RFE/RL's Dragan Štavljanin Receives Critical Acclaim  

Dragan Štavljanin, a broadcaster with RFE/RL's Balkan Service, is receiving critical acclaim for his new book "Cold Peace: Caucasus and Kosovo", published by RFE/RL's Radio Slobodna Evropa. The book is drawing enormous attention in the region with dozens of interviews, reviews, and presentations in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro. Neven Kazazovic, one of the region’s leading military and security experts, applauded it in Sarajevo: “It’s a brilliant text, kind of an event in itself. There are just a few books of this quality and they can be counted on the fingers of one hand.”

Check out this short video to see the recognition Dragan gained on his book tour in the Balkans:

Two leading newspapers, Serbia's "Today" and Montenegro's "Victory", ran extensive excerpts from the book which examines the motivation behind the Russian intervention in Georgia, its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, and the ramifications of those actions in international relations. It explains the background to the so-called frozen conflicts, their significance for regional and international stability, and identifies possible scenarios for the future: is a new cold war looming?  

The book sheds light on the international context in which the war in Georgia occurred and draws parallels between Kosovo and the Caucasus, such as whether Kosovo's independence constitutes a precedent under international law or a unique case. Finally, the book focuses on the use of energy as a political tool.

When asked about the experience of writing such an extensive book on a subject while it was still occurring on an international stage, Dragan recalled, "I was in the situation without having any historical distance because I wrote about current events and processes -- even though they were still unfolding while I wrote the book. So, I had to update certain parts several times because of pending events and processes which were very unpredictable. I was also under time pressure to complete the book as soon as possible because the prospect of a new Russian intervention in Georgia in the summer of 2009 loomed."

Cedomir Cupic, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Belgrade University commended Dragan’s work: “This book is extremely important for us because there is material not researched and studied before.”

Dragan joined RFE/RL in 1994 as a correspondent in Belgrade, later serving as Chief Editor of RFE/RL’s Serbia and Montenegro Program. Prior to joining RFE/RL, he worked for several radio and TV stations in Serbia and prominent Serbian newspapers. He also wrote for the Prague based journal "Transitions". Dragan has interviewed numerous international politicians and experts on Balkan issues and provided analysis on the possible wider effects of Kosovar Independence. This is his first book.

-- Kelly Bjorklund

'Balay, Radio Azadi!': Call-In Show Gives Voice To Ordinary Afghans 

RFE/RL's Afghan Service, known locally as Radio Azadi, is the most popular radio station in Afghanistan, broadcasting in Dari and Pashto to nearly 8 million listeners weekly. Every Thursday, Radio Azadi's Jan Alekozai and Zarif Nazar host a live 2-hour call-in show, "On The Waves of Liberty," which brings together experts, high-ranking government officials, and the Afghan public for what is usually a spirited discussion on the country's current affairs.

Check out the short video below for a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "On The Waves Of Liberty":



The show gives a unique space for its diverse audience to discuss and debate a wide range of topics ranging from national security, nation-building, the rule of law, women's issues and human rights. "On the Waves of Liberty" is extremely popular -- during the show, the lines are constantly busy as hundreds of listeners attempt to call in.

Since the first broadcast in 2003, "On the Waves of Liberty" has brought important subjects such as property rights, woman's rights, corruption, and governance into the spotlight of Afghan discussion, and helped educate citizens about peaceful ways to influence their government's domestic policies.

Radio remains the most important ways for Afghans to receive information in their war-torn country, as roughly 70% of Afghanistan's population is illiterate and close to 90% have no constant source of electricity - much less a television or a computer.

Often listeners will call the show and tell the hosts of an emergency, such as an avalanche or a domestic dispute and the show, being the first to hear of the information, will relay the information to the government.

Jan Alekozai and Zarif Nazar hope to someday see the show evolve, adding an interactive television show to reach an even broader audience.

"On The Waves of Liberty" has been such a successful means of communication that according to his official spokesman, Afghan President Hamid Karzai regularly listens in and receives the written transcript of the show, closely monitoring the suggestions and opinions of its audience. Similar praise has been been echoed by many senior Afghan government officials and ministers.

Alekozai and Nazar say that the show has "gained the trust of the people" by ensuring that the audience knows that its hosts are not biased by any political agenda or affiliation.

"On The Waves of Liberty" is meant to be a listening post, giving ordinary citizens of Afghanistan the chance to air their opinions and complaints, including many people who are anti-government or even Taliban sympathizers.

