Russian journalist fired for speaking about police brutality

A Russian journalist was sacked from a state-controlled radio station because she gave an interview to independent media about police brutality at an anti-Kremlin opposition march. Irina Vorobeva said she was forced to resign because she spoke on Echo Moskvy radio station about the "March of the Dissenters" in St. Petersburg. Russian broadcast media is largely state run and, despite violence flaring, there was minimal coverage of the several thousand-strong protest march on Mar. 3. The march was led by opponents of President Vladimir Putin, such as the former world champion chess player turned political activist, Garry Kasparov. Vorobeva gave an interview to Ekho Moskvy after her employer, Russian News Service, rejected her offer to report on the event. "I just described what I saw there," she said. During the program, which also featured Kasparov and other guests, Vorobeva claimed the constitutional rights of the marchers had been violated. She also described police special forces beating an old woman and pushing one protester off a windowsill so that he fell six and a half feet, landing on his back on a stone step. Vorobeva said that when she returned to work two days later, her superior said: "From tomorrow you're not working here any more." Mikhail Bakhlanov, general director of Russian News Service, told reporters that Vorobeva had admitted breaking "etiquette" rules by appearing on a rival channel without informing him, and resigned herself. But the journalist said she believed she was fired for appearing alongside Kasparov and the radical activist Eduard Limonov. "I was instructed to write a letter saying I was resigning according to my own will," she said. "I refused but then they started playing on my conscience and eventually I gave in." She denied apologizing to her boss for her behavior, adding: "On the contrary I said that not allowing coverage of the march was political censorship."