Blood in the shadow of silence

We publish the speech of journalist Grigory Okhotin, who was supposed to be uttered on February 20 at a meeting of a public colleague for complaints about the press. The meeting was supposed to be devoted to the consideration of RIA Novosti’s complaints about the actions of his former employee Grigory Okhotin, who considered a number of instructions of his leaders contradicting Russian law and published them (see the article by Tikhon Kraev “ traditionally consider the psychoma about this story”).

The collegium postponed its meeting until the agency makes a decision on exactly where the issue will be considered - in court, where the lawsuit was also filed, or in the collegium. The basis - information about the lawsuit by RIA Novosti, while, according to the charter of the public colleague , “the collegium is refrained from consideration of the information dispute, if it is already settled, allowed or resolved in judicial or other legal proceedings, or any of its participants intends to decide this dispute in judicial or other legal legal obligation not to apply to the court or other state bodies to resolve this information dispute It is an integral part of the agreement on the recognition of the professional and ethical jurisdiction of the board. "

Basic documents in the case:

Dear members of colleagues, dear Mikhail Alexandrovich, dear representative of the plaintiff!

I am very glad of our meeting today, and I want to thank RIA Novosti for this wonderful opportunity - to talk about censorship publicly, and with people involved in our media legislation, and with people who have taken themselves the responsibility of anyone - the right to judge their own colleagues.

Dear colleagues!

Preparing for this meeting, I thought for a long time what exactly I told you in response to the complaint of RIA Novosti. Members of the College on the fact of their membership in the College are people no worse, and better than me versed in the legislation regarding the work of the journalist and the media. It seems to me to spend your own and your time on a detailed discussion of the complaint, which, do not consider it for disrespect, this is just a statement of the fact, is legally illiterate.

And not in my nature - play by other people's rules and defend myself: I play by my own rules and are used to attacking. Therefore, you will not hear from me legal justifications of either my actions or my ethics - all this can be found in the documents that you have in hand. I am sure that they are completely enough to make a fair decision on our trial.

I am ready to discuss all the details of the agency’s complaints in answers to questions, but now I will talk about the essence of the conflict, about the essence that RIA Novosti replaces in its complaint with questions of professional ethics and resentment with a fair, but obscene header of my commentary on the Snob website. This topic was prompted by the configuration of a complaint itself, which united together the topic of censorship and ethics.

This is really so: censorship and ethics are inextricable things. We are used to the words that censorship is contrary to the high principles of journalism. To the words that freedom of speech is the basis of fair and functioning democracy. All this is so. But these are all the words that lead us away from the true understanding of censorship.

True, much more prosaic, simpler and more terrible. The hand of the censor is always a elbow in the blood. In blood and tears.

I first encountered censorship in 2000, in the magazine "Spark". I was a schoolboy and then collaborated with this magazine. I brought them a report by the Memorial Society about the war crimes of the federal troops in Chechnya. There was one episode that I still remember: our soldiers in a bombed formidable knife cut their fingers at the corpses to remove the golden rings. This story became known because not all corpses were corpses. Some only pretended to stay alive.

The editorial office of the "light" did not publish this report. The “light” did not write anything bad about the operation in Chechnya at all. “Understand these are our guys,” the editor told me

With this pro -government censorship and self -censorship, all the troubles began - both in our journalism and in our country. Due to censorship, Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova died: do you think they would be killed if every media, including the State Agency of RIA Novosti, would write about the crimes taking place in Chechnya?

Today, the situation is such that the best that has been written in recent years about the North Caucasus is written by Tom Parfit-a British journalist who was not afraid to go to the Caucasus and spend several months there, without any cover. I published his reports on Inosmi, but this does not change the essence: this shame is the shame of our profession and the shame of our country.

No one - almost no one - wrote about the horror and injustice that was happening - and is still going on - in Chechnya. And violence with injustice came to Central Russia - along with the return of our children, our generals, our riot police from the military business trips. Together with their return home to Russian journalism, censorship returned - military rules became the rules of daily life.

