Moscow police will provide journalists with "safe passage" cards to ensure they can be identified among groups of protesters while covering rallies and riots, a police spokesman said on Friday.
A memorandum on the cards was signed on Friday between the president of the Union of Journalists in Moscow, Pavel Gusev, and Moscow Police Department Chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev.
The "safe passage" cards will be given by police to journalists upon demand from the mass media they represent. Each card will have a number and will be registered in a journal either digitally or printed.
The memorandum states that the lack of a "safe passage" card does not deprive a journalist of the right to cover an event. However, all journalists must have an identity card and foreign journalists must also have accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Mass media should provide their journalists with all necessary information about an event and also phone contacts of personnel from police units deployed, the document says.
Interaction between police and journalists at mass public events is a controversial issue for mass media. While journalists accuse police of hampering their job, police claim they cannot identify journalists from protesters.
In December, 2009, RIA Novosti photo correspondent Andrei Stenin was briefly arrested and then fined for taking part in an anti-government rally in front of the presidential administration.
Despite the fact that Stenin showed his identity card and a professional camera, he was taken to court and the judge found him guilty. In February, a Moscow court overturned the earlier court ruling and cleared Stenin of the charges.
MOSCOW, April 16 (RIA Novosti)
