The editor of the Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy says he will complain to law-enforcement officials about a thinly veiled threat against him posted on the Internet by the Kremlin-backed head of the Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov.
In a statement posted to Instagram on January 9, Kadyrov said he thinks Aleksei Venediktov "has turned Ekho Moskvy into the main anti-Islamic mouthpiece."
Kadyrov called on Russian authorities to remind Ekho Moskvy about the law, saying that there otherwise "will be people who will take Venediktov to task."
Venediktov responded in his blog by saying he would raise the issue of Kadyrov’s statement with the law-enforcement agencies, adding that he "takes threats made by Ramzan Kadyrov very seriously."
He also "categorically" rejected the notion that Ekho Moskvy was anti-Islamic and vowed that the station would "remain, despite all sorts of pressure and threats, balanced, professional, and equidistant from the interests of different groups, political parties, and churches."
Kadyrov made the comments after a poll conducted by Ekho Moskvy asked listeners whether publications should publish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in response to the January 7 massacre in Paris at the office of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