Do you think Mikhail Beketov would have been turned into what they turned into if other media were not afraid to write about crimes that were created by power in Khimki? Do you think that if the journalistic community understood the details of the attempt on Beketov, would dozens of Khimki activists be beaten? If we had not been silent, but acted, would Oleg Kashin be beaten to half to death?

Censorship is always a ban on telling the truth. Sometimes, extremely rarely, this is justified. I myself, illuminating in 2002 the attack on Nord-Ost, partially submitted to the censorship order of the special services officer and did not transmit information about preparation for the assault. We all know how it ended. I'm not sure that even such censorship is justified.

Dear colleagues!

I was born in such a family and was brought up in such a way that respect for the law is natural and natural for me. Fortunately for me, in the incident that happened to me during cooperation with RIA Novosti, and the law, and the truth is on my side. But in other cases, when the law contradicts the truth, it is necessary to act in truth. Every real journalist knows that the truth is above the law.

Censorship in the most terrible case leads to death. To death and blood. But daily censorship, which seems to be a simple office operation, has agreed on a document, about what is possible, about what is impossible, and after that we went to the Circus-Du-Sole-this is always a crime. A crime that generates injustice leads to torment and tears.

Since I have the happiness of not cooperating with the State Agency of RIA Novosti, I have returned to a normal hectares of reporting work. Every day I see what censorship leads to. The heads of DEZ, who are set by the authorities to manage our will, are not afraid to threaten reporters with consequences. They are not afraid even with witnesses to lower their colleagues from the stairs - Tiki members. Police officers are not afraid to lie to journalists, not to allow them to be police branches and hide who they are arrested - and also to lie, not without the help of colleagues from pro -government agencies - about how many protesters they arrest. Employees of the infamous EE center are not afraid to perform their own justice, pursuing the opposition in an absenteeian order. Finally, court officers are not afraid to send journalists and not allow them to public hearings - including with the help of physical strength. The liberal and respected heads of banks in society are not afraid to threaten women that they will erase them into powder if they do not do what they want. It is not customary to write about this. Until December - did not write at all. And behind all this there are tears. Tears and injustice.

The censorship story in RIA news, which we must consider here, against the background of what I am talking about, seems harmless. But this is not so. Evil has no gradation, evil - absolutely. Having silent information in the small, we get used to silent in general. As long as journalists and editors who allow censorship, he will be respected by colleagues, until their reputation will suffer due to collaboration on the basis of censorship-until then we, society as a whole, are doomed to blood and tears.

And I want you, dear colleagues, to realize to the very depths that blood, tears and injustice give rise to anger. Anger is growing. Anger is hardened. I know colleagues from the most respectable publications, which are non -publicly adhering to such radical ideas that they would envy them by veterans - for eggs - this is what urban intellectuals want to do with those officials who are responsible for our blood and tears.

Only honest journalism, only a press that is free from censorship can save our society from criminals, and from a meaningful and merciless reprisal against them. I am convinced of this.

But how to return to Russian journalism the honor and dignity, how can she move away from propaganda and become not a “fourth power”, but by those mediator that would not give injustice to bloom in a lush color in the shadow of our silence?

The only reliable medicine for censorship is journalists who refuse to comply with the censorship requirements of their authorities and officials.

Dear collegium members, dear Mikhail Alexandrovich! Today you make decisions not in the case of Grigory Okhotin and his morality. Today you decide whether Russian journalism will be free from censorship or will continue to repent to officials who accidentally found themselves in power.

Today, it is you who will send thousands of Russian journalists a signal - their colleagues will support their desire to get rid of censorship or will in a good Soviet tradition to make up at meetings, expel from work, and impede professional life.

You have been a serious responsibility. I will not refuse from my own. Thank you for your attention.

Grigory Okhotin, February 20, 2012, Moscow.

See also: Grigory Okhotin Revolution Horizontal Tikhon Kraev traditionally consider a psycho