Moscow - More than 1,000 journalists took to a square in central Moscow yesterday to defend press freedom against what they denounced as a plot hatched by the government to clamp down on independent media.
The protest followed a huge raid last week on the MediaMOST group, when dozens of masked security officers bearing axes and guns stormed the offices of the empire that includes the NTV television station, the liberal Sevodnya daily, the Itogi weekly and Echo Moscow radio.
