The war on terrorism will not be used as an excuse to clamp down on the media in Russia, President Vladimir Putin told a congress of the world's news agencies in Moscow Friday. "The fight against terrorism is no grounds for restricting freedom and independence of the press. We shall not allow this in Russia," Putin said while commenting on the Beslan hostage tragedy, during which numerous cases of obstruction and coercion of journalists by the authorities were reported. The Russian leader reproached some foreign media for their coverage of Beslan and events in Russia overall. Some journalists still made no distinction between the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union and modern Russia, he noted: "The world has changed and many people have not yet understood." Following official protests from Moscow against "double standards" of foreign governments in their perception of terrorism, Putin criticized foreign media for describing Chechen-led perpetrators of the Beslan attack as "rebels" rather than terrorists.
