all as coincidences.''
  The evolution of Russian journalism from its dismal Soviet past to 
its current role as the Kremlin's sycophant is distressing. During the 
latter part of the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev loosened many of the Soviet 
era's restrictions on the press and the Soviet media became an 
important player in Gorbachev's policy of Glasnost.
  Under Gorbachev, journalists began to explore the full range of 
issues that had remained hidden for so long by the Soviet Government, 
the Afghan war, the gulags, the miserable performance of the Soviet 
economy and the endemic corruption of Soviet society were laid bare. 
There is little doubt that the Soviet media's revelations were a 
catalyst in the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
  In the immediate post-Soviet era, the Russian press foundered as the 
economy collapsed, but the first Chechen war, which lasted from 1994 to 
1996, revitalized Russian journalism. Television was especially 
powerful, and its coverage of the war turned millions of Russians 
against the conflict. In many respects, this period was the high 
watermark for an independent press in Russia.
  But even as NTV and other television outlets helped to shape domestic 
opposition to the Chechen war, Russian journalism was shedding its 
independence. As Michael Specter wrote in the New Yorker about this 
period in Russia, ``The moral tone of the journalist's world began to 
shift from idealistic to mercenary. The practice of writing biased news 
articles for money became routine, even at the best papers. Restaurant 
owners, businessmen and public officials knew that, for the right 
price, it would bring them favorable coverage almost anywhere.''
  This distortion of the journalistic creed of objectivity and 
neutrality was exacerbated in 1996 when President Yeltsin, whose 
support and opinion polls had fallen into the low single digits, faced 
off against Communist Gennady Zyuganov in the Russian presidential 
election. Knowing that without third-party intervention Yeltsin was 
doomed and that Zyuganov would reimpose control over the media, 
Russia's media elite intervened.
  Over the course of the campaign, NTV and other media outlets 
collectively swayed Russian public opinion and Yeltsin ended up 
winning. But the

[[Page H4477]]

damage was done. As a former anchor for NTV told the New Yorker's 
Michael Specter, the election ``put a poisoned seed into the soil, and 
even if we did not see why, the authorities understood at once mass 
media could very easily be manipulated to achieve any goal. Whether the 
Kremlin needed to raise the rating of a president or bring down an 
opponent or conduct an operation to destroy a businessman, the media 
could do the job.''

