Another 4,000 Leave Chechnya Fleeing Harrasment By Nikolay Styazhkin
STAVROPOL, August 7, 1997 (Itar-Tass) -- About 4,000 refugees from Chechnya have come to Russia's southern Stavropol territory since the start of this year, a territorial migration service spokesman told Itar-Tass today.
The official said the refugees' story is that harrasment from Chechen extremist groups is continuing despite official utterances of Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov about safety guarantees for all ethnic groups in Chechnya.
The refugees say that non-Chechen residents are confronted by go- or-you will-be-sorry threats. A total of 40,000 people left Chechnya for the Stavropol territory at the height of the 21-month hostilities.
The Economist, January 8, 1994
Russian media; What is Russian for free press?
DATELINE: MOSCOW
IS BORIS YELTSIN trying to reassert political control over the press and television? Purges began soon after the election. Vyacheslav Bragin, controller of two of Russia's four nationwide television channels, was the first to be sacked. His mistake was not lack of loyalty -- Mr Bragin is a member of the pro-Yeltsin party, Russia's Choice -- but selling too much air-time to Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Next Mr Yeltsin abolished the Ministry of Information and the Federal Information Centre, two rivals for control of much of Russia's media, and set up a media-monitoring unit in the Kremlin. Then he placed the state-controlled television and radio broadcasting services under the man who used to be chief of the Communist Party's Central Committee department for overseeing Soviet radio and television. His aides have also demanded changes of editor at several newspapers and controls have been tightened at ITAR-TASS, a state-owned news agency.
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