Robert Amsterdam

Former political prisoner, environmental activist, journalist, and special guest blogger to robertamsterdam.com, Grigory Pasko, was featured this week in one of Germany's top newspapers, the Berliner Zeitung. Below is an exclusive English translation, and the piece can be read on our German blog or at the newspaper site.

"Why Aren’t You Writing about What I See?"

Journalist Grigory Pasko on How Russia’s Press Is Subjugated and Bribed under Putin

Interview by Tobias Goltz, Berliner Zeitung, August 20, 2007

Mr. Pasko, as a Russian journalist who is critical of the government, aren’t you afraid that something similar could happen to you as happened to your colleague and friend Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in October 2006?

Any journalist who is critical of the government – if he or she is being honest – would tell you that they live with this fear constantly. It’s easier for me because I’ve already got rid of a lot of my fears.

After filming a Russian military vessel dumping nuclear waste into the Sea of Japan and thereby exposing an environmental scandal, you were convicted of treason and spent almost three years in prison, six months of them in a labor camp. Has this experience affected your work as a journalist?

I don’t work any differently than I used to. I’m aware that there’s a danger I could end up back in prison at any moment. But it’s a risk I accept. If no one tackles these issues which are kept highly secret, the public will never find out what’s really going on.

At the moment you are busy with the Russian pipeline projects.

Let’s take the Nord Stream pipeline through the Baltic Sea. It’s sure to bring Germans a great deal of gas and a happy life. It will bring the Russian people neither gas nor happiness, because the profits will line the pockets of a very few. Another aspect is the cost of such a large project. How is it possible for the construction cost of a pipeline to be estimated initially at two billion and to rise later to six billion?

If the money for the pipeline construction was private money from Vladimir Putin or Gerhard Schröder or Gazprom boss Alexei Miller, I wouldn’t be interested. But it belongs to the Russian people, who have paid taxes and who are being fleeced.

Why isn’t the Russian media reporting on this?

I’ve spoken with many journalists in towns located close to where the pipeline runs. I’ve asked them: Why aren’t you writing about what I’ve seen? And they’ve answered: “We’ve been bought off by Gazprom.”

How would you rate press freedom in Russia today?

Twenty-one journalists have been murdered and more than 300 criminal investigations against journalists have been launched since Putin came into office six years ago. Journalists who write critical reports are beaten up or stop getting information, foreign journalists are denied re-entry. When the president or another representative of the Kremlin gives a press conference, only pro-government reporters are admitted. Furthermore, questions can only be asked that the presidential press office has previously agreed to. The current Duma is planning to change the law on free speech, which will seriously limit the rights of journalists. Even as it is, journalists can be put on trial very quickly. In 99 percent of the cases, the prosecution wins.

A poll was recently published in Russia according to which Vladimir Putin was very popular among 80 percent of the country; 70 percent said that they would vote for him in an election.

I don’t believe in these official figures. Also, most Russians get their information from state-controlled television channels like Channel One or NTV, which are not critical of Putin. Putin is a product created by television. He is shown skiing, performing martial arts: All this makes Putin’s image. That’s why he’s so popular in Russia.

One might think, when considering this great support for Putin, that many Russians aren’t at all interested in having a democracy.

If people don’t know what a democracy is, they can’t decide whether or not they want one either. They must have the opportunity to try it out. This is why people have to be given the chance to choose in free elections. It’s possible that even many more people would want it than one thinks.

Given the state-controlled media, little is to be expected in the way of enlightenment.

There’s virtually no independent media left, and the few that are there have very little influence on the general public.

Echo Moskvy is considered the only radio station left that isn’t controlled by the Kremlin. Why does it continue to exist?

It is allowed to exist. So that the government has something to show when the question arises as to whether there is any independent media in Russia. There’s also an independent newspaper in the form of Novaya Gazeta. But there’s no television channel that really reports critically. That would be too much of a good thing, as most of the population is reached and manipulated via the medium of television.

To what extent can the Internet inform people?

According to official statistics, there are 25 million Internet users in Russia. In fact, there are probably fewer. But the government is looking into ways of bringing the Internet under state control, too.

In Russia, there are numerous journalists who collaborate with the government and work as “image makers”. Why do so many allow themselves to be misused?

Every one of us can choose who he works for. Many are afraid of losing their income or becoming unpopular. If they don’t function as Putin wants, they live in fear of being imprisoned or even murdered. There are also very many conscientious, critical journalists in Russia who unfortunately have very limited means of publishing their articles. For instance, I was to write an article for a newspaper, and when the article was finished, the paper wanted to print it as well - but under a pseudonym. I naturally didn’t agree to that, because I believe that I deserve to be allowed to put my name to my own thoughts.

Who can put pressure on the Russian government nowadays?

The first to show that he wasn’t happy with Putin’s course was the ex Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was the first to criticize openly how the government regularly interfered with private industry. Khodorkovsky is now in prison. This case very well illustrates present-day conditions: While Stalin and Brezhnev still had an ideology, the current government is interested solely in making money.

What role do the oligarchs still play in today’s Russia?

Since Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment, they only stir up feelings of pity and revulsion in me. They were lined up like soldiers, and now they do what they are told by those in Putin’s court.

What have you actually achieved with the exposure of the environmental scandal?

The fact is, because of my film, Russia has stopped dumping nuclear waste into the sea as it had done for 30 years. That atomic waste can’t simply be dumped into the sea is enough to make me say that I have fulfilled my journalistic duty.