Reporters Without Borders is deeply shocked by the Ingush supreme court's decision to release the policeman who fatally shot Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the Ingushetiya.ru news website, on 31 August 2008. By reducing the gravity of the charge on which Ibragim Yevloyev (no relation) was convicted, the court was able to commute his two-year jail sentence to two years of “supervised residence,” which means he will be able to resume working as policeman.

“The two-year jail sentence on a ‘negligent homicide' charge was already deeply unsatisfactory but this change in the charge minimises the responsibility of Ibragim Yevloyev and the rest of the police in Magomed Yevloyev's death even more,” Reporters Without Borders said. “His release is a total provocation and shows the Ingush judicial system's complete lack of independence.”

The press freedom organisation added: “Coinciding with a state visit to France by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, the Ingush supreme court ruling has highlighted the fragility of Russia's progress in human rights. Nicolas Sarkozy praised Medvedev's ‘commitment to the rule of law, respect for the law, judicial security and defence of human rights,' but if Medvedev wants to show he deserves this praise, he must put an end to impunity for those who murder journalists and human rights activists in the Caucasus.”

Magomed Yevloyev's father, Yakhya Yevloyev, has said he will appeal against the Ingush supreme court's decision all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. “For the time being, I am in a state of shock,” he said. “I have never seen such a denial of justice as this. I think we are going to appeal to the Russian federal supreme court even if we do not expect a fair decision.”

An opponent of the Ingush government as well publisher of the Ingushetiya.ru news website (now Ingushetiyaru.org), Magomed Yevloyev was shot in the temple in an interior ministry vehicle shortly after being illegally detained on his arrival at Magas airport on 31 August 2008. He was left unconscious a few hours later at the entrance to a hospital, where he died soon afterwards. The police said he was shot accidentally as he tried to grab an officer's firearm.

The victim's colleagues and family had petitioned the courts for his death to be investigated as “murder with premeditation” under article 105 of the Russian criminal code. The petition was rejected by the supreme court, which ruled that investigators should continue to treat the case under article 109 § 2 as “homicide through negligence, as a result of inappropriate professional behaviour.”

This was the charge on which Ibragim Yevloyev, the Ingush interior minister's former chief bodyguard, was eventually convicted.

But in its ruling on 2 March, the supreme court went one step further by reducing the charge to just “homicide through negligence” under article 109 § 1 of the criminal code. Judge Tagir Azdoyev ruled that Ibragim Yevloyev had been right to take his firearm's safety off just before the “accident” because the police had been warned that Magomed Yevloyev's supporters might try to free him.

The sentence of “supervised residence” has only just been introduced into the Russian criminal code and it is not yet known how the Ingush authorities will implement it.

At the time of his death, Magomed Yevloyev was regarded as one of the leading opponents of then Ingushetian President Murat Zyazikov (who was replaced two months later by Yunus-bek Yevkurov). Chechnya's neighbour in the North Caucasus, Ingushetia has for the past 10 years been in the grip of a low-intensity civil war marked by killings, kidnappings and other forms of violence.

Magomed Yevloyev's successor as Ingushetiyaru.org's publisher, Maksharip Aushev, was himself shot dead by police at checkpoint in Nazran on 25 October 2009.

Previous releases on this subject:

Policeman gets two years in prison for fatal shooting of news website owner

Probe into Ingush website owner's murder relaunched but FSB continues to target website

Website owner's last words to his editor: “Roza, they are taking me away”

Ingush news website owner shot dead while held by interior ministry officials

Listen to Magomed Yevloyev (in Russian) :

Was Europe's leading TV satellite operator, Eutelsat, censoring again in violation of article 3 of the convention under which it was created when it recently refused to carry the Georgian public TV station Pervyi Kakvazkyi on its W7 satellite? That is the question that a French court will begin to address on 22 March.

Examination of the relations between Eutelsat, a company headquartered in France, and the Georgian public broadcaster GPB raises several questions.

Why did Eutelsat suddenly back off after sending GPB a contract to start broadcasting Pervyi Kakvazkyi on 31 January? Was it linked to the new lucrative contract it signed on 15 January with the Russian operator Intersputnik, a long-standing commercial partner? Intersputnik is also a client of a Kremlin-controlled Gazprom offshoot that is one of Russia's most important media groups.

Despite Eutelsat's denials, several aspects deserve attention:

A Russian-language station intended to be broadcast throughout the Caucasus, including Russia, Pervyi Kakvazkyi was clearly seen by the Kremlin as new Georgian offensive in the public relations war being waged between the two countries.

