7 March a meeting was held in the city of Grozny near the Monument to the Killed Journalists where correspondents of the Chechen media condemned strictly Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta, and Alexander Minkin, the observer of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolez. The Chechen media workers had got indignant about statements by Messieurs Muratov and Minkin made regarding acceptance of the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to become a member of the Union of Russian Journalists. Reminding, Mr. Muratov stated 6 March “I shall quit immediately the Union of Russian Journalists in case the information gets proved that Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has become its member”. “I hope all the real journalists will leave the organization where Ramzan Kadyrov is accepted” responded Alexander Minkin on the same day. In reply, the Chechen media spread out the placards saying “Chechen journalists don’t want to be in one union with Minkin and Muratov!”    

About one hundred people gathered at the square. The meeting was started by Aza Gazieva, the chief of the print press department of the ministry of foreign relations, national policy, press and information.  She said:   

“The informational space has become transparent in the Chechen Republic thanks to support from the head of the Republic. He helped restoration of the Press House which regained its role of the center of creative activity by the media. In the nearest future and by order from Ramzan Kadyrov it is planned to construct modern buildings for the Republic Radio House and the offices of the district newspapers. Kadyrov himself was unaware of the journalists’ initiative and he was surprised greatly to receive an honorable certificate of the membership in the union”.  

Khamzat Yunusov, the editor of the newspaper “Vesti Respubliki” considered that Dmitry Muratov had called all the Chechen people “cannibals” and “fleecers”. He said that people like Dmitry Muratov have been blackening this people many years, while Ramzan Kadyrov has made a breakthrough in the informational blockade. “Any attacks made in the press against our leader we consider to be working off the money from the oversea clients” stated Abdulbek Vakhaev, the head of the Chechen branch of the Media-Union.   

Chechen ombudsman Nurdi Nukhajiev called Muratov and Minkin pseudo journalists, and his press secretary Roza Yusupova said that “these provocateurs and pen-windbags have contributed to the tragedy that happened in the Chechen Republic”.   

At the end of the meeting a decision was taken about mass withdrawal of the Chechen journalists from the Union of Russian Journalists.  

Novaya Gazeta information