Censorship

In the autumn of 1994, Russia attacked the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the name of a puppet opposition, and on 11 December 1994 the Russian army openly invaded the republic. Russia decided which journalists could work in Ichkeria, confiscated their footage and persecuted them for reporting on the war.

On 1 December 1994, ten days before the open invasion, Chernomyrdin, chairman of the Russian government, by directive No. 1886-r created the Temporary Information Center^[1][2]. On 9 December, by resolution No. 1360, the Russian government instructed the center to issue journalists accreditation, the permit to work in Ichkeria, and to withdraw it immediately for information the center deemed false. The government gave the Russian Interior Ministry (MVD) and the FSK (predecessor of today's FSB) the right to expel from Ichkeria any outsiders they deemed dangerous^[3].

On 29 December 1994, the Russian MVD announced that the Temporary Information Center's accreditation gave no right to travel where the Russian Internal Troops (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia) were stationed^[2].

At the end of January 1995, the Russian government created the Mobile Information Center in Mozdok, a town in Russian-controlled North Ossetia where the occupiers' headquarters stood. Only this center's accreditation gave journalists the right to be in the "combat zone", and there only under the supervision of servicemen or officials. The occupiers usually counted all of Ichkeria as this zone^[2].

The Russian military expelled journalists without accreditation from the republic, and detained journalists with accreditation and confiscated their tapes and equipment, explaining that accreditation from the Ministry of Defense or the MVD was also needed^[2].

On 15 December 1994, Soskovets, deputy chairman of the Russian government, announced that the government could strip the NTV television channel of its broadcasting license for its reports on the victims of the war in Ichkeria. After public protest, the government dropped this threat^[4].

At the end of May 1995, officers of the Russian FSB arrested NTV journalists near the stanitsa of Assinovskaya in the west of Ichkeria for filming Russian troop positions, although the commander of the Russian division had allowed it. The FSB held the journalists for six hours in a filtration camp and released them (see: "Filtration Camp System")^[5]. On 3 June 1995, the Russian military arrested three foreign journalists on the border between Ichkeria and Russian-controlled Dagestan and reprimanded them for not having the proper accreditation. Four days later, on 7 June, the occupiers let the journalists go to Moscow but confiscated their tapes and film^[4].

On 25 June 1995, Yelena Masyuk, a journalist of the Russian television channel NTV, recorded an interview with Shamil Basayev, a commander of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria, in the Nozhai-Yurt district in the southeast of the republic^[4]. In April 1996, the journalist told the public tribunal of the Russian Glasnost Foundation in Moscow: "To get accreditation to work in Chechnya, you had to get to the military airfield in Mozdok, where the accreditations were issued — but to drive onto the airfield, you already had to have that accreditation." About the road to Shamil Basayev she told the tribunal: "To get to the Chechen village where, by my guess, Basayev was at the time, I had to walk 12 kilometers on foot around the Russian checkpoints"^[5]. On 13 July 1995, the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia opened a criminal case against Yelena Masyuk for not telling the investigators where she had taken the interview. At the end of August, the prosecutor's office closed the case without charges and asked the Russian government's press agency to make sure such interviews did not happen again^[4].

From 6 to 9 March 1996, while the Armed Forces of Ichkeria were attacking the occupiers in Grozny, Russian officials forbade television crews in the city to film^[6]. On 8 August 1996, a Russian soldier at a checkpoint near Grozny told four journalists of foreign media to turn back and threatened to destroy their equipment, and when they turned around, the occupiers fired a grenade launcher at their car and missed. Two hours later, Russian pilots fired on the journalists from helicopters at another entrance to the city but wounded no one^[6].

In its report for 1996, the international organization Committee to Protect Journalists wrote that throughout the war Russian troops refused to recognize journalists' accreditation, spoiled their film, destroyed their equipment and fired on their cars from checkpoints and combat helicopters^[6].

In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers, forcing Russia to the negotiating table^[7]. On 31 August 1996, peace agreements were signed in Khasavyurt (see: "Sham Treaties")^[8]. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic^[2].