Journalists Kept From Working In Russia, Without Love

(AP Photo/Dmitry Astakhov)

Things Russian President Vladimir Putin dislikes: Vladimir Gusinsky, Chechen separatists, journalists who talk to them.

The latest evidence of that last one is the case of Thomas de Waal, a well-known British journalist who covers Chechnya. He was refused a visa for reasons of "state security." Here's Reuters with some background:

Russian officials have been very sensitive about Western criticism of the war in Chechnya, where they have struggled to crush separatism for more than a decade, and local journalists have been prosecuted for sympathising with the rebels.

President Vladimir Putin in 2002 said a foreign journalist critical of Russia's policy in the region become a Muslim and be circumcised "in such a way that nothing grows back."

Last month, Beth Knobel wrote a dispatch for us on what it's like to be a foreign correspondent in Russia. Here is one of the questions Putin was asked by a local journalist at a press conference this year:

"Mr President, to be honest, when I came here I also wanted to ask serious and intelligent questions, but now that our discussion is into its third hour, I realize that I'm just going to have to pull myself together and on behalf of all the blond women in this room ask what is perhaps a stupid and silly question: what do you do to always stay looking so good? Do you use anything particular to restore your youth and good looks?"