MOSCOW, May 4 (RIA Novosti) - Including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin among the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) list of the world's "predators of press freedom" is totally wrong, his spokesman said on Tuesday.
"Unfortunately we don't know the criteria, on the grounds of which these conclusions were drawn. But they are absolutely wrong," Dmitry Peskov said.
The reaction came as a response to the RSF list of 40 "predators of press freedom" published on Monday that included powerful people and groups from different countries. The Russian premier and the president of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, are the two Russian politicians ranked in this list.
"It's hard to tell whether this mistake has come as a result of the deeply-ingrained stereotypes about everything related with Russia or is a consequence of the lack of information. Over the last ten years, Vladimir Putin has done much so that mass media became more economically independent and freer," Peskov said.
Later in the day, Kadyrov's press secretary, Alvi Karimov, also expressed dissatisfaction with the roster, saying it was "not objective" and did not reflect the real situation.
"Last year he [Kadyrov] gave interviews to practically all European, American and Asian newspapers, TV channels and magazines," Karimov said. "He is open to cooperation with the press."
RSF said Putin, "the former KGB officer," has exerted so much control over all aspects of life in Russia that "the national TV stations now speak with a single voice."
The organization said conditions for journalists were particularly difficult in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region. It cited Kadyrov as saying that "the press must be in the service of the Chechen people's unity," and said "in practice, journalists interpret this as meaning they must praise his every action and the people's devotion to him."
It said reporters and rights activists in Russia are "exposed to considerable danger, especially in the North Caucasus... Five journalists were murdered in 2009. Twenty-two have been murdered since 2000."
Putin and Kadyrov were listed alongside Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's Hu Jintao, Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko and North Korea's Kim Jong-il.
