Russian TV channel sacks anchor

Parfyonov's weekly news review programme was popular

One of Russia's most popular TV journalists has been sacked and his weekly news review programme axed.

Leonid Parfyonov was fired by the NTV channel after his programme aired an interview with the widow of a murdered Chechen rebel leader.

He was a well-respected journalist and often criticised the government.

His sacking is the latest in a series of moves in recent years that have led some observers to conclude that censorship is creeping back in.

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says Mr Parfyonov was one of the few journalists allowed to be critical of the authorities.

NTV - Russia's first independent television station - was taken over by state-run gas monopoly Gazprom in 2001.

Critical

Mr Parfyonov's weekly current affairs show, Namedni (The Other Day), had enjoyed consistently high ratings.

Everyone should be responsible for their own decisions and I will be responsible for mine Leonid Parfyonov

But a controversial interview aired in the last edition of the programme with the widow of Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev, a Chechen rebel leader killed by a car bomb in Qatar in February, proved the last straw.

Two Russian intelligence officers are currently on trial in Qatar for his murder.

The report had gone out in the Russian Far East but before it was due to air in the European part of the country a senior NTV official ordered it to be dropped.

The NTV statement said Mr Parfyonov had violated the labour agreement obliging him to support the policies of the network's management.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Parfyonov said he had been forced out because he had been trying to work as a journalist and not as an agent of the Kremlin or the secret services.

"I couldn't take on myself the shame of pretending that I had taken this interview off the air myself," he said.

"I said this because everyone should be responsible for their own decisions and I will be responsible for mine."

Media squeeze

Correspondents say NTV once prided itself on being a thorn in the side of the Russian authorities from the time it was created following the collapse of the USSR.

It strongly criticised the first war in Chechnya, launched by the then president Boris Yeltsin in December 1994.

But current President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he would not tolerate political interference from oligarchs like NTV owner Vladimir Gusinsky, who had risen to prominence in the Yeltsin era.

Critics have accused Mr Putin of clamping down on independent media in the run-up to recent parliamentary and presidential elections.

Three years ago, allegedly for financial irregularities, NTV was taken over by a shareholder, the state-owned gas giant Gazprom.

The NTV staff split, with some journalists moving to other TV stations which were later closed down themselves.

Others like Mr Parfyonov stayed, giving credence to the government's argument that the channel remained independent.

But Namedni has continued to come under fire, and was taken off the air for three months last year because of a conflict between Mr Parfyonov and the management.