OSCE media watchdog concerned about prison sentence for journalist in Russia

VIENNA, 23 June 2005 - The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, today expressed his concern regarding the combined five year prison sentence handed down to a Russian journalist by a Smolensk court.

Nikolay Goshko, deputy editor-in-chief of Odintsovskaya Nedelya, was found guilty of libeling three Smolensk officials in 2000. As a result of this conviction, his previous suspended prison term for an unrelated offence nine years ago came into force.

"It would be alarming to see both the severity of the sentence, and the possibility to combine speech offences with crimes totally unrelated to journalism, become a precedent for the future, and thus amplify the chilling effect on journalism," Mr. Haraszti wrote in a letter to the Russian Minister of Justice.

"Criminal libel laws have been rarely used in democratic Russia," said Haraszti. "However, this sentence proves that if a country's laws criminalize speech offences, there will always be a court that will apply those provisions".

Mr. Haraszti invited the Russian authorities to join international efforts in decriminalizing defamation and handle the offences of libel and insult only in civil courts.

The Representative suggested an interim remedy - before full decriminalization was achieved - could be a moratorium. He also said that he would closely follow Mr. Goshko's appeal to a higher court and expressed his hope that his prison sentence for libel would be reviewed.