                              {time}  1715

  Once the Kremlin understood it could use journalists as instruments 
of its will and saw that journalists would go along, everything that 
happened in the Putin era was, sadly, quite logical.
  The ascension of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency cemented 
the link between Russia's rulers and the press. Even without government 
censorship, the press has become a passive booster of the president's 
efforts to centralize authority and to restore Russia to its former 
status as a great power. To that end, the Russian media has ignored the 
corruption and cronyism that has become institutionalized in Russia 
since the Yeltsin period, and has largely been uncritical of the 
prosecution of the second Chechnyan war which has raged for nearly 8 
years.
  But even as the vast majority of their colleagues censor themselves 
and follow the Kremlin line, a few brave journalists have dared to 
investigate, to question, and criticize. Journalistic independence in 
Russia is dangerous. And in a few minutes we will introduce you to some 
of the journalists whose brave voices have been stilled.
  When my colleague arrives back on the floor, Mike Pence, I will 
introduce him. He has been a leading voice in the House on human rights 
and serves as the other co-chair of our Congressional Caucus For 
Freedom of the Press.
  But this evening I will start in highlighting the Russian journalists 
who have lost their lives by talking about Ivan Safronov, who died in 
early March of this year after falling from a fifth floor stairwell 
window in his apartment building in Moscow.
  He was a correspondent at Kommersant, and is the most recent 
journalist in Russia to die under a cloud of suspicion. Russian 
officials quickly called his death a suicide. However, according to 
colleagues of his at Kommersant, he had a very happy family life and 
had no motive to commit suicide. It was not until Kommersant and some 
other news media suggested foul play that the authorities agreed to 
investigate the circumstances of Mr. Safronov's death.
  According to his editors, Mr. Safronov, a military affairs writer, 
was working on a story about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and 
Syria via Belarus. Mr. Safronov had been a colonel in the Russia Space 
Forces prior to reporting for Kommersant. He frequently angered 
authorities with his critical reporting and was repeatedly questioned 
by Federal authorities which suspected him of divulging state secrets. 
One such report that Mr. Safronov filed that angered officials revealed 
the third consecutive launch failure of a new Bulava intercontinental 
ballistic missile. This had been a pet project of President Putin's 
which was supposed to show the world Russia's nuclear strength.
  Strangely enough, no charges were ever brought up against Mr. 
Safronov. He was well aware that he was reporting on a sensitive issue 
and was very careful in his work always to have a way to prove he was 
not divulging state secrets. He was known for making meticulous notes 
and conducting thorough research so he could always prove he got his 
information from known sources.
  It would seem that sadly Mr. Safronov's reporting was too good and 
the only way to silence him was by eliminating him. Mr. Safronov is not 
on either of the lists of journalists that we have tonight to highlight 
because his death is so recent. But his tragic death is another example 
of the lack of progress being made to protect journalists in Russia.
  Before I begin highlighting 13 of the journalists on the committee to 
protect journalists of the most recently murdered journalists in 
Russia, I would like to introduce my colleague from Indiana, Mike 
Pence, who is one of the co-chairs of the caucus and does a superb job 
advocating for the rights of the media.
  Mr. PENCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I am profoundly grateful that while I have the privilege of co-
chairing the Congressional Caucus for Protection of the Press, I want 
to acknowledge you have been the driving force behind this caucus. You 
recruited me to participation a year ago and I am grateful for this 
opportunity to have a reunion with you publicly on the House floor. The 
gentleman from California is a Member I deeply admire, and am honored 
to be associated with, as well as our Senate colleagues, Senator Chris 
Dodd and Senator Richard Lugar from my home State.
  I would reflect at the outset about World Press Freedom Day which was 
the very day that we launched the Congressional Caucus For Freedom of 
the Press back on May 3, 2006, the profound importance of the freedom 
of the press and my belief that the United States of America ought to 
be a beacon of freedom for the world. We ought to inspire, we ought to 
articulate, we ought to use our freedom, as the gentleman from 
California is doing today in this Special Order, to highlight the 
absence of freedom in other parts of the globe. I am greatly enthused 
by his leadership, Mr. Speaker, and by the opportunity today.
  A few thoughts on freedom of the press. I would offer where there is 
no freedom of the press, there is no freedom. If America is to be a 
beacon of hope for the world, we must hold high the idea of a free and 
independent press. We must advance it abroad and we must defend it at 
home.
  A few quotes about the centrality of freedom of the press. As the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) suggested, sometimes we don't 
quite understand how central the freedom of the press is to the success 
of the American experiment. But our Founders enshrined the freedom of 
the press in the first amendment because they understood, as people who 
believed in limited government, that the only check on government power 
in real-time is a free and independent press.
  Our Founders did not include freedom of the press in the first 
amendment because they got good press, they included it there because 
they believed in limited government and they believed in the survival 
of liberty, and they understood the role that the press plays in our 
society and as we seek to promote it through this caucus in other 
societies. The press is that agency of progress, that agency of 
accountability that makes freedom possible and sustains freedom.
  A few thoughts from our Founders before I yield back to our effort to 
highlight what has been a train of frightening contract-style killings 
taking place in Russia that we seek to highlight today. Thomas 
Jefferson would say, ``Our liberty,'' and I would add parenthetically, 
anyone else's liberty, ``Our liberty cannot be guarded but by freedom 
of the press, nor that limited without danger of losing it.''
  Roger McCormick, the founder of the Chicago Tribune, spoke words that 
are chiseled on the wall of that newspaper to this day, and I wrote 
them down when I was visiting the paper a few years ago, about the 
goal, the mission of a newspaper. He said, ``The newspaper is an 
institution developed by modern civilization to present the news of the 
day, to foster commerce and industry, to inform and lead public 
opinion, and to furnish that check upon government which no 
Constitution has ever been able to provide.''
  Benjamin Rush, one of our Founding Fathers, would say, ``Newspapers 
are the sentinels of the liberties of the country.''
  James Madison would say, ``To the press alone checkered as it is with 
abuses, the world is indebted for all of the triumphs which have by 
gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.''
  And Daniel Webster would say, ``The entire and absolute freedom of 
the press is essential to the preservation of government on the basis 
of a free Constitution.''
  These great minds, these great voices of liberty, some of whom faces 
are chiseled into the wall of this great room, are what inspired the 
formation of the Congressional Caucus for the Freedom of the Press, and 
it inspires me to be able to stand with my co-chair, with the founder 
of this caucus, Congressman Schiff, to now use this platform,

