Russian media need more freedom

Russian mass media were criticized by president Vladimir Putin. Nothing new in his word, only underlining the main media problem in Russia is lack of freedom for press. "Without a free press, the great transformations of the 1990s would have been simply impossible, and today I would like once again to underline the not only special but irreplaceable role of the written word in the making of the new Russia ," Putin noted at the World Newspaper Congress.

Photo: Russian media need more freedom

Putin said that many in the world still fail to acknowledge the "grandiosity" of the changes Russia has gone through since the Soviet collapse and, with a hint of sarcasm, thanked delegates to the World Newspaper Congress for not allowing themselves to be "scared off" by dire reports of a lack of media freedom in Russia.

After Putin arrived at the dais in the Kremlin Palace , two young people stood up, unfurled a red-and-white flag with a hammer and sickle on it and chanted, "Putin is the executioner of freedom!" Security agents bundled the two, apparently members of the radical National Bolshevik Party, out of the hall.

Critics at home and abroad have accused Putin of stifling media freedom as part of a broader effort to increase the Kremlin's control over Russian politics and society since he came to power more than six years ago.

O'Reilly underlined the state encouraged self-censorship and suggested that the former domination of the media by the so-called oligarchs politically connected tycoons had been replaced by state control. Putin challenged that, saying that state ownership in media was decreasing while the number of media outlets was increasing.

"Putin pointed to the venue, where the Soviet Communist Party used to hold its congresses, as proof of the distance Russia has come. "Today we are discussing problems of a free press and, in a pretty critical vein, we, the hosts, are listening to our guests. It would have been impossible even to conceive of this 15 years ago," Putin said, reports the AP.

N.U.