As long as the listeners who call in have something constructive to add to the conversation and are not attempting to use the station as a pulpit for a personal agenda or incitement to violence, the show's hosts do not restrict who can participate the discussion.

The show has regularly hosted high-ranking government officials such as Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Minster of Foreign Affairs and General Atiqullah Baryalai, Deputy minister of Defense as guests. Even U.S. Secretary of States Hillary Clinton once came into the studio to take questions submitted by Azadi listeners.

-- Taylor Smoot and Alex Mayer

'Voices From Afghanistan' Exhibit Opens At The Library Of Congress 

On display now in the Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson building in Washington, D.C. is a multimedia exhibit displaying some of the thousands of hand-painted scrolls and letters received by Afghanistan's most popular radio station, RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. The exhibit - "Voices From Afghanistan" - offers a window into the daily lives of ordinary Afghans from various ethnic communities across all parts of the country.

[Click here to go to the exhibit home page; click on the image below  to see an interactive preview of the exhibit]                                               

                         

And check out this amazing video of two Afghan boys who sent a 130-foot long letter to Radio Azadi from their small village outside of Kabul:

"Voices from Afghanistan" is free and open to the public Monday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

RFE/RL Hosts Ludmila Alekseeva to Discuss Russia's Extremism Law 

On February 4, RFE/RL welcomed long-time Russian human rights advocate Ludmila Alekseeva to its Washington, D.C. office to discuss Russia's "extremism law" and how it is being used by authorities to harass NGOs, journalists, and human rights groups.

Alekseeva was joined by a panel of experts in Washington along with Irina Langunina, a senior Russian RFE/RL journalist, via videoconference from Prague.

[A transcript of the briefing is available here.]

Alekseeva, who is chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, noted that much of the criticism surrounding Russia's 2002 law to combat extremism stemmed from the legislation's vague wording. According to Alekseeva, key terms like "extremism," "terrorism," and "social groups" were never specifically defined in the law, giving Russian enforcement authorities broad latitude in determining which organizations, individuals, and activities were covered under the law.

In practice, Alekseeva said, the law has frequently been interpreted to include any criticism of government officials -- including content published on personal blogs and on the Internet, leading to prosecutions over what she called rather "ridiculous" incidents.

In Fall 2008, the Russian authorities created a special department (known as "Center Eh") specifically for the enforcement of the extremism law. Alekseeva explained that this department has interpreted the law's definition of "extremism" very broadly, and has monitored public organizations, human and civil rights groups, and religious minorities.

A frequent target of such activities are minority religious groups. For example, Alekseeva said that any Muslim who frequents a mosque that is not on the "white list" (list of state-approved mosques) is likely to be accused of extremist activities -- some have received 8 to 15-year prison sentences.

Alekseeva said that this persecution was due "not only to sheer incompetence" -- both by lawmakers and those who enforce the laws -- but also "a habit of Russian bureaucracy" which seeks to resolve any issue "not through analysis, persuasion, or consensus, but rather through coercion, intimidation, and repression."

RFE/RL's Irina Lagunina attempted to put the extremism law into the context of the Russian legal system. In addition to two other laws restricting political parties and NGOs, Lagunina said that the extremism law was part of a triumvurate of laws that worked to restrict freedom of speech and civic participation in Russia. Lagunina noted several notable examples of ways in which the law had been abused -- in one case, a blogger was prosecuted for a comment he had posted on his LiveJournal page which was harshly critical of Russian police; the authorities claimed that policemen were a "social group" protected under the law's prohibition on "incitement of hatred against any social group."



In another case, Lagunina explained how a newspaper had been sued after an anonymous reader had posted an incendiary comment about Muslims on one of their online articles. Even though the offensive comment was removed by the newspaper within two hours of its posting, the newspaper was still prosecuted for being a conduit of "incitement of hatred" against Muslims.

According to Langunina, RFE/RL's Radio Svoboda also felt the effects of this law after they ran an interview with Dokka Umarov, now the leader of the Chechen resistance. Russian authorities warned Radio Svoboda that if they ever broadcast Umarov's statements again they would be prosecuted -- under the extremism law, it is illegal to broadcast the messages or statements of any "terrorist groups." Authorities also demanded that Radio Svoboda hand over all tapes, notes, and data on the interview (they refused).

Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, reminded the audience that the law was "not all bad," and had been applied against legitimate targets as well. [Click here for SOVA's statistics of attacks by racist and neo-Nazi groups in Russia] The problem, Verkhovsky explained, was that the authorities used the same legal norms against both real extremist groups and human rights advocates.

