25 October 2011, 20:00
The fee of the dancers of MDR TV channel who danced before Kadyrov will be granted to "Reporters Without Borders"
The German TV channel MDR will transfer the fee of the dance company received for their performance in Grozny to the organization "Reporters Without Borders". The management of the channel fears that the concert will injure the reputation of MDR.
Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" reported that "Human Rights Watch" called for the Hollywood stars and other celebrities who took part in the performance devoted to celebration of the "Day of the Town" in Grozny on October, 5, to reject their fee for this action "degraded the sufferings of innumerable victims of violation of human rights".
On October, 17, MDR channel issued a statement with regret about the fact of the German dancers' participation in the performance in Grozny. The statement ran that four women and two men dancers were hired by some "outer agency" paying them a "conventional market" fee to a "four-digit number sum" for participation in celebrations of the Day of Grozny whose date coincided with the birthday of Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov.
On October, 24, a decision was taken to transfer the fee they received to a human rights center. The respective suggestion was made by Udo Reiter, MDR Director General who was leaving his office, and supported by all the members of Supervisory Board of the TV channel unanimously. In accordance with this decision, the German dancers' fee for the performance in Grozny will be transferred to the fund of international organization "Reporters Without Borders", Russian-language media "dw-world.de" referring to "EPD" agency reports.
Udo Reiter declared that there were no excuses for the German dancers' performance in Grozny for it injured both the reputation of the dancing company itself and the whole TV channel, newspaper "Berliner Morgenpost" wrote.