Media Protest in Moscow

AFP has a report on today's protest in Moscow by about 1,000 people against the Putin government's clampdown on independent media:

Viktor Chenderovitch, a writer and former NTV presenter, said "Russia has changed a lot" since the oil giant Gazprom, in which the Russian government is the main shareholder, bought NTV in 2001.

"I hope that the Russian flag will once again symbolise a democratic country and not a KGB colonel," he said, referring to President Vladimir Putin's former role in the secret service.

He said the state's stranglehold on television was preventing the emergence of a strong opposition and an independent justice system.