RUSSIA: A leading Russian television journalist has been sacked and his programme taken off air, days after it was barred from broadcasting an interview with the widow of a Chechen rebel leader allegedly killed by the Kremlin's special agents.
Leonid Parfyonov said he had been fired after arguing with bosses who bowed to a security service demand not to broadcast the interview on Sunday with the wife of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who died in a car-bomb attack in Qatar.
"The general director called me and told me I was sacked, and that it was to do with the interview with Yandarbiyev's wife," Mr Parfyonov said. "I cannot behave differently, or accept the shame of it being pulled off air, or the fact that the company's bosses did that." Mr Parfyonov was one of the most popular and well-respected journalists on NTV, the channel that was taken over by state-controlled energy giant Gazprom in 2001. It was the last nationwide station to fall under government control, and had been critical of President Vladimir Putin and his war with Chechen separatists.
NTV said in a statement that Mr Parfyonov had been sacked for "failing to support the policies of the company's leadership" and that his programme Namedni (Lately) had been discontinued.
The interview with Malika Yandarbiyev was broadcast in the Russian Far East and Siberia, but was not shown in the west of the country, where most of Mr Putin's beleaguered opponents reside. Mr Parfyonov says state security officials repeatedly told NTV not to show the story about Mr Yandarbiyev's killing last February. Two Russian agents are on trial in Qatar for his murder, despite Moscow's strenuous denials of any involvement.
