TBILISI -- Georgia has nominated Oleg Panfilov, the director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, as a candidate to be OSCE representative on freedom of the media, RFE/RL's Russian and Georgian services report.
Mikhail Fedotov, secretary of the Russian Journalists Union and also a candidate for the post, told RFE/RL that officials from Russia, Georgia, Great Britain, Austria, Bulgaria, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are candidates for the position.
The OSCE representative on freedom of the media was established in 1997 and is currently occupied by Hungarian journalist and writer Miklos Haraszti, whose term expires next spring.
Panfilov was born and raised in Tajikistan and has worked as a journalist since 1974.
Among Panfilov's numerous projects, he founded and anchored a program called "Authorities and Media" for RFE/RL's Russian Service, where he works as a correspondent.