MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Foreign Ministry has demanded that the location and condition of International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya photographer Andrei Stenin (#freeAndrew)be officially explained, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s human rights envoy said Thursday.
“It’s very sad that so far it is unknown where [Stenin] is located or how he is. This is a completely unacceptable situation. We vehemently demand that this end, that this is figured out and explained, and officially inform us, Rossiya Segodnya, and the Russian authorities,” Konstantin Dolgov said.
“We will raise these issues further before Ukraine and most importantly before the global community. It is time to end this outrage,” Dolgov said.
The envoy added it “is unclear why Ukrainian journalist associations are taking a passive position on this.”
“The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian embassy in Kiev are doing their best to find out what happened to Rossiya Segodnya’s photographer and demand to set him free,” Maria Zakharova, the deputy director of public relations at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with the LifeNews television channel.
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Zakharova went on to say that intimidation practices in Ukraine are used in order to scare the Russian media out of the country.
Stenin disappeared on August 5 while on assignment in eastern Ukraine. An unnamed source told RIA Novosti on August 8 that the photojournalist had been abducted by Ukrainian militia forces and was in custody in the city of Zaporozhye, an allegation the Security Service of Ukraine later denied.
On August 9, Rossiya Segodnya submitted a request to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry to take urgent measures to find Stenin. Under the pressure of an OSCE representative for freedom of the press, the ministry agreed to look into Stenin’s case.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also called for the immediate release of Stenin and said that freedom of the press in Ukraine has deteriorated in recent months, with journalists being detained, attacked, abducted and killed.
Please support Andrei Stenin’s release by sharing the hashtag #FreeAndrew in social networks. Andrei is a professional war photographer reporting from the most dangerous war zones in the world. You can view Andrei’s pictures from Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya here and his most recent shots from eastern Ukraine here.
