His Excellency Boris Yeltsin
President of Russia
Office of the President
Moscow
Russian Federation
Vienna, 2 March 1995
Your Excellency,
The International Press Institute (IPI) strongly condemns the killing of Mr. Vladislav Listyev, executive director of Russian Public Television.
Mr. Listyev, one of Russia’s most popular television journalists, was fatally shot by an unidentified gunman as he entered his Moscow apartment block on Wednesday, 1 March 1995. One of the founders of the Vzglyad current affairs programme in the early days of “glasnost,” Mr. Listyev had only recently been appointed executive director of Public Russian Television, as the country’s main channel, Ostankino, will be called after 1 April.
His murder follows closely that of Mr. Dmitri Kholodov, a journalist working for Moscow’s most popular daily, Moscovski Komsomolets, who was killed in a bomb blast last October. Investigators were unable to find Mr. Kholodov’s killers, despite promises of a full investigation under Your Excellency’s personal control.
IPI, representing publishers, editors-in-chief and leading journalists from newspapers, magazines, broadcasting organisations and news agencies in 89 countries, strongly urges that you authorize an immediate investigation into the killing of Mr. Listyev and that those responsible are brought to justice. We further urge that you disclose any findings with regard to both murders and that all possible steps are taken in the future to protect the safety of journalists working in Russia.
We thank you for your attention.
Yours sincerely,
Johann P. Fritz
Director