July 8, 2004
By MARK MacKINNON
Globe and Mail
Moscow — On another day, the symbolism of having a show titled Free Speech censored might have been enough to make Savik Shuster laugh. But yesterday was not the time for appreciating ironies. These are serious days for anyone attempting to do independent journalism in Russia.
Free Speech, which was taken off the air yesterday by Russia's NTV channel, was seen as the last televised forum in the country for open debate of political issues. A talk show with an edge, it drew a highly intelligent audience and Mr. Shuster and his guests were remarkable on the increasingly bland Russian television dial for their willingness to question and criticize the Kremlin.
But in Vladimir Putin's Russia, there are lines you don't cross. The outspoken Mr. Shuster, a Lithuanian-born Canadian citizen and graduate of McGill University's medical school, has had so many clashes with the Kremlin and its allies that he isn't sure when or where he overstepped the bounds.
It might have been his last program, on July 1, when he slammed the pro-Putin United Russia party for refusing to send a guest to debate an unpopular government plan that would see social benefits for retirees and veterans replaced with cash payouts.
“United Russia's argument was that it was ‘inexpedient' — that's how freedom of speech is in the country today,” the bespectacled 51-year-old said on the air, a comment sure to anger some powerful figures.
Or it could have been last month, when he used his show to question why Moscow was bidding for the 2012 Olympic Games when money is desperately needed for health care and pension reform. After that, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov asked aloud why a “citizen of a foreign state” was allowed to host such a prominent television show.
Or it could have been two years ago, when Mr. Putin himself criticized Free Speech for its coverage of a hostage-taking by Chechen gunmen at a Moscow theatre. After Mr. Shuster interviewed the angry relatives of those who died in the special-forces raid that ended the standoff, the Kremlin ensured that his next show was taped, rather than live to air as usual.
“It's very difficult for me to say why this happened,” Mr. Shuster said yesterday in a brief telephone interview, his voice low and strained. “It seems to me that this is political.”
Mr. Shuster had to be coy. He said he is still considering another job he's been offered at NTV. While several sources confirmed yesterday that the show has been taken off the air, the station, which is owned by the state-controlled Gazprom energy company, said that no official decision had been made and that it was “just rumours” so far.
News of the shuffle came just two days after the NTV appointed Kremlin loyalist Vladimir Kulistikov to run the station. The network is one of three that broadcast across all 11 of Russia's time zones. The other two are directly state-owned.
Since Mr. Putin came to power in 2000, all independent Russian television networks have been taken over by Kremlin-aligned companies. With few exceptions, the rest of the media use careful self-censorship to avoid angering the authorities.
For Mr. Shuster, who fled the Soviet Union with his family in 1971 only to be drawn back to Russia in the late 1980s by the promise of a free society inherent in Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost, the cancellation of his program had to be a body blow.
“It's very sad news as it was the last live political talk show on Russian TV,” said his colleague, former NTV host Leonid Parfyonov.
Mr. Parfyonov's own popular show, Namedni, was taken off the air last month after he broadcast an interview with the widow of an assassinated Chechen separatist leader.
“The appointment of a new general director wasn't expected to bring such radical moves; I really didn't expect this,” he said.
Nikolai Petrov, a media expert with the Carnegie Centre in Moscow, said the sudden cancellation of Mr. Shuster's show shows that the Kremlin is no longer concerned with the impression it gives while it moves to silence its critics.
“It's a rather symbolic gesture. Until now, in all discussions about mass media and freedom of speech, the Kremlin would point to this program as evidence of the absence of any censorship or pressure on big media,” he said. “Now it's gone.”
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