Verkhovsky reiterated the problem of vague definitions in the law; protected "social groups" are very vaguely defined, meaning that Russian authorities can arbirtrarily decide who can be defined as "social group."



Ivan Pavlov, chairman of the Institute for Freedom and Development, spoke about one case in particular -- a raid on the offices of Memorial, a Russian human rights advocacy group. Pavlov explained how police had executed search warrant on the group's headquarters -- even though it turned out that the target of their criminal investigation was not Memorial or its members, but rather the editor of an extremist newspaper in St. Petersburg.

Asked to justify their search warrant, police alleged that the editor of the extremist newspaper had handed over the finished copy of an incendiary article to someone at Memorial. Curiously, however, no search warrant was issued for the offices of extremist newspaper itself, nor the editor's own home.

The police's evidence, it was revealed, was based on the report of a surveillance team, who claimed that someone matching the editor's description had been seen entering and leaving the Memorial offices -- despite the fact that there has never been any evidence of cooperation or coordination between Memorial and the extremist newspaper. However, it soon became clear that the target of the surveillance had not been the newspaper editor at all, but rather Memorial's headquarters, which had in fact been under surveillance for nearly a year.

Pavlov explained that this was indicative of the environment in which rights advocates found themselves in Russia today.

During the question and answer session, Lagunina also added that although few journalists had actually been imprisoned under the law, they were nevertheless victims of the repressive atmosphere it created. As a journalist in Russia, Lagunina said, "You are constantly intimidated and harrassed, and reminded that you are being watched. You have to be careful."

--Alex Mayer

Video Links:
Presentations (part 1)
Presentations (part 2)
Presentations (part 3)
Q and A (part 1)
Q and A (part 2)

Radio Free Iraq Helps Iraqi Prisoners In Saudi Arabia 

RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI) has helped to repatriate dozens of Iraqi prisoners who had been held in Saudi prisons without access to legal or diplomatic counsel.

Iraqi prisoner Ahmad Huseini and three dozen fellow inmates in Saudi Arabia returned home last week after Radio Free Iraq investigated a series of phone calls coming from a Saudi jail and spread the word to families back home.

The Iraqi prisoners, who were detained in the desert somewhere near the unmarked border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, smuggled in a cell phone and radio to listen to Radio Free Iraq. Huseini was among the men who placed the first phone calls, but RFI received calls from multiple phone numbers and prisons. Although concrete numbers cannot be determined, they told the radio station that up to 60 or 70 Iraqis were in Saudi prisons and had not received fair trial -- some were even sitting on death row with no access to the outside world.

Radio Free Iraq director Sergei Danilochkin explained how the story unfolded over the course of nearly a year after the station received a series of calls from a mobile phone from men saying they were inmates in a Saudi jail. The calls discussed details of the prisoners' sentencing and their conditions. Radio Free Iraq returned the call.

"They reported several dozen people kept in various Saudi prisons," Danilochkin said. "Most of them were illegally detained for crossing the border, even though they weren't aware they had crossed the border."

Danilochkin also said that according to the callers, many of the Iraqi prisoners on death row were accused of serious crimes like murder and rape without any evidence. Instead, Saudi police simply blamed Iraqi prisoners for unsolved crimes committed by perpetrators the local police had failed to apprehend.

Many prisoners have faced trial -- though without being allowed any contact with Iraqi authorities, including the Iraqi consul in Saudi Arabia.

"They were put on trial with insufficient legal advice which means that some of them didn't have proper defense lawyers at the trial," Danilochkin explained. "Some of the cases were absolutely fabricated."

The imprisoned Iraqis told Radio Free Iraq that some Iraqis may have in fact broken Saudi laws. But the problem, Danilochkin said, was that they didn't have the chance to defend themselves, nor talk to Iraqi authorities for help.

When Radio Free Iraq got the story, they informed the Iraqi authorities. The Iraqi authorities told Radio Free Iraq that they were aware of the possibility of such cases, but had never heard any specific details about any arrests. It was then that the story broke and authorities stepped in.

"After we broadcast the phone calls, the relatives of men suspected to be in prisons rallied," Danilochkin said.

After a few months of back and forth conversations with the Iraqi Embassy in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Embassy in Iraq, the two governments started negotiating.

"We were not dealing with the issue of how Saudis were abusing human rights. We were simply asking whether Iraqis have a right to talk to their national country's authorities when caught by Saudis," he said.

