Ekho Moskvy blasts journalists' detention near Investigations Committee
MOSCOW. June 13 (Interfax) - Ekho Moskvy editor Alexei Venediktov has sharply criticized the detention of journalists who tried to hold pickets near the building of the Investigations Committee to protest the threats made by Investigations Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin, which Novaya Gazeta journalists say he made to the paper's editor Sergei Sokolov.
"Generally I am against journalists' participation in political rallies and other actions. However, in this case they only tried to express their solidarity with their colleagues and therefore I fully back their actions," Venediktov told Interfax on Wednesday.
Venediktov believes "there has been a violation of the law because the pickets were one-man pickets."
"In addition, the protesters were detained by police officers without IDs and I will seek the publication of their names. I will also raise the issue of this lawlessness in a meeting with the Interior Ministry's administration," he said.
Four Ekho Moskvy journalists (Olga Bychkova, Vladimir Varfolomeyev, Alina Grebneva, and Natela Boltyanskaya) and journalist Alexander Podrabinek were detained near the Investigations Committee.