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The Finnish-Russian Civic Forum strives to promote cooperation between the peoples of Finland and Russia by supporting civic initiatives for democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech.
Liar’s Club
The Finnish tabloid, Iltalehti, has gone after an acting minister in a way that is reminiscent of the Danish political TV series, Borgen. The newspaper’s Friday edition ran a story on the scandal involving a repair job at the home of the Finnish Minister for International Development, Heidi Hautala. The story was very confusing and a hotchpotch of wild claims and insinuations. Persons linked to the scandal were labelled everything from “right-hand man” of Russian oligarchs to supporters of Chechen separatists. On Tuesday, the tabloid falsely claimed that Ms Hautala had “arranged payments” for the renovation of her male partner’s villa. The (toilet) paper’s stories read almost exactly like the online hallucinations of the pro-Putin agent provocateur, Johan Bäckman, who has made it his life’s work to smear Heidi Hautala.
Mending the Mirror
The Finnish-Russian media conference, “Broken Mirrors,” will open on 3 December 2012 in the main building of the Finnish Parliament in Helsinki. The conference is being organised in cooperation with the Parliament’s Russia Friendship Group.
The Finnish-Russian Civic Forum wishes to extend its warm welcome to all participants at the conference and a special thanks to the event’s sponsors. For those not able to attend the event, we will be tweeting and facebooking the conference.
Broken Mirrors | Helsinki 3-4 December 2012
The Finnish-Russian media conference, “Broken Mirrors,” will be held in the Auditorium of the Finnish Parliament on 3-4 December 2012. The conference will discuss two main themes: Russia’s and Finland’s image in the media, and the question of visa-free travel between the EU and Russia. The organisers note that such a meeting of Finnish and Russian journalists has not been held since the middle of the 1990s.
The conference will be organised by the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum (FINROSFORUM), the Finland-Russia Society, the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, the Union of Journalists in Finland, the Finnish online newspaper Uusi Suomi, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, and the Russian Union of Journalists, the Union of Journalists in St Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, and the Russian news agency, ITAR-TASS.
Anti-Western Rhetoric in Today’s Russia
The Finnish-Russian Civic Forum (FINROSFORUM) and the Finnish publishing house, Into Kustannus, will hold a discussion on the rise of anti-Western rhetoric in today’s Russia on Friday, 26 October 2012 at 5-7pm at the Helsinki International Press Club (adjacent to the Pullman Bar on the second floor of the Helsinki Central Railway Station). Luke Harding, Moscow correspondent of The Guardian, will talk about his book, Mafia State, which has just been published in Finnish by Into Kustannus.
FINROSFORUM 2012 | “Broken Mirrors”
Dirty Tricks in Russian Media
A Finnish professor who voiced solidarity with the Pussy Riot punk band became a target of wild allegations in Russian media. Why did Russian media report that the professor had taken a jerry can full of urine to Helsinki’s main Orthodox cathedral? What did the professor think about the whole affair? Heidi Laaksonen interviewed Teivo Teivainen, Professor of World Politics at Helsinki University, on YLE’s Puheen Päivä programme on 24 August 2012. Below, edited and translated excerpts from the interview:
Students Detained at Moscow University
Several journalism students were detained for posing awkward questions to Russia’s placeholder president, Dmitry Medvedev, during his visit to Moscow University. Opposition-minded students were not allowed to attend lessons during Medvedev’s visit. Kremlin’s youth affairs commissar, Vasily Yakemenko, arrived in Medvedev’s entourage, flanked by members of his Nashi movement.
PEN: End Climate of Impunity in Russia!
The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International welcomes the pledge by Russian authorities to reopen investigations into the cases of five murdered journalists. Valery Ivanov, Natalia Skryl, Aleksei Sidorov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, and Vagif Kochetkov were all killed — or are suspected to have been killed — in connection with their journalistic activities. WiPC urges Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee to investigate these cases thoroughly, and calls for an end to the climate of impunity that exists in Russia where attacks on journalists frequently go uninvestigated.
Russian journalists work in an increasingly hostile environment and live under constant threat of legal harassment and violence. In 2010, some 40 journalists were attacked because of their work. According to human rights groups, there have been 19 unsolved murders of journalists since 2000. Investigations are often superficial and frequently stagnate. Progress in high-profile murder cases, such as those of Anna Politkovskaya (murdered in 2006) and Natalia Estemirova (murdered in 2009), has been very slow. The five murdered journalists whose cases have been reopened are listed below:
Persona Non Grata
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee has released a new report, Persona Non Grata: The CIS Ban System for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists. The report shows that over the past several years, countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have developed a common system reminiscent of the Schengen system in Europe, where individuals who are denied entry to one of the six member states automatically are denied entry to the others.
Elena Maglevannaya granted asylum
Finnish authorities have granted asylum to the Russian journalist and human rights defender, Elena Maglevannaya. She fled from Russia in May 2009 after receiving threats for her press reports about the abuse and torture of Chechens in Russian prisons. In a trial that was seen as heavily tilted in favour of the prosecution, Elena was convicted of libel because of her articles. While waiting for a decision on her asylum application in Finland, she continued her investigations into prison conditions in Russia.
In July 2010, speaking in an interview with YLE News, Elena expressed confidence in the European justice system: “Here in Finland, there is rule of law. I have often been in a situation where law has no meaning or it does not exist at all,” she said. Earlier, several leading human rights defenders started a petition to the Finnish immigration authorities on Elena’s behalf. Many Russian journalists and human rights defenders who have highlighted human rights abuses in the North Caucasus have either been killed or imprisoned.
Oksana Chelysheva, board member of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, noted that the Finnish Immigration Service, once again, showed its impartiality in its conclusion that Elena’s asylum application was warranted and that she was indeed in need of international protection. Elena found a lot of support in Finland, and today’s decision gives joy to everyone, Oksana wrote. She recalled that Elena started her human rights work alone in Volgograd. Thanks to her efforts, the case of Zubair Zubairayev received international attention.
Read on for an interview with Elena…
FINROSFORUM 