Russia/Checnya: A Russian film festival has become the latest victim of Moscow's information war over Chechnya, rights campaigners said yesterday, as the shattered republic braces for a presidential election that only the Kremlin's candidate stands a real chance of winning.
Moscow's popular Kinocentre cinema cancelled plans late on Tuesday to screen a series of powerful films on Chechnya, where the Kremlin hopes Sunday's vote on a regional leader will speed the end of its second war in a decade with separatist rebels.
"My feeling is the Kinocentre came under pressure from the FSB," said festival organiser Mr Yuri Samodurov, referring to the domestic security service that is Russia's successor to the KGB.
He said the cinema's manager had told him that many of the films, which have already aired in London, New York and Washington, were "unacceptable" for his audience. "This is absolutely a political decision," said Anna Politkovskaya, a festival supporter and journalist who has repeatedly raised Kremlin hackles by reporting on rights abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya. "I thought this would be impossible. I'm shocked."
Earlier this week, Ms Politkovskaya lambasted the Kremlin for placing a stranglehold on information about Chechnya ahead of Sunday's poll, from which all realistic opposition to Moscow-backed Mr Akhmad Kadyrov has evaporated.
Television news, by far the most influential information media here, has barely mentioned the election in recent days. When it has, it has focused on Mr Kadyrov, who travelled to the US with President Putin last week.
US officials said quietly that they were disturbed by the inclusion of Mr Kadyrov, a former rebel leader, in Mr Putin's party. But the continuing bloodshed in Chechnya failed to cause any visible ripples in relations between President Bush and Mr Putin.
Mr Putin has instigated a peace plan for Chechnya - offering an amnesty for some rebels, compensation for displaced residents and elections for a president and parliament - in an effort to pacify the region before he faces re-election next March.
The Kremlin says Sunday's vote for a Chechen president is a key stage in bringing peace to a region that has sporadically rebelled against Moscow's rule for well over a century.
But democracy watchdogs here and abroad have derided preparation for the poll, after seeing all Mr Kadyrov's potential challengers fall by the wayside. Some have cited security fears; others have fallen foul of campaign technicalities or blamed official pressure from Moscow; one even quietly took up the offer of a job from the Kremlin.