Russia's President Vladimir Putin has been awarded the "Closed Oyster," a satirical prize granted by a German media group for obstructing freedom of the press.
Netzwerk Recherche, a small German journalists' organization that promotes investigative journalism, singled out Putin for "hampering the development of free media" and allowing a "lack of results in the investigation into the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya."
Putin is the first non-German to receive the organization's negative prize.
In December 2006, the Paris-based nongovernmental organization Reporters Without Borders called attention to the extent to which the Russian government and state-run corporations have taken over the country's main electronic and print media, greatly limiting the amount of independent news and information available to the public.
Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
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