Pozner says will keep running weekly TV programs despite scandal
MOSCOW. Nov 3 (Interfax) - Russian high-profile television presenter Vladimir Pozner confirmed that he would not run his weekly Sunday program, called "Pozner," on November 4 but said the reason was the day is a national holiday and not the scandal that one of his statements had set off.
"My program never comes out on national holidays. This has always been the case, and so one shouldn't try to draw any conclusions there," Pozner told Interfax.
The scandal broke out after, in one of his programs, Pozner compared interrogations of opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev to methods used by Soviet secret police KGB, which, according to the journalist, beat suspects into making "sincere confessions."
State Duma deputy Ilya Kostunov, a member of the ruling United Russia party, demanded firing Pozner. Kostunov's demand was condemned by some of his fellow United Russia deputies.
Pozner, in a comment on Kostunov's demand, cited lines from a poem by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin entitled "I Have Erected an Unimaginable Monument to Myself" - "accept praise and slander cold-mindedly and do not argue with a fool."
"I have nothing to add. I don't consider any further reaction possible," Pozner told Interfax.
"It's still too early to know who will come to my program of November 11. It sometimes happens that it becomes known the day before who the guest will be," he said.
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