Planned replacement of Ekho Moskvy board result of "political pressure" - Venediktov
MOSCOW. Feb 14 (Interfax) - Plans to replace the board of directors of Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio and remove independent directors from it represent "political pressure," the station's editor, Alexei Venediktov, argued on Tuesday.
"I see this as an element of political pressure," Venediktov, who is going to leave the board but remains the station's editor, said in an Ekho Moskvy program.
The Gazprom-Media holding company, Ekho Moskvy's owner, interpreted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's repeated criticism of the station as a signal to replace its top brass, the editor said. Gazprom-Media's decision became known on Tuesday.
Venediktov expressed confidence it was not a top-level government decision to replace the board.
"On the other hand, when the premier criticizes Ekho Moskvy on several occasions publicly and even more often non-publicly, many zealous officials take it as a 'get 'em' command one gives to a dog. The same thing happened after the events in Georgia in August 2008, when some pretty high-ranking officials decided that the public criticism of Ekho Moskvy by Putin was a command to close the radio station, fire its editor-in-chief and disband the editorial staff. That is not the case, it is not a 'get 'em' command," Venediktov said.
Ekho Moskvy is going to part company with independent directors Alexander Makovsky, deputy head of the presidential research center for private law, and Yevgeny Yasin, chief researcher at Moscow's Higher School of Economics.
Venediktov's first deputy, Vladimir Varfolomeyev, would also have to leave the board.