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Journalists Eye New Protest Strategy in Golunov Acquittal

Nastassia Jaumen

   WASHINGTON - For formerly jailed investigative journalist Natalia
   Radina, Tuesday's shock acquittal of Russian reporter Ivan Golunov is a
   small but significant victory in a much larger war to defend press
   freedoms across the post-Soviet sphere.

   "Thank God, Ivan is freed," said Radina, top editor of Charter 97, an
   independent investigative news outlet that covers governance and
   corporate corruption in her native Belarus.

   "This became possible only thanks to the solidarity of journalists in
   Russia and all over the world," she said. "This is a good example of
   how we should protect victims of political repression: we should
   protest immediately and en masse. I look on Russians with admiring
   envy."

   Golunov, a 36-year-old reporter with the Riga-based independent media
   outlet Meduza, was detained Thursday on charges that supporters said
   were trumped up to punish him for his investigative reports on Moscow
   city officials.

   Golunov, who had been charged with attempting to deal a "large amount"
   of drugs, said he was beaten in detention. His lawyers insisted drugs
   had been planted on him, and police later admitted that photographs of
   a drug lab found at a crime scene were not taken at Golunov's flat.

   In an unprecedented gesture of solidarity, on Monday Russia's three
   major business newspapers, Kommersant, Vedomosti, and RBK, published
   identical front pages with the headline "We Are Ivan Golunov" in large
   type, along with a cautiously worded statement saying they couldn't
   "rule out" the possibility that Golunov's charges were filed in
   retaliation for his reporting.

   According to Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky, Golunov's one-time
   editor, Monday's trio of matching headlines was the culmination of a
   subtle but protracted protest throughout the Russian mediasphere.

   "Many news outlets effectively boycotted coverage of the St. Petersburg
   Economic Forum, traditionally Putin's favorite international event of
   the year," Bershidsky wrote.

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