Scandal at "Freedom of Speech"

In the program "Freedom of Speech" Vladimir Zhirinovsky made an election speech. During the 13 minutes allotted to him, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party not only managed to speak out on many issues that were relevant to him, but also insulted all those present at the television debate.

He did not bypass the "national question" either, stating that today the main thing for Russia is not the economy [the declared topic of the televised debate - ed. ], and "ethnic crime": "Chinese, Vietnamese, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Armenians have seized all the key posts in the country, all banks, all shopping centers, all hotels, everything that is good ... You don't give a damn about the Russians!" - he shouted to representatives of the Union of Right Forces, "Yabloko" and "Motherland".

Despite the fact that they tried to interrupt the speech of the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, and even a fight was planned, which was prevented, however, by the studio employees, the "national theme" was picked up by the representative of the "Rodina" bloc, the former host of the television program "Russian House", ex-KGB general Nikolai Leonov: "It's strange , we are discussing the problems of Russia, and only one Russian is sitting on the podium in front of the microphone - Sergey Glazyev , "he tried to react to Zhirinovsky's speech, but was interrupted by Savik Shuster, who reminded that there is responsibility for inciting ethnic hatred.

Willingly or unwittingly, but Zhirinovsky, in our opinion, honestly "worked out" the official version, according to which state channels tried to refuse live broadcast for television debates: NTV channel viewers received 13 minutes of insults, swearing, and outright nationalist propaganda on the air.

It is surprising that there was no fight on the air - as a human being, this would be understandable: Zhirinovsky repeated several times that the candidate from Rodina, General Shpak, was himself guilty of the death of his son, an officer in Chechnya, because he participated in negotiations with separatists. Moreover, the official bodies of Russia - the CEC and the prosecutor's office do not react in any way to this is not the first TV outburst of the vice-speaker of the Russian parliament.

After the debate, a brawl in the studio still happened . The Rodina block officially demanded that Zhirinovsky be taken off the air. But we are almost sure that nothing threatens Zhirinovsky.

Freedom of speech // NTV. 2003. November 21.
Kolesnichenko Andrei. Fists after a verbal fight: Vladimir Zhirinovsky started a brawl that could cost him television air // Novye Izvestia. 2003. 24 November.