"Grigory Pasko's release is the first good news about press freedom to have come from Russia in a long time," Reporters Without Borders Secretary-General Robert Ménard said. "The nuclear pollution caused by the Russian military fleet was much too serious an issue for Moscow to let the news media get too interested," Ménard said. "Rather than deal with the ecological threat that is worrying Russia's neighbours, they wanted above all to silence the press. Pasko's imprisonment was a warning for all journalists who dare to criticise the military or government", he added.
Convicted of "espionage" and "high treason" Pasko conducted lengthy investigations and wrote hundreds of articles about the pollution resulting from the virtual abandonment of the Russian military's nuclear submarines with the complicity of the FSB (the former KGB). He also circulated video footage of liquid radioactive waste being dumped in the Sea of Japan by the Russian fleet.
Filmed while he was Boevaya Vakhta's correspondent, this footage was broadcast by the Japanese television network NHK, eliciting heated international reaction. Accused of "espionage" and "high treason" by the FSB, he was convicted by the Vladivostok military court in 2001. The supreme court in Moscow confirmed a four-year prison sentence in June 2002.
Convicted of "espionage" and "high treason" Pasko conducted lengthy investigations and wrote hundreds of articles about the pollution resulting from the virtual abandonment of the Russian military's nuclear submarines with the complicity of the FSB (the former KGB). He also circulated video footage of liquid radioactive waste being dumped in the Sea of Japan by the Russian fleet.
Filmed while he was Boevaya Vakhta's correspondent, this footage was broadcast by the Japanese television network NHK, eliciting heated international reaction. Accused of "espionage" and "high treason" by the FSB, he was convicted by the Vladivostok military court in 2001. The supreme court in Moscow confirmed a four-year prison sentence in June 2002.