Newsletter

Russian TV highlights 30 January-5 February 2006

2006

Overview

The controversy over cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad was well reported on most Russian TV channels in the week 30 January-5 February 2006. The main current affairs flagships on state broadcasters, Channel One and Rossiya (RTV), took differing views of the issue. Channel One's Voskresnoye Vremya defended the \"rights of believers\", while RTV's Vesti Nedeli suspected Iran may have a hand in whipping up emotions over the issue. Moscow-government-owned Centre TV was the most critical of the \"hysterical\" reaction in the Islamic world. Editorial policy on how to deal with the cartoons themselves differed from channel to channel, and even between programmes on the same channel. The other main foreign news story of the week was the Iran nuclear crisis, coverage of which stressed the growing international isolation of Tehran, and Russia's concerns about an Iranian nuclear weapon. On the domestic front, there was a chorus of praise for President [Vladimir Putin]'s performance at his annual news conference, while Gazprom's NTV and privately owned Ren TV continued to highlight the problem of bullying in the wake of the scandalous case of Pte [Andrey Sychev]. According to the chairman of the Duma International Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, this international consensus was manifest in the IAEA's decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council, though not actually pass on the country's nuclear dossier. \"This is a signal, a political signal that means that the five permanent members of the Security Council have adopted a unified position on the Iran nuclear programme,\" Kosachev told state-owned Channel One on 4 February. The station's correspondent Grigoriy Yemelyanov said the IAEA had been a \"compromise\" between the USA and Europe, on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. Yemelyanov's report stressed that the IAEA resolution contains no mention of passing the dossier to the UN, and ended by highlighting the importance of Russia's proposal to enrich uranium on behalf of Iran. \"Russian officials stress that the proposal for the creation of a joint enterprise for uranium enrichment remains on the table,\" the Channel One correspondent noted. Although state broadcasters Channel One and RTV were united in their praise of the president's performance, they differed sharply in their interpretation of Putin's reply to a French journalist about Russia's commitment to the Belarusian people, though not necessarily to any particular regime there. Channel One's [Petr Tolstoy] was struck by Putin's commitment to Russia's neighbour. \"When the president calmly says that these people's fate is much more important than what they think of us in France, this gives one hope that we will not forget them, and that, in turn, we will not forget about ourselves,\" Tolstoy told viewers of Voskresnoye Vremya on 5 February. By contrast, RTV's Vesti Nedeli comment on the same remarks highlighted apparent disquiet in Minsk. \"Partnership with Belarus, and at the same time aloofness from Belarus' internal affairs: these remarks by Putin clearly caused the official press in Minsk to think very hard. At any rate, not a word about this was heard throughout the whole week in a country that is gearing up for an election,\" correspondent Andrey Kondrashov noted.

• Publisher: BBC Worldwide Limited
• Subject: Cartoons / Christian Islamic relations / Fairs & exhibitions / Murders & murder attempts / Muslims / Nuclear weapons / Political correctness / Politics / Religion / Religious orthodoxy / Riots