Photographers and teleoperators record the storm of the secondary school in the South Ossetian town of Beslan. The school was captured by a group of Chechen separatists who took hostages about a thousand schoolchildren, their relatives and teachers. After three-day siege, during which the hostages were denied food and water by their captors, the school building was stormed by security forces. The hostage-taking resulted in 338 deaths and some 400 severely wounded.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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German Journalist Put Out of Chechnya
// For the sake of his own safety
Kristof Wanner, employee of German TV company Deutsche Welle, was arrested in Chechnya, and then expelled from the republic. His accreditation, satellite phone, and videotapes were confiscated. Chechen law-enforcement officials say that the German journalist violated the rules of working in the zone where an anti-terrorist operation was being carried out.
Kristof Wanner was arrested in Oktyabrsky district of Grozny while he was interviewing local inhabitants. The journalist was kept in police station for four hours. His accreditation, satellite phone, and videotapes were taken away, and then he was deported from the republic.
Deutsche Welle’s Moscow office said that Wanner went to Chechnya to make the story about the work of German charity organization Hammer Forum in the republic, and that he traveled there together with the Forum’s employees.
Press-service of Chechen president said they were not informed about Deutsche Welle’s journalist’s coming to Chechnya. President’s spokesman Said-Magomed Isaraev explained that Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs usually tells Chechen officials about the arrival of foreign journalists, and asks to give them assistance and protection. However, no one was warned about Wanner’s coming. Yet, Isaraev said there are no special restrictions on the work of foreign journalists in Chechnya, and that all demands to those journalists were made only for the sake of their own safety.
Chechen FSB said that the German journalist violated rules concerning the anti-terrorist operation. He was supposed to inform local authorities and law-enforcement officials on his arrival to Chechnya, and move about in their company only.
This is the second time in the last month when a foreign journalist was arrested in Chechnya. A group of Austrian TV was arrested upon leaving the republic on November 27. The journalists were charged with uncoordinated leaving for Shatoysky region in the mountains, and with collecting material which “discredits local authorities”, and their videotapes were taken away.
Musa Muradov
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 16, 2006
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