RSF: Russian peacekeepers deny foreign reporters access to Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian peacekeepers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) and controlling access from Armenia via the Lachin corridor have denied entry to at least ten foreign journalists since February, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has revealed.

They include the French photographer Christophe Petit-Tesson, who said: “I spent several days there in January but the rules have changed since then.” Vincent Prado, a reporter for the Enquête Exclusive current affairs programme on the French TV channel M6, has had his requests to visit the territory refused several times by the Russians without any explanation.

Similar unexplained refusals have been received by Neil Hauer, a Canadian freelancer for the Guardian and CNN, and Mark Stratton, a British journalist who described his frustration in an interview for the BBC. The photographer Kiran Ridley received permission to visit the enclave but was turned back at the Russian checkpoint on April 4.

“A growing number of foreign journalists are being systematically refused entry by Russian soldiers,” said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “There are no objective grounds for this obstruction. The reporters do not pose a threat to the territory’s safety, which is guaranteed by peacekeeping troops.”

Cavelier added: “Without international media, Nagorno-Karabakh is liable to become a news and information ‘black hole.’ We call on the Russian authorities to allow journalists access, regardless of their nationality. And we call on the UN and Council of Europe to ensure respect for the right to the freedom to inform, which is all the more essential in a conflict or post-conflict situation.”

Armenia is ranked 61st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2020 World Press Freedom Index, Russia is ranked 149th and Azerbaijan is ranked 168th.