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A decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 29 November 2007 (# 1700-r) approved a Concept for the development of TV and radio broadcasting in Russian Federation in 2008-2015. This document has been worked out by the high-level Governmental Commission on development of TV and radio broadcasting chaired by Dmitry Medvedev in his capacity of 1st vice-chair of the Government. The Concept states that analogue over-the-air broadcasting remains the only means of access to TV and radio programmes for 88.5 per cent of the population; 11 per cent have access to both over-the-air and cable transmissions,...

On 15 November 2007, Miklós Haraszti, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, presented his regular report to the OSCE Permanent Council, the organization’s main decision-making body. This was his third and final report of the year. Mr. Haraszti’s presentation began with a commemoration of Alisher Saipov, “a young journalist whose promising career was cut short by an act of brutality”. Saipov, a correspondent with the internationally acclaimed media outlets Ferghana, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, and a founder of an Uzbek-language newspaper, was shot and killed in downtown Osh...

On 24 July 2007, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a statute to amend some legal acts (including the Mass Media Statute, the Criminal Code, the Administrative Code, the Anti-Extremism Statute and others) aimed at increasing liability for extremist activities. The amendments refer directly to the media. Article 4 (“Inadmissibility of Abuse of Mass Communication Freedom”) of the Statute of the Russian Federation “ О средствах массовой информации ” (On mass media) of 27 December 1991, No. 2124-1, was added with the provision that forbids the media from publishing information on the...

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ (CM) latest batch of country-specific Resolutions adopted in the context of the Second Monitoring Cycle of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) concern: the Russian Federation; Romania; Ireland and Norway. The Resolutions contain a number of provisions concerning the (audiovisual) media (for similar provisions in earlier country-specific Resolutions, see IRIS 2007-3: 6 and IRIS 2006-2: 4). The CM recommends that the Russian authorities “further improve access to the media of persons belonging to national minorities”...

On 16 March 2007 the State Duma adopted and on 9 April 2007 the President Vladimir Putin signed into law the Statute which amended Articles 146 and 180 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The Statute enters into legal force on the day of its publication Article 146 of the Criminal Code covers liability with regard to a number of violations of copyright and neighbouring rights; Article 180 punishes illegal use of registered trade marks, service marks and names of the place of origin of goods, or similar designations for homogeneous goods. The new law has modified provisions concerning...