[[Page H4478]]

this stage, this blue and gold and red carpet to hold up the ideal of 
the freedom of the press, and in the exercise of our own freedom to 
challenge those and expose those places in the world where the freedom 
of the press is under siege.
  As I prepare to yield back to the gentleman, I would say that the 
rising tide of violence against journalists in Russia since the advent 
of the presidency of Mr. Putin is deeply troubling and ought to be 
troubling to anyone who cherishes the notion of a free and independent 
press.
  As we saw the wall fall in 1991, we all hoped that the daylight of 
liberty was rushing in with perestroika and the changes and the 
democracy movement, but it seems that Boris Yeltsin's recent passing 
may be a metaphor for Russia today. The Boris Yeltsin who stood against 
Soviet totalitarianism, stood for democracy in his country, passed into 
history just a matter of weeks ago, and it seems as I think the 
gentleman will articulate in a powerful and compelling way today, that 
as he passes into history, we fear that this experiment in freedom and 
democracy, and particularly a free press in Russia, is passing into 
history as well. We do not conclude that, we fear it.
  I am honored to be able to join my colleague and participate as he 
yields time to telling some of the stories of these journalists who 
have paid the price for doing liberty's work in that country of Russia.
  So again, I commend the gentleman and give him whole cloth credit for 
founding the Congressional Caucus For Freedom of the Press. I am 
honored to stand with him and honored to call him a friend.
  Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for your generosity and commitment. 
I know my colleague probably feels as I do that there is many a morning 
I get up and read the newspaper, seeing my own name in it, and not feel 
that this is the day I want to champion a free press. That does happen 
from time to time. But notwithstanding those occasional morning papers, 
we almost always recognize the importance of the institution. That is 
why we are here tonight.
  When we have gotten together in the past, it is to highlight 
journalists who have been imprisoned or murdered or killers who have 
gone with impunity around the world. But because of the magnitude of 
the problem in Russia, because of the prevalence and the pernicious 
nature of what is going on in Russia, we felt that we needed to 
spotlight one country tonight and devote the entire hour to Russia.
  Let me start by highlighting some of the 13 journalists in Russia who 
have been killed contract-style since President Putin was elected 
president in 2000.
  This list of journalists was compiled by the caucus to protect 
journalists. These 13 journalists are all believed to have been 
deliberately killed due to their work as journalists. Their names and 
the dates they were killed and the media outlets they worked for are 
listed on some of the graphics that we have here tonight, and these are 
the faces of the 13 slain journalists.
  It is one thing when we talk about the numbers of journalists that 
have been murdered this year and the number that were murdered last 
year or the number killed in Russia alone over the last several years. 
Those are only numbers; but when we look at this chart and we look at 
these journalists and we realize that these were each promising lives, 
these were each important lives, these were real people doing a 
courageous job who are no longer among us, we can understand the 
enormity of the crime that is going on.
  The first of the journalists on the committee's list and the second 
most recent journalist in Russia to be murdered, probably the most 
well-known internationally is Anna Politkovskaya. Her portrait is 
behind me. Anna was found shot to death in her Moscow home on October 7 
of last year in a murder that garnered worldwide condemnation.

                              {time}  1730

  Her death sparked protests from governments around the world, the 
European Union, and civil society groups concerned with freedom of the 
press.
  Anna was a courageous and world-renowned writer for the paper Novaya 
Gazeta. For many years she had campaigned against the war in Chechnya, 
corruption, and shrinking freedoms throughout the Russian Federation. 
Anna was a fearless journalist committed to reporting the truth about 
the conflict in Chechnya, which she called ``a small corner of hell.''
  In 7 years covering the second Chechen war, Anna's reporting 
repeatedly drew the wrath of Russian authorities. For simply reporting 
the truth about the conflict, she was threatened, jailed, forced into 
exile, and even poisoned. Even that was not enough to silence her.
  In an interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists, 
Politkovskaya noted the government's obstruction and harassment of 
journalists trying to cover the Chechen conflict. She pointed out the 
difficulty of covering the 2004 hostage crisis in the North Ossetian 
town of Beslan that left 334 civilians dead. She said, ``There is so 
much more to write about Beslan, but it gets more and more difficult 
when all the journalists who write are forced to leave.''
  Apparently the authorities were not content with simply forcing 
Politkovskaya to leave. She was poisoned on her way to cover the Beslan 
crisis. After drinking tea on a flight to the region, she became 
seriously ill and was hospitalized, but the toxin was never identified 
because the medical staff was instructed to destroy her blood tests.
  Politkovskaya was threatened and attacked numerous times in 
retaliation for her work. In February 2001, security agents detained 
her in the Vedeno district in Chechnya, accusing her of entering 
Chechnya without accreditation. She was kept in a pit for three days 
without food or water, while a military officer threatened to shoot 
her. Seven months later, she received death threats from a military 
officer accused of crimes against civilians. She was forced to flee to 
Vienna after the officer sent an e-mail to Novaya Gazeta promising that 
he would seek revenge.
  When Politkovskaya covertly visited Chechnya in 2002 to investigate 
new allegations of human rights abuses, security officers arrested her, 
kept her overnight at a military base, and threatened her. In October 
of that year, Politkovskaya served as a mediator between armed Chechen 
fighters and Russian forces during a hostage standoff in a central 
Moscow theater. Two days into the crisis, with the Kremlin restricting 
media coverage, Russian forces gassed the theater and 129 hostages 
died. Politkovskaya delivered some of the most compelling accounts of 
that tragedy.
  Just prior to her murder, Anna was working on an article, accompanied 
by photos, about torture in Chechnya. It was due to be published days 
after she was killed. Her article, however, never arrived at the 
newspaper.
  In her last book, Russia Under Putin, which was published this year 
in France, she not only criticized atrocities in Chechnya but also 
corruption and human rights violations in Russia.
  Anna was internationally acclaimed for her courage and her 
professionalism, and now you can see why. She was named by the 
Committee to Protect Journalists as one of the world's top press 
freedom figures of the past 25 years in the fall 2006 edition of its 
magazine, Dangerous Assignments.
  Anna may have been killed, but her memory continues to live on. 
Today, Anna was named this year's winner of the prestigious 2007 
UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. This is the first time 
the honor has been awarded posthumously in its 10-year history.
  While the Russian Government claims that many leads have been 
examined, so far the investigation has stalled, and no charges have 
been filed, a sadly familiar tale when a journalist is murdered in 
Russia.
  This is the face of a woman of great courage, who gave her life so 
that the truth could come out and be told, and tonight we honor her 
memory and we point to her example.
  I will turn now to Mr. Pence to highlight our next journalist.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, also pictured on our poster, and I believe 
the gentleman from California could point to, in the upper left corner 
of the poster should be the image of Magomedzagid Varisov.
  At around 9:00 p.m. on June 28, 2005, in the city of Makhachkala, 
assailants armed with machine guns opened fire

