Biased broadcast? Moscow accuses U.S. TV of gagging victims’ stories

Moscow has accused an American TV network of bias after a channel broke off from a live interview with victims of Georgian violence in South Ossetia. A 12 year old girl and her aunt were describing how Russian soldiers saved them from the Georgian attack – but were bizarrely cut off after just two minutes.

The incident has sparked huge controversy over the issue of media impartiality, with Russian government officials calling it a violation of journalistic ethics.

Amanda Kokoeva, who comes from the San Francisco area, was visiting her relatives in South Ossetia for the summer.

On the night of August 7, she watched in horror as the war broke out. Amanda spent the night in her uncle's basement. The following morning, they fled to North Ossetia and eventually Moscow.

But they would have never made it to safety if it wasn't for the help of Russian troops, Amanda says. And she says that’s a part of her story that the American media has repeatedly left out.

Upon her return to the United States, she and her aunt Laura Tedeeva gave several interviews, including a live appearance on Fox News.

Laura told viewers: “I want you to know who is to blame for this conflict and that’s Mr Saakashvili who started this war and who is an aggressor. 2000 people were killed in one day...”

After a number of tentative attempts to stop her talking, at this moment the presenter more forcefully interrupted her, saying it was time for a commercial break.

“Yeah, I know you don’t want to hear that,” Laura responded.

Laura says she is not pro-Russia. Her mother is Georgian and her father is South Ossetian, but she simply wanted to tell the truth about what her family went through.

She told RT: “I wanted the Americans to know that Russia didn’t start that war.”

Laura says she prays for her family and hopes there will be no more bombing.

Amanda's father is currently in South Ossetia to make sure his relatives are out of harm's way. The family says everyone is fine and they will only leave their homeland if the fighting resumes.

Amanda hopes to see her father again soon. And despite her ordeal in South Ossetia, the 12-year-old girl would like to go back there one day.

Source: Russiatoday.com

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Russia points to media bias in coverage of S.Ossetia conflict

A top Russian diplomat accused foreign media on Sunday of pro-Georgian bias in their coverage of the ongoing conflict between Georgia and Russia over breakaway South Ossetia.

Russia says Georgian forces have killed around 2,000 South Ossetian civilians, mainly Russian nationals, in attacks that began on Friday, and that 34,000 locals have been forced to flee to Russia. In response to the Georgian offensive, Russia sent tanks and troops into the province, and carried out a series of air strikes on Georgian military targets.

"We want television screens in the West to be showing not only Russian tanks, and texts saying Russia is at war in South Ossetia and with Georgia, but also to be showing the suffering of the Ossetian people, the murdered elderly people and children, the destroyed towns of South Ossetia, and [regional capital] Tskhinvali. This would be an objective way of presenting the material," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told a RIA Novosti news conference.

Current Western media coverage of the events in the separatist republic is "a politically motivated version, to put it mildly," he said.

The United States, Georgia's key ally, has called Russia's strikes on Georgian territory "dangerous and disproportionate," and warned that they could harm relations with Washington in the long-term. Georgia said on Friday that 300 of its citizens had been killed, mainly civilians, by Russian forces.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier called Russia's actions "absolutely justified and legitimate from the legal standpoint," and accused Georgia of "full-scale genocide."

At the premier's meeting with South Ossetian refugees at a makeshift hospital camp in Russia's North Ossetia on Saturday, eyewitnesses described atrocities committed by Georgian troops, including an incident where a group of local young women were rounded up and burned alive, and killings of old people and children.

Karasin said on Saturday that the country may ask the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights to investigate war crimes committed by Georgia.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said on Sunday that Georgian forces had fully withdrawn from the separatist province.

However, a spokesman for the peacekeeping command told RIA Novosti: "This statement is a lie, just like [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili's statement on the impossibility of using military force in conflict zones."

Russia has also denied bombing Georgian towns.

"The Georgian side has named some nearby populated areas and towns, saying they are being bombed by the Russian Air Force. I take full responsibility in saying that the Russian side did not bomb any populated area," Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, told a news briefing on Sunday.

Source: en.rian.ru