Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That’s more or less the predicament of the publishers of Krestyanin, one of Russia’s leading quality regional newspapers located in Rostov-on-Don.
The newspaper’s printing press has been indefinitely closed down by local authorities, supposedly due to fire safety infringements, reports the Mail and Guardian. The real reason however seems to have a lot more to do with the fact that the press was also used to print campaign material for an opposition candidate.
Renting out the use of a printing press is standard procedure for most newspapers across the world. Printing flyers, leaflets and brochures means extra income to pay for the upkeep of such an expensive piece of equipment.
Earlier this month printing house Krestyanin was hired to print leaflets for a politician running for mayor, who happened to be opposing the United Russia Party candidate, the party of prime minister Vladimir Putin. A political operative associated with the United Russia Party candidate phoned the deputy director of printing house Krestyanin and basically made it clear to him he shouldn’t be doing that…
Now you might think, why on earth would a newspaper get mixed up in the business of printing campaign material for politicians in the first place? Isn’t that just asking for trouble in a country like Russia? But here’s the snag. In Russia there’s a law that says that printing presses must print campaign material for any candidate when asked to do so. So Krestyanin was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The director of the Krestyanin printing press made it clear to the United Russia Party operative that he had no say in the matter. Printing the other candidate’s material was the law. End of story.
But not in Putin’s Russia: According to FollowTheMedia, no sooner were the leaflets printed than the police arrived to investigate a complaint that the material contained “anti-Semitic propaganda.”
A few days later power was cut at printing house Krestyanin, authorities explaining that a fire had been reported. There was no fire and Krestyanin, a quite modern facility, had its own generator. After that, the fire inspector arrived carrying an order that the printing house must be shut down for inspections, which he and his team carried out visually.
But rather than informing the printing press Krestyanin management of infractions in the fire code, the fire inspector took his findings directly to the district court, which ordered the premises sealed. Two days later (May 20) the facility was re-inspected and certified A-OK by the fire inspector. The newspaper Krestyanin website, off for two days, returned to the web.
That’s where the story should end, but instead on May 24 the court in Rostov decided that printing house Krestyanin will remain closed and new hearing on the matter is scheduled for May 31. No newspapers will be printed and, certainly, no campaign leaflets.
To be continued…
Disclaimer: Just so you know, for those at VJ Movement, the journalists of Krestyianin have a special place in our hearts. Last year some of us spent some time there training these dedicated professionals in using video to enhance their work – part of a project sponsored by the VJ Movement Foundation.