[[Page H4479]]

on Magomedzagid Varisov's sedan as he drove home with his wife. Varisov 
sustained multiple bullet wounds and died at the scene. The likely 
motive for Varisov's assassination was his work as a journalist and a 
commentator.
  For three years prior to his murder, Varisov wrote analytical columns 
for the Novoye Delo, Dagestan's largest weekly newspaper. Dagestan, a 
Russian republic bordering the Caspian Sea, has been the scene of low-
level political violence and unrest driven by a separatist rebellion 
since 2000. Varisov was often critical of the Dagestan separatists, and 
his expertise on the Northern Caucuses made him a highly sought after 
resource for reporters and researchers. As a journalist and a pundit, 
Varisov wrote that the opposition was trying to destabilize the 
republic and topple the regional government and authored investigative 
pieces into terrorism and organized crime in the region.
  In an issue of Novoye Delo just before his death, Varisov examined 
Russian Army operations in the Chechen border town of Borozdinovskaya 
in which one person was killed and 11 others were reported missing. 
Ethnic Avars, fearing for their lives, left Borozdinovskaya by the 
hundreds and crossed into neighboring Dagestan. Varisov criticized 
Chechen authorities in his article for failing to protect the safety of 
Borozdinovskaya residents and appealed to Dagestan authorities to do 
right by them.
  For over a year, Varisov had spoken of threats against him and had 
written about those threats in articles for Novoye Delo. Varisov 
complained that unknown individuals were following him, and he sought 
protection from Makhachkala law enforcement authorities. No protection 
came, and not long after, Varisov was gunned down.
  In a tale that has become all too common in Russia, Mr. Varisov's 
murder will go unsolved and unprosecuted. A raid on October 25, 2005, 
killed three suspects in Mr. Varisov's death. Local prosecutors closed 
their case shortly afterward, and Varisov was added to the list of 
journalists whose murder will go unsolved but not forgotten.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  The next casualty in Russia's war on journalism that we will 
highlight tonight is Paul Klebnikov whose photo appears here.
  Paul, editor of Forbes Russia and an investigative reporter, was 
gunned down as he left his Moscow office late at night on July 9, 2004. 
Authorities in Moscow described the case as a contract murder and said 
that he may have been killed because of his work. Paul, a U.S. 
journalist of Russian descent, was 41 years old when he was shot at 
least nine times from a passing car.
  I had the opportunity to speak with his widow a year ago today when 
Representative Pence and I launched this caucus, and I expressed my 
deep sorrow to her and their three young children about this tragic 
occurrence.
  Paul had just started as the editor of Forbes Russia, which had 
launched three months prior to his death. He had risen through the 
ranks of Forbes over the prior 15 years with the magazine, starting as 
a reporter covering Russian economic reform and the rise of the 
country's new business elite. As a son of Russian emigrants with a long 
military tradition across the political stratosphere, Paul developed a 
significant expertise in Russian and Eastern European politics and 
economics, which he used to report on the murky world in post-Soviet 
Russia where politics and business meet.
  Over the course of his career, Paul conducted hundreds of interviews 
with top Russian officials and business leaders and had interviewed 
nearly all of Russia's most famous businessmen, its oligarchs. His 
research into the activities of these leaders led to his first book. 
Further research into organized crime in Chechnya led to his second 
book. In 2003, he published a groundbreaking article on corruption 
among Iran's theocratic rulers.
  When given the opportunity to launch Forbes Russia, Paul considered 
it a great opportunity to bring the best of Western values to a Nation 
struggling through a difficult political, economic and social 
transition. He wrote that Russia, despite setbacks, was entering an era 
where lawful, innovative, free enterprise capitalism could emerge. In 
Forbes Russia's inaugural edition of April 2004, Paul published an 
investigative piece that led to criticism from the Kremlin. The 
