Russian PM: No Restrictions On Freedom Of Speech Possible In Internet Era

TASS ^ | 02/14/2016 | TASS

[goldstategop]

It is absolutely impossible to impose any restrictions on the freedom of speech in the era of Internet, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Euronews TV channel on Sunday.

"To get to the point, we have a lot of various media outlets that still provide a diverse picture, including online media," he said. "When I’m asked about this I always respond based on to the way I perceive the situation. I can tell you that I rarely watch TV or read newspapers in print and I receive virtually all of my information from the internet. And over half of Russia’s population does the same. As you know, on the Internet, there is no regulation in this sense. All points of view are represented there, including, to put it bluntly, even extremist ones." ....

Dwelling on relations with the opposition and its access to Russia’s central mass media, the Russian Prime Minister noted that no one bans such access for the opposition. The thing, in his words, is that the opposition is of no interest for most of Russians. He drew parallels with the situation with British Communist Party General Secretary Gordon McLennan or U.S. Communist Party leader Gus Hall who were not given an opportunity to state their position in some respectable magazine or newspaper or on television in the UK or the United States back in the 1970s and 1980s. "Why? Not because they were banned there, but because they were not interesting to anybody," he said. "They were the political fringe, and part of our opposition, unfortunately, is also just that. When they say, "We are not allowed anywhere…" Just show that you’re interesting at least to somebody."

[goldstategop]

Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev today noted for his country, restrictions on freedom of speech prevalent in the Soviet time, are now a thing of the past. Its impossible to censor Internet content.

Russians have full access to opposition and Western views in their country. They're better informed than Westerners think. But they don't necessarily agree with the Western point of view.

Every society has its own path to dealing with its issues. This is true today and will undoubtedly be true in the future as well.

[BenLurkin]

It's impossible to censor Internet content.

Maybe not, but when the global elites have Facebook, Google and Twitter in their pockets, most of the people using the internet will be de facto censored.

[proxy_user]

Reading Free Republic, are you, Dmitry? Whaddya think?

[goldstategop]

Freedom of speech is not absolute on private forums.

If you’re a troll or disrupt a forum or don’t comply with the rules you can be banned.

The PM was discussing government regulation of the Internet.

What private groups and individuals do in regards to speech, is their own affair.

[ETL]

Symposium: To Kill a Russian Journalist
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2006

The murder of internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in early October 2006 was yet another troubling sign of Russia's retreat into its totalitarian past. Today Frontpage Symposium has gathered a distinguished panel of experts to discuss why Anna Politkovskaya was killed and what the tragic loss of her life symbolizes about the direction in which Vladimir Putin's Russia is heading.

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1490
_______________________________________________________

'PUTIN'S RUSSIA' by Anna Politkovskaya:
http://www.amazon.com/PUTINS-RUSSIA-ANNA-POLITKOVSKAYA/dp/1843430509
_______________________________________________________

[BenLurkin]

Understood, but what I'm saying is that there will be de facto government censorship now that government and those who administer the major private forums are in cahoots.

[MarchonDC09122009]

Ping to ETL!

Yes, Russian government political leaders are to be believed about respecting freedom of speech, because it’s widely known how much they respect freedom of the press.
They love journalists - to death.
24 murdered over the last decade +

What a bunch of disinformation BS this article’s reassurance is.

[ETL]

Mom of murdered Russian opposition leader: Putin will "kill you for that"

FoxNews.com, February 28, 2015

The murder of prominent Putin critic Boris Nemstov in a gangland-style killing steps from the Kremlin came just weeks after the dissident told a magazine his mother worried the Russian leader would have him bumped off for his outspokenness.

" 'When will you stop cursing Putin? He'll kill you for that.' She was completely serious," Nemstov told Sobsesdnik earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper added that the former Deputy Prime Minister under Russian president Boris Yeltsin expressed some worry about his safety but not as much as his mother.

-snip-

Nemtsov, 55, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Friday near midnight as he walked on a bridge near the Kremlin with a female companion.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/28/russian-investigators-fail-to-mention-nemtsov-was-top-putin-critic.html

[Alas Babylon!]

So, when's he going to let out the girls from Pussy Riot?

[ETL]

Nov 2015...

