“Impudent perversion”: PMC member Melnikov accused journalists of the troubles of prisoners

Two days ago, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation published the lists of members of the PMC of the sixth convocation. In Moscow, out of forty people who passed the selection, there was not a single journalist. Is it good or bad? Are we, representatives of the writing community, needed in a structure whose main goal – at least that’s how it is declared – is to defend the rights of prisoners and publicize violations of their conditions of detention? From the outside, it can look like anything. Much more valuable here is the position of those who are already part of Russian human rights. And we learned this position from the secretary of the PMC of Moscow of the last convocation, Alexei Melnikov.

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Melnikov posted on his telegram channel — I assume that, as the responsible secretary of a human rights organization, he did this very responsibly — a post “About journalists in the PMC.”

The general meaning of the text fits perfectly into the Russian proverb about the woman from the cart and the relief of the mare. But Alexey’s post is worthy of a much more detailed analysis.

The human rights activist for health begins:

“I have a very good attitude towards journalists, I respect the profession.”

No, Alexei, you treat journalists badly. For everything that you write further is nothing but an attempt to discredit any efforts of media workers in the field of human rights.

You might think that we are indignant and find fault with resentment: from Moskovsky Komsomolets alone, two people ran for the PMC – me and my colleague, a human rights activist with extensive experience Ekaterina Sazhneva. It would hardly be appropriate to advertise ourselves and tell how many people and when we helped in different years of our work in journalism. This is stupid, and we do not keep such records.

Our motives, for which we drew attention to the post of representative of the PMC, are in any case secondary. But it is obvious that the human rights activist’s dislike for journalists is so strong that all the cards are thrown on the table not even at the end of the post or in between times, but in the same paragraph:

“However, regarding the PMC, I opposed journalists who go to the Public Supervisory Commission for their own career advancement and salaries, who pay publications for exclusive information.”

You can’t throw words out of a song, you have to figure it out. I would like to ask Mr. Melnikov a direct question: where does he get such a deep, almost insider knowledge of the structure of payroll in the Russian media? Perhaps, a person who is an absolute silversmith has the right to accuse representatives of any profession – not only journalists – of financial ambitions. I hope this is exactly what Mr. Melnikov is.

We go further in the text. The executive secretary of the PMC of Moscow fires at the writing fraternity from large-caliber guns:

“Unfortunately, there were a lot of such members of the PMC, who are journalists and carry out their activities not for the protection of human rights, but for hype, career and money, in the commissions before.”

Now there are no such people in the PMC, – the human rights activist rejoices and then goes on a rampage. According to him, what only human rights journalists did not get up! And neglected the interests of the prisoners. And they published information “that harmed defenseless people.” What is it? Here I have a question not only as a journalist, but also as a lawyer: Mr. Melnikov, do you know the legal ways to influence the media that have published discrediting the honor and dignity of a citizen? As a representative of the human rights sector, did the prisoners themselves or their relatives approach you with a request to explain the mechanisms of such influence? Have you explained to any of those whom journalists, according to you, harmed, the rules for filing a claim for the protection of honor and dignity? Give at least one example, and we will publicly admit our uncleanliness.

However, we can hardly hope for a dialogue. After all, just a couple of lines below, the executive secretary of the PMC of Moscow goes for broke and claims that media representatives who have gained media weight (taftology, but you can’t erase words from a song) “brazenly distorted the activities of normal human rights activists.” What is this, if not segregation based on belonging to the workshop? Some divide Russians into good and bad. Others – human rights activists on normal and abnormal.

However, the results have already been determined, the lists have been compiled. They don’t wave their fists after a fight. But if it comes to that, and on September 27 we were presented with lists of exclusively “normal” human rights activists, we would very much like to know – who are all these people?

The problem is that the lists of the new convocation of the PMC are compiled according to the formula “last name, initials.” But here’s the problem – our country is huge, and it is impossible to identify a person by his full name. With a cursory review of the list of members of the capital’s commission, it was possible to identify the Mr. Executive Secretary himself (by the way, it is not a fact that he will retain this position), the chairman of the Moscow PMC of the last convocation Georgy Volkov and Alexei Lobarev. The latter is a really famous person, the chairman of the trade union of law enforcement agencies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, a veteran of the criminal investigation department. And who are the rest? We are interested for two reasons. Firstly, since we, journalists, have been shown a red card to enter the PMC, we can now learn about the conditions of detention of prisoners in pre-trial detention centers and temporary detention centers only through third parties. And it is important for us to know who to contact for comments and up-to-date information. Just do not transfer us immediately to the chairman or executive secretary. Commenting on the real state of affairs in places of deprivation of liberty should be those who are personally involved in a specific inspection of a particular pre-trial detention center. If you build a system of interaction with the media differently, you can forget about any publicity of violations. The work of a journalist writing about the penitentiary system is in danger of becoming a wretched rewrite of polished, polished press releases. No self-respecting reporter would work this way. This means that the following thesis from Mr. Melnikov’s post that the talk about closing the institution of public control from society itself – “this is a lie and manipulation” is built on very shaky ground.

The main commandment of journalism is to check the facts. Let’s not throw out loud statements that with the approval of the composition of the new convocation of the PMC, human rights protection has died. But for the unpleasant to the Russian ear, but vital for every self-respecting journalist, the word “fact-checking” can be drunk without clinking glasses.

Well, the second reason why we would very much like full disclosure of data on the members of the new convocation. As you know, do not renounce prison and the bag. So it would be nice to know what kind of people will protect the rights of those under investigation for the next three years, which are unlikely to be easy for the country.

Let’s try to be optimistic and for the moment let’s believe Aleksey Melnikov’s assurances that the institution of public monitoring commissions will not be closed from society even without representatives of the media. However, it remains unclear by whom the responsible secretary judges journalists. I would like to believe that it is not on my own.