Putin approves sweeping security plans

Putin: Has criticized media over reporting of Kursk tragedy

MOSCOW (Reuters) -- President Vladimir Putin has approved a sweeping document setting out guidelines on information security, according to Russia's Security Council.

One official said the plans could herald changes to the country's media laws.

The Kremlin's advisory but increasingly influential Security Council drafted the document in June, and it said Putin had now signed it into force. The council brings together key ministers, top parliamentarians and other officials.

The new guidelines were adopted amid a heated debate on freedom of speech and media ownership, in which the Kremlin has accused media barons of bias and many journalists have expressed concern that the authorities were trying to control media.

The argument, nine years after the fall of communism, grabbed headlines again last weekend when an influential prime-time analytical programme on the nationwide ORT channel was withdrawn hours before it was due to go on the air.

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Anchorman Sergei Dorenko said the broadcast was highly critical of the Kremlin and Putin had ordered its cancellation.

Putin, rattled by negative press coverage of his hands-off approach to last month's Kursk submarine disaster, has lashed out at media owners, saying they undermined the state.

Anatoly Streltsov, a council official and one of the authors of the four-part document, said the state would not allow media magnates to impose their views on their audiences.

"I do not think it is brilliant when freedom of speech is limited by the fact that some influential figures have the right to speak and others only have the right to listen," Streltsov said, presenting the document to Russian reporters.

Streltsov, shown on RTR state television, did not say how authorities would curb the powers of media figures. Russian news agencies quoted him as saying changes might be required to the law on the mass media and other legislation.

The law on the mass media was adopted in 1990, at the end of the Soviet era, and entrenched broad liberal values initially championed by former President Boris Yeltsin.

Streltsov was quoted as saying wire-tapping by security services was common in other countries and could only be conducted within the confines of the law. It was not immediately clear whether any mention of wire-tapping or control of the Internet was made in the document.

RTR said the document identified "dissemination of disinformation" about Russia's policies and state institutions as one of the main threats to the country's security.

The television said the document also provided for protection of Russian media and sought to limit the influence of foreign companies on Russian public opinion.

Interfax news agency said Putin signed the document last Saturday. The Security Council said the 46-page document would be published in full later.

The document said citizens had a constitutional right to secure and use information. The government was obliged to explain the basis for its policies on "socially important events in Russia and abroad while ensuring the access of citizens to open state information resources."

It also provided for upholding Russia's "spiritual renewal" and "moral values, traditions of patriotism and humanism" as well as the country's "scientific and cultural potential."

The state undertook to develop information technology and Russian mass media, computer techniques and telecommunications and to protect information sources from illegal access.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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