"The Story of Andrey Babitsky" by Oleg Panfilov presented in Moscow

The book by Oleg Panfilov "The Story of Andrey Babitsky" was presented at the Central House of Journalists on April 19. The Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations timed a press conference to the presentation. Its participants were Andrey Babitsky, the journalist for Radio Liberty; Genri Reznik, the known lawyer who represented Babitsky's interests in court; Savik Shuster, the host of the Svoboda Slova (Freedom of Speech) program and former director of Radio Liberty's Moscow bureau; Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations; and Pavel Gutionov, secretary of the Union of Russian Writers.

Andrey Babitsky was a special correspondent for Radio Liberty in the region of military operations during the first Chechen war. He continued his work in Chechnya during the second Chechen campaign. Babitsky was the only journalist who stayed in besieged Grozny when the storm of the city began. In middle January 2000, he was detained by Russian special services. The book by Oleg Panfilov is a detailed description of the story of Babitsky from his arrest to the trial. It holds both home and foreign media materials: extracts from articles in the press, transcripts of television reports, and numerous interviews with all those who bore relation to "Babitsky's case".

According to Oleg Panfilov, the idea of creating the book occurred as early as 2000, when Babitsky was detained. Then the surge of protest actions went through Europe, and Russian journalists closed the ranks to defend his colleague, which to great extent allowed to achieve his release. Now the situation has changed: the journalist community is cleft. It was mentioned many times during the press conference that journalists should keep together in such moments. And Oleg Panfilov's book reminds of it one more time.

The edition of "The Story of Andrey Babitsky" has 1,000 copies. The book is distributed free of charge.