Vladimir Putin's media Svengali who was found dead in DC hotel was 'murdered for being an FBI informant'

• Millionaire Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead in $240-a-night in Washington DC last Friday [Nov 6, 2015] and police are investigating

• The pro-Putin 'propaganda channel' he set up, RT [Russia Today], claimed he 'had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness'

• But DC police have made no such finding

  "Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html#ixzz3rOUopg7Q
  ___________________________________

  "RT [Russia Today] has been called a propaganda outlet for the Russian government[10][11][12] and its foreign policy[10][11][13][14] by former Russian officials[15] and by news reporters,[16] including former RT reporters.[17][18][19]

  It has also been accused of spreading disinformation.[20][21][22]

  The United Kingdom media regulator Ofcom has threatened RT with sanctions because of repeated violations of its rules on impartiality.[23]

  The network states that it offers a 'Russian perspective' on global events.[24]"

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29

  _________________________________________

  The following article is from last December (2014)

  "Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.

  Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.

  The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.

  Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.

  Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."

  http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
  _______________________________________________________

  Ex-Kremlin Media Boss Hit With Call For Probe Over Pricey U.S. Real Estate

  By Luke Johnson and Carl Schreck
  August 01, 2014

  WASHINGTON - A U.S. senator has asked federal authorities to investigate whether a powerful Russian media mogul seen as the mastermind behind the Kremlin-funded RT [RUSSIA TODAY] network used dirty money to purchase pricey California real estate.

  U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (Republican-Mississippi) has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Mikhail Lesin, Russian President Vladimir Putin's former press minister, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or laundered money by acquiring multimillion-dollar homes in the Los Angeles area.

  "I...understand that following his government service, Mr. Lesin moved his immediate family to Los Angeles, California, where he acquired multiple residences at a cost of over $28 million," Wicker wrote in the July 29 letter. "That a Russian public servant could have amassed the considerable funds required to acquire and maintain these assets...raises serious questions." ..."

  http://www.rferl.org/content/lesin-wicker-real-estate/25477122.html
  _______________________________________________________

  Here's something from 2013 on Mikhail Lesin, again, the creator of Russia Today (RT), who was found dead in a Washington DC hotel last month (Nov 2015)...

  The Ominous Return of Putin's Media Enforcer

  Vladimir Kara-Murza
  October 18, 2013

  The recent return of Vladimir Putin's longtime eminence grise, Vladislav Surkov, to the Kremlin was widely discussed in the media. Much less noticed was the appointment of Mikhail Lesin, Putin's former information minister, as the new head of Gazprom-Media, Russia's largest, and de facto state-run, media group, which incorporates several broadcast, print, and online outlets.

  Lesin's return to a senior position is no less symbolic than that of Surkov, and says a lot about the Kremlin's plans for Russia's few remaining uncensored media.

  Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin's effort to silence the country's independent television, the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule.

  The first target was NTV, at that time Russia's largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition.

  In June 2000, a month after Putin's inauguration, NTV's founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.

  While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly.

  On July 20, 2000, while still under a prosecutorial recognizance, Gusinsky signed a deal to sell his media outlets to Gazprom that included "Annex 6," which provided for the "termination of the criminal prosecution against Mr Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gusinskiy in connection with the criminal case initiated against him on 13 June 2000, his reclassification as a witness in the said case and suspension of the precautionary measure prohibiting him from leaving [the country]." "Annex 6" was personally signed by Information Minister Mikhail Lesin.

  In its 2004 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found the NTV owner's arrest to have been politically motivated and in violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, emphasizing in particular that "the facts that Gazprom asked the applicant to sign the July agreement when he was in prison, that a State minister [Lesin] endorsed such an agreement with his signature, and that a State investigating officer later implemented that agreement by dropping the charges strongly suggest that the applicant's prosecution was used to intimidate him."

  In the end, Gusinsky refused to give up NTV (once out of Russia, he annulled the deal as having been signed under duress). The offices of Russia's largest independent television channel were forcibly taken over by Gazprom-installed security guards in the early hours of April 14, 2001. TV6, a smaller independent channel that sheltered former NTV journalists, was shut down by the authorities in January 2002. The journalists found another short-lived home in TVS, Russia's last nationwide independent television channel, which was taken off the air in June 2003. By this time, the regime no longer cared for appearances and saw no need to hide behind "legal" decisions of obedient courts: the TVS signal was switched off by a direct order of Information Minister Mikhail Lesin, who cited 'viewers' interests" as the reason for the decision.

  After this state campaign against major media outlets, Lesin left the spotlight, only occasionally surfacing in the news, for instance, when he co-founded RT [Russia Today], the Kremlin's English-language propaganda mouthpiece.

  His return as the new director general of Gazprom-Media could signal another attack on media pluralism in Russia. A likely target could be Ekho Moskvy radio, which, unlike other Gazprom-Media outlets (including the present pro-Kremlin NTV), continues to maintain an independent editorial line and invite opposition leaders to its studios. Many in the Russian media community took Lesin's appointment as a grim sign.

