18 June 2010, 20:00
Doku Itslaev, employee of HRC "Memorial" in Chechnya, accuses Italian newspaper of distorting his words
Mr Itslaev accuses the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, which published an article about the situation in the Chechen Republic, of distorting his words.
"A week ago the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera published an article about the situation in the Chechen Republic. Then, it was translated into Russian and appeared the website 'inoSMI.Ru' (June 14, 2010, Andrea Nikastro 'Chechnya: Dictatorship Polished to Shine'). The article gives citations from some alleged conversation with me," Doku Itslaev, an employee of the HRC "Memorial", writes in his letter addressed the "Caucasian Knot".
"I really met an Italian journalist and I really spoke critically about the situation with human rights in Chechnya. However, I have to regretfully state that some of my words were distorted, and some of the words I didn't say at all," Mr Itslaev notes, without specifying particular points of the article.
"I want to hope that it was not the result of some evil intention, but just a technical mistake of the correspondent, who confused his sources and topics. If he had sent the interview to me for verification, as he promised in our conversation, I would have corrected these annoying mistakes prior to publication," he said in his letter.