following May issue included a list of Russia's 100 richest people, 
noting that Moscow had more billionaires than any other city. Both 
articles incited the subjects of the pieces, and Paul's tradition of 
creating enemies through his reporting continued.
  That history followed him to the night of his murder when Paul, after 
leaving work, was shot multiple times and killed. In his dying words, 
he said he couldn't imagine who wanted him dead.
  A special crimes unit was assigned to investigate Paul's murder.
  On September 28, 2004, Moscow police said they arrested two Chechen 
men suspected in the murder. But the suspects denied involvement, and 
police backed off their initial assertion. Less than two months later, 
on November 18, 2004, Moscow police and the Belarusian security service 
arrested three other Chechens considered suspects in the murder. 
Authorities provided only limited information about the evidence they 
used to link the new suspects to the crime.
  Some analysts reacted to the arrests with skepticism. After the 
September arrests were reported, Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-
based press freedom group Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, 
told an interviewer that authorities were pursuing a ``farfetched 
Chechen trail.''
  Today, Paul's case remains another unsolved murder in Russia.
  Paul may have believed Russia was entering a new era, but today we 
can still see that with independent reporting stifled and investigative 
journalists living in fear of contract killings, post-Soviet Russia 
still must close a vast gap to begin to have a free and unbiased press.
  I yield to my colleague from Indiana (Mr. Pence).
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, Aleksei Sidorov is our next victim, and his 
image appears along with Valery Ivanov at the center of the poster, if 
the gentleman from California would point it out. I do think, as Mr. 
Schiff said earlier, it is important in this moment that we dwell on 
the fact that these were people who demonstrated courage, who had loved 
ones and who are now gone forever, both to the cause and to their 
families and their communities, and it is imperative we look them in 
the face.
  On October 9, 2003, Aleksei Sidorov, the editor-in-chief of the 
independent daily known as Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye, was murdered in 
Togliatti, a city on the Volga River 600 miles east of Moscow.
  Sidorov was the second editor-in-chief of that newspaper to be 
murdered in a 2-year span. His predecessor, shown in the same 
photograph, Valery Ivanov, was shot eight times at point-blank range in 
April 2002.
  According to local press reports, two unidentified assailants stabbed 
Sidorov in the chest several times as he approached the apartment 
building in Togliatti where he lived with his family. The assailants 
fled after stabbing Sidorov, and the editor died in his wife's arms 
after she heard his call for help and came down to the entrance of 
their building.
  Sidarov's paper was a newspaper known for its investigative reports 
on organized crime, government corruption, and shady corporate deals in 
the heavily industrialized city of Togliatti. His colleagues are 
convinced the murder was in retaliation for the paper's investigative 
work.
  One of them told the Committee to Protect Journalists, ``All of our 
investigative work was supervised by Aleksei.'' Another journalist at 
the paper told CPJ that Sidorov had received unspecified threats in 
retaliation for his work.
  Government officials initially agreed that Sidorov's murder appeared 
to be a contract killing in retaliation for his work as a journalist. 
But a week after the killing, officials began offering conflicting 
explanations about the motive for the murder. On October 16, the local 
head of the Interior Ministry, Vladimir Shcherbakov, said Sidorov was 
stabbed after refusing to give a stranger a sip of some vodka he had 
supposedly been drinking, the independent Moscow daily Gazeta reported.
  That same day, Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said the

[[Page H4480]]

murder was related to ``the journalist's professional activity,'' the 
independent Moscow daily Kommersant reported. But the next day, he 
switched his story, calling the murder, ``an act of hooliganism,'' the 
ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

