The Russian print media continues to show some impressive independence, as a bill that threatens to halt the adoption of Russian children by Americans winds its way through Russia’s legislature. According to reporter Mikhail Zubov of Russia’s Moskovskij Komsomolets, Russian journalists were deceived into leaving the room before Federation Council [Senate] talks on the proposed bill on Monday, after which the bill was unanimously adopted. Zubov grills one sheepish senator, and writes that the law, ‘promises to be one of the most shameful in recent memory.’
For Russia’s Moskovskij Komsomolets, reporter Mikhail Zubov writes in part:
To recall, on Monday, journalists were kicked out of the hall in which the Federation Committee for Foreign Affairs was discussing the bill. The Moskovskij Komsomolets’ correspondent, who lingered in the room a few minutes longer and quoted Committee Chairman Senator Mikhail Merglov criticizing the document, was threatened with having his upper chamber press accreditation revoked. However, Federation Council staff promised that later deliberation of the bill would be open to the press.
The children’s question [the issue of whether Americans would be permitted to adopt Russian orphans] was item number 24 on the agenda. For an hour-and-a-half, we listened to the amendments to the different sections monotonously mechanically announced, but when agenda item number 20 was reached, we were again asked to leave the room: “This point is about the procedure for filing criminal cases against senators, about which we are in disagreement with the Duma [the lower house of parliament]. We believe that the right to petition and file a case against a senator is within the rights of the attorney general alone. Right now, the Investigative Committee claims that right. This question is to be discussed in a closed session.”
Imagine our surprise when, after waiting another hour-and-a-half in the hallway, the meeting … ended! The press had been duped, and the discussion of the children’s issue had been conducted without us. Senators scurried out of the room like cockroaches, averting their eyes.
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