  Interestingly, Lesin may become one of the first senior Putin regime officials to face consequences for his involvement in human rights abuses. Earlier this year, civil society groups reportedly proposed Lesin's name for inclusion in the US blacklist under the Magnitsky Act, which provides for visa bans and asset freezes for Russian officials involved in human rights violations.

  The next update of the US list may come in December. Meanwhile, sources in the European Parliament indicate that Lesin may be placed on a European Union visa blacklist. This would come as bad news to Putin's media enforcer: according to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Lesin owns a 2 million, euro estate in Finland's Turku Archipelago, purchased through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. This would indeed be a timely and appropriate message, that helping a dictatorship to muzzle the free media and enjoying the comfort of the Western world are no longer compatible.

  http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/ominous-return-putins-media-enforcer
  _______________________________________________________

  List of journalists killed in Russia:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia#A_list_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

[goldstategop]

Don’t forget the existence of the shadow or lawless state in Russia, like the Russian Mafia.

Its probably a greater deterrent to fearless investigative reporting than the government.

In some parts of the world, its not government minders that keep the truth from being known.

[ETL]

Joe Scarborough: Again, he [Putin] kills journalists that don't agree with him

Trump: Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe , so, you know. There's a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. Lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity, and that's the way it is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3365976/At-s-leader-Trump-s-extraordinary-verdict-Vladimir-Putin-two-cozy-up.html

[ColdOne]

Good grief.

[DesertRhino]

“So, when’s he going to let out the girls from Pussy Riot?”

I think they are all out now after their well deserved incarceration for a while. Unless of course you believe its free speech to invade a church during a service, have a pornographic mocking church service complete with girls going down on each other.
If someone did that here they should spend some time in the clink pondering it.

[GeronL]

The Russia media is not free, not even close.

[ETL]

Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB [Power]

Alexander Litvinenko & Yuri Felshtinsky

This book, co-authored by Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of the notorious 2006 London polonium poisoning, attempts to demonstrate that modern Russia's most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin's terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services. It was they who unleashed the first and second Chechen wars, in order to divert Russia away from the path of democracy and towards dictatorship, militarism, and chauvinism.

The authors alleged that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky wrote that the bombings were a false flag operation intended to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power.

Originally published in 2002
(223 pages)

http://www.libertypublishinghouse.com/Blowing_up_Russia_E.aspx
___________________________________________________

Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006

The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
___________________________________________________

"Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB's alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.

He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/237045/long-awaited-investigation-alexander-v-litvinenkos-arnold-ahlert
___________________________________________________

Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium [poisoned by Putin?...case now concluding]
BBC - Magazine ^ | July 28, 2015

"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."

"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."

Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.

Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.

But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."

It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."

The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.

"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."

His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."

The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...

___________________________________________________

BBC, 27 July 2015

Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'

"UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.

Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.

Mr Litvinenko's family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33674469
___________________________________________________

Jan 21 2016...

Vladimir Putin Likely Approved Murder of Alexander Litvinenko: Inquiry

by Alastair Jamieson and Alexey Eremenko

LONDON - Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably" personally sanctioned the nuclear murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, a British judge ruled Thursday.

The dissident died in 2006 after drinking green tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel. Litvinenko had predicted that Russia would assassinate him and claimed on his deathbed that Putin likely ordered his killing.

After a six-month public inquiry, a British judge ruled that the one-time KGB agent was murdered on the orders of Russia's FSB security agency - and that the action was "probably approved" by Putin. ..."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-likely-approved-murder-alexander-litvinenko-inquiry-n500996

[ETL]

From 2014

Yushchenko, hero of Ukraine's Orange Revolution warns Europe that Putin won't stop at Crimea

by Matthew Schofield - McClatchy Foreign Staff
March 27, 2014

Many Ukrainians believe you need look no further than the face of Viktor Yushchenko to understand Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

Once smooth and ruggedly handsome, it still bears the scars from an assassination attempt when someone slipped dioxin into Yushchenko's food. ..."

Read more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24765781.html#storylink=cpy
______________________________________________

[Alas Babylon!]

Ouch!

I guess that would be just.

I thought they insulted Putin is why they went to jail. I just read the Wikipedia article on them. Here I thought they were political prisoners, but in reality just more Leftist kooks.

[DoughtyOne]

[MarchonDC09122009]

Trump’s “candor” is terrifyingly stupid and shows he demonstrates the same level of facts and understanding as his legions of low information voters.

RE: “Joe Scarborough: Again, he [Putin] kills journalists that don’t agree with him

Trump: Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe , so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. Lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity, and that’s the way it is.”