Georgia never hid the fact that Pervyi Kakvazkyi was meant to compete with Russia's media by offering an alternative viewpoint. It was billed as “the first Russian-language TV station in the Caucasus that is not controlled by the Kremlin,” one that would be able to tell “the truth.” Its top presenters even include Alla Dudayeva, the widow of the late Chechen separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev.

The explanations offered by Eutelsat for terminating retransmission of Pervyi Kakvazkyi are not very clear. Initially, the operator referred to the need for an “urgent discussion” about the station's content. This would have been illegal as satellite operators are not supposed to have any say in the programming of the stations they carry.

Eutelsat's representatives then said W7 was being threatened by “interference” from Pervyi Kakvazkyi's signal and they suggested that the solution was to encrypt it. But this option was quickly abandoned and, according to GPB, Eutelsat finally said the only solution was to move Pervyi Kakvazkyi to another satellite.

This would have meant that the station would not have covered the same geographical area. It would also have meant its viewers would have to install antennae. GPB refused and Pervyi Kakvazkyi's transmission by Eutelsat was terminated.

Eutelsat's behaviour is all the more suspicious for the fact that it was involved in a very similar case in 2008, when it used the pretext of “technical problems” to stop carrying the New York-based Chinese-language TV station NTDTV under pressure from Beijing.

Another case concerns the BBC's Farsi-language television station, BBC Persian TV. Although it was Iran that was accused of repeatedly jamming and interfering with its signal, Eutelsat stopped carrying the station at the start of the year, yielding to political and commercial pressure from a government that constantly violates its citizens' basic rights, including the right to be informed.

Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the six-month suspended jail sentences which a Milan court passed today on three Google executives after finding them guilty of violating the privacy of a handicapped teenager by allowing a video of him being bullied by classmates to be posted on Google Video in 2006.

The case was brought by the city of Milan and Vividown, an NGO that defends people with Down's syndrome. Issuing its verdict, the court ruled that “the right to operate a company cannot take priority over personal dignity.”

“We obviously condemn the dissemination of such a video but the guilty parties are those who did the bullying and those who filmed it and posted it online, and they have already been convicted,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Google quickly withdrew the video after being told of its existence. If the judges intended to start a debate about respect for privacy online, an important issue, they chose they wrong case to make a stand.”

The press freedom organisation added: “The practical effect of this conviction is to require websites to exercise prior control over the videos that are being posted. This is a serious blow to freedom of expression and its symbolic impact is all the greater for having taken place in a democratic country.”

The video, which was 15 seconds long, remained for two months on Google Video, where it was quite popular. It was withdrawn by site administrators shortly after it had been identified to them as content that would be regarded as shocking. Google Video was Google's main video-sharing platform until it bought YouTube.

This is the first time that Google executives have been convicted on charges of this kind anywhere in the world. The three executives convicted in this case are David Drummond, the head of Google Italy at the time, George De Los Reyes, a member of the Google Italy board at the time (who has since retired), and Peter Fleischer, Google's chief privacy counsel.

While convicting them of violating Italy's privacy laws, the court acquitted them of defamation. They were not ordered to pay damages because the claim made by the city of Milan and Vividown was based solely on the allegation of defamation.

Google Italy spokesman Marco Pancini called the verdict “an attack on online freedom and the fundamental principles that are at the basis of the Internet.” The ruling could force Google to introduce prior moderating on YouTube or block access to YouTube in Italy. Its blog platform Blogger and other services could also be affected.

In France, websites are not required to filter content in advance but any content that breaks the law must be withdrawn within 24 hours of its being reported. The company hosting a website can be prosecuted if it fails to act when notified of illegal content.

This is not the first time that online free expression has been threatened in Italy. Today's conviction comes amid a debate about a proposed government decree that communications undersecretary Paolo Romani submitted to parliament last month. It would require all websites showing videos to obtain a licence from the authorities, thereby imposed a system of prior authorisation on the exercise of free expression.

On the grounds of protecting copyright, including the copyright of TV stations owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the government would give itself direct control over independent web TV and online video sites, whose continuing existence would depend on a licence issued by a government minister and not by a judge.
http://www.rsf.org/Government-wants-to-clamp-down-on.html

This decree and today's court ruling seem to augur a preventive approach in Italy to the exercise of online free expression.