PRESS FREEDOM….

On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, deposed media baron Vladimir Gusinsky spoke at the National Press Club in Washington. Gusinsky, who suffered a year of harassment, threats and arrest before losing control of his print and television properties to the country’s energy monopoly, said Russia respects neither human rights, nor press freedom, nor private property, nor law. Russia’s Foreign Ministry called him a fugitive and said the United States should arrest him under a Russian warrant issued through Interpol for financial crimes. The United States, citing the lack of an extradition treaty with Russia, declined.

Journalists have their enemies lists too. Also on Press Freedom Day, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and the French group Reporters without Borders named Vladimir Putin an enemy of press freedom. Other leaders on both lists include China’s Jiang Zemin, Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Ukraine’s Leonid Kuchma.