Two newspapers unwanted

A printing house in Ingushetia has declined to print two Chechen newspapers. Further service has been denied to Chechenskoe Obshchestvo ("Chechen Society") and Golos Chechenskoi Respubliki ("Voice of the Chechen Republic"), the Extreme Journalism Centre reports.

The printing house says it is out of paper and raw materials, as well as money to buy them. In connection with this, the house has given written notices to the editors of Chechenskoe Obshchestvo and Golos Chechenskoi Respubliki that it terminates the contracts for printing these newspapers entered into earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the printing house continues to print the Ingush government newspapers Serdalo, Ingushetia and others.

The printing house has decided to terminate the contracts under the pressure of the Ingush government, according to unofficial information. The pressure has been caused by the response of Russia's Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel with regard to an article published in Chechenskoe Obshchestvo.

In this article (Chechenskoe Obshchestvo, No 14, 2005), French philosopher Andre Glucksmann says, "Russia is digging up a grave for itself in Chechnya."

"About 1 million Russian soldiers have gone to war in Chechnya over the past 10 years," continues Glucksmann. "They all have been morally destroyed. They have learnt to kill, sell dead bodies, torture, and disrespect ordinary citizens. If you have learnt to do so, you will reproduce all this upon return to your country. So this is a threat to peace in Russia. What will all these soldiers do? They have a disease, which is what they do: torture and violence. They will continue to do the same, now as officers of law enforcement and security agencies, gangsters or policemen. Russia already faced this after Afghanistan, there are statistics, official surveys."

An article was published in the same issue, too, that criticised Shepele's activities concerning the investigation into the Beslan tragedy and the search for those guilty of it.

Shepel was also resentful of Glucksmann saying that, "if Caucasians are left alone, I think, they have a much more civilised way of living than Russians."

However, shutdown is not the right way to dispute this statement, offensive as it may sound. Most, if not all, people in Russia and abroad would be glad to see a different situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus as a whole that would in itself invalidate any such statement.

More about freedom of press in North Caucasus:

• Human Rights Practices in Russia's North Caucasus - 2004