Russian media - at the service of DPNI?

In August 2008, against the backdrop of the events in South Ossetia, the propaganda work of the Movement against Illegal Immigration intensified, which, like the year before, tried to create a favorable information background for itself.

It is significant that part of the Russian media simply broadcasts DPNI information without assessing either its quality (the information) or the legality of the actions of far-right activists.

So, in particular, on August 18, the Rosbalt-Privolzhye agency disseminated information about “atrocities by people from the Caucasus” in Nizhny Novgorod and that “a group of the extremist youth group Antifa ... led by people from the Caucasus terrorized the local population " . The agency does not hide the fact that the information comes from the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the DPNI. Neither the reliability of the information (and the frequent unreliability of information disseminated by DPNI has been known for a long time), nor the circumstances of the incident (if an attack actually took place) are questioned by the respectable agency. It is worth recalling here that public actions of anti-fascists are often the target of attacks by Nazi skinheads, of whom the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the DPNI largely consists.

Further coverage of the incident is noteworthy. Firstly, five out of six messages about the development of the plot appeared only on the Rosbalt-Volga region website. Secondly, the rally participants are presented as “extremists” and “Caucasians” who attacked “Russian young people”, and the DPNI is presented as a neutral source of information. Thirdly, the phrase “in Nizhny Novgorod, after holding a rally to help South Ossetia, a group of the extremist youth group Antifa ... led by people from the Caucasus terrorized the local population” is repeated verbatim in all five agency reports, even in the one that talks about "information provocation" on the part of the DPNI.

And on August 20, the New Region agency, as a message about positive practice, published a report on anti-Georgian raids by the DPNI. The information goes back to the leader of the organization, Alexander Belov, who presents this activity as assistance to the state in countering terrorism (in particular, he subtly connects the “Georgian” and “migrant” themes with the explosions that occurred a few days earlier in Sochi). There are no comments from law enforcement agencies in the report, while the DPNI leader refers to positive cooperation with the police on the issue of “identifying illegal citizens of Georgia.”

Both of these stories look particularly striking against the background of the scandal associated with the issuance of a warning to Novaya Gazeta in St. Petersburg for an article in which the practices of the DPNI were viewed as openly illegal, and the journalist tried to call on law enforcement agencies to investigate the activities of one of the most active far-right organizations in Russia . The regional department of Rossvyazkomnadzor saw “extremism” in the publication.

Sources

• Extremists staged a showdown in Nizhny Novgorod // Rosbalt-Volga region. 2008. August 18.
• Expert: Anti-fascists ticked the box a little late, but with a fight // Ibid.
• The Committee Against Torture cannot help Antifa victims // Ibid.
• Opinion: Information about extremism in Nizhny Novgorod is a provocation // Ibid.
• GUVD: The actions of the Antifa group are being checked // Ibid.
• DPNI activists have identified two large facilities in Moscow where Georgian citizens are living illegally // New Region. 2008. August 20.