Since the negotiations have started, the Saudis have agreed to release some of the prisoners on the condition that they serve their remaining time in Iraqi prisons.

Radio Free Iraq got a call on January 6 from the recently released prisoner's father, Karim Huseini, saying his son would come home the next day. Huseini said it was because Radio Free Iraq raised awareness of the issue.

Both governments are still negotiating the return of prisoners who have just started their terms, and men continue to wait on death row.

-- Ladan Nekoomaram

My Friend, Roman 

The following is a tribute to the late Roman Kupchinsky, former director of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

It was early fall, 1993, and I had just arrived in Munich, Germany, to start at my new position as acting director of the Armenian Service of Radio Liberty.

I had worked for the company for six years as an ordinary broadcaster in the New York bureau. Munich was something else. There were rumors and legends about how hard it would be to get things done as a supervisor and middle manager in need of higher-management support. Some colleagues advised me to meet with a few other service directors to solicit advice and guidance.

It was a nice sunny morning when I walked into a large office where I was to meet with the director of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. I found Roman Kupchinsky, a large and healthy-looking man in his late 40s, behind the desk talking to someone on the phone. I waited and looked around, as one usually does in such a situation. I noticed it was not a neat office. Papers, recording tapes, and pictures were everywhere. But that’s how the office of a chief editor should look like, I thought.

I introduced myself. He looked at me with a naughty smile and said, "Armenia? Is that a real country?" But there was no malice in the way he uttered these words. I felt it was pure humor and I replied, "Well, it is a smaller version of the Ukraine." He started laughing wholeheartedly and we both realized we would be friends for a long time.

Roman can best be described in terms of three of his greatest attributes: Humor, hard work, and humanism.

His sense of humor was legendary among friends and colleagues. But he was not your typical joke teller, who recycles what he hears. He had his own unique talent of instantaneous witty remarks and observations that sometimes one remembers for years.

I recall one particular editorial meeting in the late 1990s, when the director of a broadcast department went on and on about how messy things were in his country. Roman was smiling under his bushy mustache. Then, he opened the microphone and with a measured and serious voice said, "This is not a country, it is a goat farm." On another occasion, a high-ranking Ukrainian official had been found dead with multiple stab wounds. Roman described the case to his colleagues as follows: "Yes, the official version is that he committed suicide by stabbing himself eight times in the back."

Roman and I traveled to Beirut in September 2004 so he could research a thriller he was writing about a young terrorist from Lebanon (never completed). In his adventurous nature, he bugged me constantly to take him to the Hizballah neighborhoods. While we were driving in the southern suburbs of Beirut, his phone rang. A State Department official wanted to ask him questions about an article he had just published about corruption in the energy business. The official was shocked to hear that Roman was in Beirut. "Is it safe there?" he kept asking. Roman laughed and said, "Right now I am in Hizballah territory, riding on a white horse, fully armored in my crusader outfit. I am carrying a huge cross and urging the people to convert before it is too late."

Now that he has departed, I can reveal a little secret. Roman had his own occasional funny Samizdat publications at RFE/RL, which he sent out to less than 10 people perhaps. He used his sharp sense of humor to describe bureaucratic or silly trends and phenomena in the company, which sometimes became a little unbearable.

Here is a snippet of one of Roman's leaflets from 2006:

As Roman charmed his colleagues and friends with his sense of humor, his diligent work ethic (buttressed by his impressive intellect) was also an integral part of his personality.

Through his untiring efforts, he was able to make the Ukrainian Service an important part of the country's post-Soviet media scene. He achieved this by putting together a cohesive team and by developing contacts in Ukraine, which gave him a solid network of sources and affiliate stations. At the same time, he did not shy away from investigative reporting, which often revealed the dark side of the country’s politics.

Certainly, Roman's long years of experience as an activist and investigator of human rights abuses helped him tremendously in his position as director of the service. But more than that, it was his dedication to the cause of building a better Ukraine.

His hardworking nature became even more evident after he left the Ukrainian Service at the age of 58. Usually at that age, an individual hangs on to a temporary position in the organization until he retires. But Roman did not take his analyst job as an entitlement. He reincarnated himself as a top expert in energy and corruption issues in former Soviet countries and went on to publish original investigative reports, one after another, bringing prestige to the organization he loved so much.