                              {time}  1745

  According to local news reports, Deputy Prosecutor General Yevgeny 
Novozhylov said that an intoxicated welder from one of the local 
factories, Yevgeny Maininger, stumbled upon Sidorov that evening and 
murdered him after a brief argument. The local police detained 
Maininger on October 12 and charged him with murder after he confessed 
to the killing.
  Sidorov's family and journalists at the newspaper Tolyatinskoye 
Obozreniye were skeptical that the authorities had found the true 
killer. A year later, a Russian district court judge confirmed their 
doubts by acquitting the man.
  On October 11, 2004, Judge Andrei Kirillov found that the 29 year-old 
alleged assailant was not involved in Sidorov's murder and said the 
prosecution's case was untenable, according to the independent Moscow 
daily known as Kommersant. Sidorov's family father said the family was 
pleased that the acquittal ended what they considered to be a flawed 
investigation. ``The investigation, instead of seeking out the real 
killer of my son, tried to dump everything on this innocent person,'' 
Mr. Sidorov's father, said. ``We will do everything possible to ensure 
the [authorities] start a normal investigation.''
  Karen Nersisian, the defense lawyer representing the Sidorov family, 
said, he will work to have the case transferred to a higher court in 
Moscow, according to local press reports.
  More than 3 years later, Sidorov's killer has not been identified.
  Mr. SCHIFF. It is a sad commentary on the number of journalists that 
have been murdered in Russia, that in an hour we will not have time to 
discuss all of them.
  There are several journalists we may not be able to fully describe 
this evening who are featured on our chart. I do want to let those know 
who are listening and watching know that the full biographies and facts 
that we are outlining tonight can be obtained from the Committee to 
Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. Much of the material 
we are using tonight is drawn from their sources, and we are deeply 
grateful for their work and assistance.
  The next journalist we will highlight tonight is Dmitry Shvets. 
Dmitry's picture appears here in the middle of the chart. On April 18, 
2003, the 37 year-old deputy director general of the independent 
television station TV-21 Northwestern Broadcasting in the northern 
Russian City of Murmansk, was shot dead outside of the station's 
offices.
  An unknown assailant shot Dmitry several times at approximately 5:00 
in the afternoon in front of witnesses and escaped in a getaway car 
that was waiting nearby. Dmitry died instantly. Dmitry was well known 
in Murmansk, not only for running the television station, but also for 
his political activism and a number of commercial interests. Although 
he had not worked as a journalist in many years, Dmitry remained in a 
managerial position and on the station's board of directors. According 
to press reports in the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme 
Situations, he influenced the station's editorial policy and TV-21's 
reporting.
  The Murmansk media covered Dmitry's murder widely and actively 
speculated about the possible motive. Dmitry's colleague said the TV-21 
had received several threats for its critical reporting on several 
influential politicians, include Andrei Gorshkov, a candidate in the 
city's mayoral race.
  Several weeks before Dmitry's murder, Gorshkov had threatened TV-21's 
journalists several times after they broadcast a tough interview with 
him. TV-21 news editor Svetlana Bokova told the Committee to Protect 
Journalists that at the time of his death, Dmitry was using his 
contacts at the police and prosecutor's office to investigate the 
mayoral candidate's links to organized crime.
  Police investigated various motives behind the murder, including 
Dmitry's political, commercial and journalistic activities at TV-21. 
Dmitry's colleagues maintain that he was killed in retaliation for TV-
21's critical reporting on local politics.
  Sadly, Dmitry's murder has yet to be solved.
  I now yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
  Mr. PENCE. On March 9, 2002, Natalya Skryl, a business reporter 
working for the Nashe Vremya newspaper in the City of Rostov-on-Don in 
southwestern Russia died from head injuries sustained during an attack 
the previous evening. Her image appears on our poster at the lower 
right-hand. Perhaps the gentleman from California could point that out 
for our C-SPAN camera team, Natalya Skryl.
  Late on the night of March 8, Natalya was returning to her home in 
the town of Taganrog just outside of Rostov-on-Don when she was 
attacked from behind and struck in the head about a dozen times with a 
heavy blunt object. Neighbors called an ambulance and the police after 
hearing her scream. Natalya was found unconscious just outside her home 
and taken to Taganrog hospital, where she died the following day.
  Natalya, who was 29, reported on local business issues for a 
newspaper owned by Rostov regional authorities. Just before her death, 
she was investigating an ongoing struggle for the control of Tagmet, an 
metallurgical plant. Nashe Vremya editor-in-chief Vera Yuzhanskaya 
believes that Natalya's death was related to her professional 
activities, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
  Since opening an investigation shortly after her murder, officials 
have changed their theory several times. Initially, the prosecutor's 
office said that because Natalya was carrying jewelry and a large sum 
of cash that were not taken at the time of the murder, that robbery 
could be ruled out as a motive.
  But on July 24, 2002, the Taganrog Directorate of Internal Affairs 
announced that robbery was the motive, and that the crime was unrelated 
to her journalistic activities, according to a local radio station 
report. Taganrog authorities switched their story again on September 5, 
and the Nashe Vremya editor in chief, Vera Yuzhanskaya, told the 
Committee to Protect Journalists, when they closed the murder 
investigation without officially identifying the reason for the murder.
  Gregory Bochkarov, a local analyst in Rostov-on-Don for the Moscow-
based Center For Journalism in Extreme Situations told the Committee to 
Protect Journalists that the only credible motive for Natalya's murder 
was her reporting about Tagmet and that police had emphasized the 
robbery motive in an effort to play down the significance of her case. 
Just prior to her death Natalya reportedly told several of her 
colleagues that she had recently obtained sensitive information about 
the Tagmet story and was planning to publish an article revealing this 
information.
  Let me say that again. Just prior to her death, Natalya told several 
colleagues that she had recently obtained sensitive information about 
the story and was planning to publish an article revealing that 
information.
  Natalya, like all other journalists, is among the ranks of unsolved 
ranks of murders of journalists in Russia.
  Mrs. Pence is waiting supper. I will ask the gentleman's forbearance. 
I extend my gratitude for your leadership of our caucus, for the honor 
of participating in this special order with you and to say how much I 
look forward to continuing to work with you as we use this institution 
of freedom to promote press freedom around the world.

  Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman very much, and particularly since 
the gentleman conducted a special order hour before this one, I am 
amazed that his voice has held up this long. I thank the gentleman for 
all your work, and appreciate you joining me tonight.
  The next journalist that I will highlight this evening is Eduard 
Markevich, and Eduard's picture appears in the upper left-hand corner. 
Mr. Markevich was the 29-year-old editor and publisher of Novy Reft, 
the local newspaper in the town of Reftinsky, Sverdlovsk Region. He was 
found dead, shot in the back.
  Novy Reft often criticized local officials, and Eduard's colleagues 
told the ITAR-TASS news service that he had

[[Page H4481]]

received threatening telephone calls prior to the attack. This was not 
the first attack on Eduard, the Region-Inform news agency reported. In 
1998, two unknown assailants broke into his apartment and severely beat 
him in front of his pregnant wife. They were never caught.
  In 1999, Eduard was illegally detained for 10 days after local 
prosecutor's office charged him with defamation over a Novy Reft 
article questioning the propriety of a lucrative government contract 
that gave a former deputy prosecutor the exclusive right to represent 
the Reftinsky administration in court.
  In May 2001, federal prosecutor general Vladimir Ustinov reprimanded 
the local prosecutor for violating Eduard's constitutional rights.
  Police investigated, or launched an investigation into Eduard's 
murder. Now 6 years after the journalist's death. Authorities have made 
no progress, the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme 
Situations has reported. There is continually no progress made.
  His wife continues to publish the Novy Reft, and, this evening, 
Eduard is in our thoughts and in our memories.
  The next journalist I will highlight this evening, is Adam 
Tepsurgayev. Adam's picture appears just here to my right. Adam was a 
24-year-old Chechen cameraman. He was shot dead at a neighbor's house 
in the village of Alkhan-Kala. His brother, Ali, was wounded in the leg 
during the attack.
  A Russian government spokesman blamed Chechen guerillas for the 
murder. The gunman reportedly spoke Chechen, but local residents said 
the guerillas had no reason to kill a cameraman. During the first 
Chechen war in 1994-1996 Adam worked as a driver and fixer for foreign 
journalists. Later he started shooting footage from the front lines of 
the conflict between Russian troops and separatists guerillas. Reuters' 
Moscow bureau chief, Martin Nesirky, described him as an ``irregular 
contributor.'' While most of Reuter's footage from Chechyna in 2000 was 
credited to Adam, including shots of Chechen field commander Shamil 
Basayev, having his foot amputated, he had not worked for Reuters in 
the 6 months before he died. His murder, too, is yet to be solved, and 
there are no details about any investigation.
  The next journalist I will highlight this evening is Valery Ivanov. 
Valery's picture appears here. On April 29, 2002, Mr. Ivanov, editor of 
the newspaper, Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye, in the southern Russian city 
of Togliatti, was shot dead outside his home at approximately 11 at 
night. He was 32 years old and was shot eight times in the head at 
point blank range while entering his car, a colleague at the newspaper 
said.
  Eye witnesses saw a 25- to 30-year-old man walk up to Valery's car 
and shoot him, according to local press reports and the Committee to 
Protect Journalists sources. The killer used a pistol with a silencer 
and fled the scene on foot.
  Valery's colleagues believe the killing was connected to his work. 
The newspaper he worked for is well known for its reports on local 
organized crime, drug trafficking and official corruption. Valery also 
served as a deputy in the local legislative assembly.
  Local police opened a criminal investigation into the murder, and 
many considered several possible motives, though it is believed by many 
that he was killed in retaliation for his writing. Five years later, no 
one has been brought to justice for Valery's murder.
  The next journalist we will highlight this evening is Sergey Ivanov. 
There is little known about the death of Sergey Ivanov. His picture 
appears here.
  Around 10 p.m. on October 3, 2000, unknown gunmen killed Sergey in 
front of his apartment building in Togliatti, a town in Samara 
Province. He was the director of the largest independent television 
company in Togliatti. Sergey was shot five times in the head and chest.
  Lada-TV, which the 30-year-old Sergey had headed since 1993, was a 
significant player in the local political scene. Investigators have 
considered a possible or commercial programming dispute as the 
motivation for the murder. However, the murder still remains unsolved. 
Without a complete investigation, we may never know the circumstances 
of his death.
  The next journalist murdered in Russia we will highlight this evening 
is Iskandar Khatloni. Mr. Khatloni's picture appears to the far right 
on this chart, to my far right, that is.
  On September 21, 2000, Iskandar, who was a reporter for the Tajik-
language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was attacked late 
at night at his Moscow apartment by an unknown, axe-wielding assailant. 
The door of his apartment was not damaged, indicating that there was no 
forced entry and that the journalist might have known his attacker.
  The 46-year-old Iskandar was struck twice in the head, according to 
Radio Free Europe's Moscow bureau. He then stumbled into the street and 
collapsed and was later found by a passerby. The journalist died later 
that night in Moscow's Botkin Hospital. Local police opened a murder 
investigation, but had made little progress by year's end.
  Iskandar had worked since 1996 as a Moscow-based journalist for the 
Tajik service of the U.S.-funded RFE/RL, which broadcasts daily news 
programming to Tajikistan.
  A Radio Free Europe spokeswoman said at the time of his death, 
Iskandar had been working on stories about the Russian military's human 
rights abuses in Chechyna.

