Express-Chronicle Human Rights Report

Express-Chronicle began in August 1987 as a samizdat publication and is today a large-circulation newspaper concentrating on addressing the problems of human rights.Express-Chronicle was the first regularly published uncencored newspaper in the USSR. Before 1991, it was persecuted by the communist regime�its office and staff were attacked, copies were confiscated, distributors were detained and sued.

In 1988, the newspaper set up the Eastern European Information Agency, which included independent press representatives from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and the USSR. Also under the auspices of Express-Chronicle, the Independent Press Club, uniting over 50 underground newspapers and magazines, was formed in May 1988. In 1991, Express-Chronicle was the first newspaper in the USSR to raise the subject of American prisoners of war in Soviet prisons and camps. The newspaper has no subsidies from the government and does not belong to any party or coalition. Its goal is to improve the human rights situation in Russia and the former USSR by informing the largest possible public in Russia, the former USSR and abroad about human rights in the countries of the former USSR, especially when that information is being hidden from society and in those regions where human rights are most frequently violated.

Recent articles have included a discussion of the effects of the US bombing of the Chinese embassy on Russian foreign policy; a report on the trial of Vasily Bozhenov, a conscientious objector; and an evaluation of the Belorussian presidential elections.

Express-Chronicle comes out every Monday and can be viewed online at their Web site.

Last updated:    May 1999

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