However, what was less evident perhaps to many people was Roman's humanism. Although his humor was not always politically correct, just below that surface he had a very soft heart that always beat for the weak, the underprivileged, and the underdog. For a man who for all of his adult life could be considered a foreign-policy hawk, Roman was more to the political left on social issues. He had a sharp instinct to see the weaknesses or errors of Western democracies, as much as he was dedicated to expose the corruption eating away at the fabric of newly independent countries. He was instinctively suspicious of all-powerful elites and big business. The recent economic crisis only strengthened his skepticism.

Everyone knew about Roman's heroic military record in Vietnam, but he rarely talked about it. Many times I had to pry open his mouth for small tidbits about his experiences. Then I realized why he was reluctant to talk about Vietnam -- he disliked wars having seen firsthand the suffering of soldiers and civilians in war zones.

I bid farewell to a brave soldier who started his adult life in Vietnam, but went on to fight for the freedom of his ancestral land and for the freedom of countless others suffering under the Soviet regime. Farewell, to a dedicated father, friend and colleague who belonged to the phalanx of a few who had a dream.

-- Mardiros Soghom

Roman Kupchinsky: Ukrainian Patriot, A Man Larger Than Life 

Roman Kupchinsky was not someone easily overlooked. A great shaggy bear of a man, habitually disheveled in appearance, he attracted notice for his air of casual relaxation under all circumstances.

His gruff, joke-laced approach was the same toward everybody, whether they were government ministers or young members of his own staff.

But his Falstaffian exterior hid a sharp mind that was acute at analyzing the broader implications of seemingly unrelated events in Ukraine, Russia, and across the East-West divide. Always close in spirit to his homeland, he made through his work a lasting contribution to Ukrainian independence.

He wrote with particular authority on endemic corruption in Ukraine and in the former Soviet Union, and on Russian and East European energy issues.

Kupchinsky died on January 19 in Washington, D.C., at the age of 65 after a battle with cancer.

In a letter of condolence, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said he was "deeply saddened" to hear the news of Kupchinsky's passing.

"A wonderful person has left us, a prominent journalist, a true Ukrainian patriot, who devoted his life to the service of his native land," Yushchenko said. "He did an awful lot for the development of independent Ukrainian journalism, tirelessly worked for the rebirth of Ukrainian statehood, the consolidation of democracy, and freedom of speech."

Mardo Soghom, now the deputy director of broadcast operations at RFE/RL, was a close associate of Kupchinsky.

"He made one of the biggest  impacts on his own country, in terms of exposing corruption, in terms of exposing political greed, in exposing all kinds of willful governance," Soghom said. "And he was very happy that he could do that, that he could do investigative reporting, and that he could tell the people what was really going on behind the scenes, within the political-economic corrupt elite."

The current director of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Irena Chalupa, confirms Kupchinsky's impact on Ukraine. She recalls an investigation he carried out linking the head of the state gas trading company to a complicated web of corruption.

"Two weeks after these stories came out, the head of the gas agency resigned," Chalupa said. "And he even made reference to the 'winds of liberty' catching up with him."

The president of RFE/RL, Jeffrey Gedmin, paid tribute to Kupchinsky, saying he had faced his final battle with cancer with characteristic bravery, charm, and humor.

Indeed, Kupchinsky's sense of humor was legendary. Here he is at his last appearance in RFE/RL's Washington Bureau, only two months before his death, when he was able to obliquely joke about it:


Former Radio Liberty Director S. Enders Wimbush recalls that when Kupchinsky applied for the job of director of the Ukrainian Service in 1989, he listed his special qualifications as, first, a "graduate of the Army Special Forces School" and, secondly, "wife is a child psychologist."

"We considered that the perfect resume," quipped Wimbush, and Kupchinsky was hired.

Kupchinsky was born in Vienna on November 1, 1944, and migrated to the United States with his refugee parents in 1949. After obtaining a degree in political science at Long Island University near New York, he saw U.S. Army service in the Vietnam War as a rifle platoon leader. He received a Purple Heart, the decoration for those wounded in battle.

He later spent a decade at the helm of a U.S.-based Ukrainian-language research institute, Prolog. In the 1970s, Kupchinsky became a leader of the Committee in Defense of Soviet Political Prisoners, garnering worldwide support for human rights activists held in labor camps.

From 1990 to 2002, he headed Radio Liberty's Ukrainian Service. He then became a senior analyst at RFE/RL, stepping down in 2008.

Kupchinsky is survived by his son Markian.

He lived in Arlington, Virginia, and will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with military honors.