                              {time}  1800

  Earlier in the year, a senior official in Russia's Media Ministry 
charged that Radio Free Europe was ``hostile to our state.'' His death, 
along with all the other journalists killed in Russia since 2000, 
remains unsolved.
  The next journalist we will highlight this evening is Sergey Novikov. 
On the night of July 26, 2000, Sergey Novikov, the 36-year-old owner of 
the only independent radio station in Smolensk, was shot and killed on 
the stairwell of his apartment building. The killer shot him four times 
and escaped through the back door.
  Sergey had received death threats earlier in the year after 
announcing his intent to run for provincial governorship. He was one of 
the most successful businessmen in the region, serving on the board of 
directors of a local glass-making factory.
  Sergey's employees believed his murder was politically motivated. His 
radio station, Radio Vesna, was a frequent critic of the government of 
Smolensk Province. Three days before his death, Sergey had taken part 
in a television panel that had discussed the alleged corruption of the 
provincial deputy government. To this day, his killer remains at large 
and the police have not determined a motive for his death.
  My time will soon run out. There is one final reporter that I wish to 
highlight on this chart tonight, Igor Domnikov. On July 16, 2000, Igor, 
a 42-year-old reporter and special projects editor for the twice-weekly 
Moscow paper, Novaya Gazeta, died after being attacked 2 months earlier 
in the entryway of his apartment building in southeastern Moscow. 
According to numerous sources, the reporter was attacked by an 
unidentified assailant who hit him repeatedly on the head with a heavy 
object, presumably a hammer, and left him lying unconscious in a pool 
of blood, where a neighbor found him.
  Igor was taken to the hospital with injuries to the skull and brain. 
After surgery and 2 months in a coma, the journalist died on July 16.
  From the very beginning, Igor's colleagues and the police were 
certain the attack was related to his professional activity or that of 
the newspaper. It was also believed for a while that the assailant 
mistook Igor, who covered social and cultural issues, for a Novaya 
Gazeta investigative reporter named Oleg Sultanov, who lives in the 
same building. Sultanov claimed to have received threats from the 
Federal Security Service in January for his reporting on corruption in 
the Russian oil industry.
  According to the paper's editorial staff, the Interior Ministry was 
actively investigating the brutal attack and promised Igor's colleagues 
to finish the investigation by the end of the summer if the latter 
agreed not to interfere or disclose any details of the case to the 
public. However, in early fall of that year the police downgraded the 
case's high priority status and archived it, as allowed by law for 
cases unresolved within 3 months.

[[Page H4482]]

  Igor's colleagues were not informed about the downgrade. As they 
explained, archiving does not mean outright closure of the 
investigation; the case may be reopened if new information emerges. But 
this did not appear likely and has yet to happen almost 7 years later.
  Those are the journalists we have time to highlight this evening. 
They are just a window into the attack on press freedom going on in 
Russia, and they stand as a shining example of the courage and 
dedication of some of the men and women around the world devoted to 
freedom of the press.
  Tonight we honor their memory and we call on the Putin government to 
investigate their deaths and hold those responsible accountable

                          ____________________